Why We Should Be Skeptical of "Qur'anic Science"

Blitzkrebs · #1 by **Blitzkrebs** » Jul 24, 2010 5:47 pm

A lot of Muslim apologists, especially Harun Yahya, Yusuf Estes, and Zakir Naik will brag about how Muslims were once holders of the most advanced civilizations in the world. This is fair enough, for philosophy, literature, art and early forms of science did indeed thrive during the early days of Islam before suffocating under the weight of Sunni orthodoxy. Apologists, however, often go even further than what can be reasonably ascertained by history and claim that the Qur’an itself is gut-loaded with secrets about the universe, which scientists have only recently discovered. Their faith, they say, is inseparable from science.

Of course, this demonstrates a deadly ignorance of what science really is. Science does not depend on belief, for starters, nor would any scientist use the kind of vague and metaphorical language the Qur’an does in order to describe natural phenomena. Indeed, even in languages as complex and beautiful as classical Arabic a single word can have more than one meaning. To demonstrate what I mean, let’s look at the word “Maktub”. In Arabic it means “desk” or “office”, but it can also mean “destiny” (literally “it is written”). A more comical example is “rabb”, which is often used to refer to God but can also mean “boss” or “employer”.

Science is different. The vocabulary thereof must be precise in order for researchers to make successful predictions and to communicate difficult ideas with one another. Not surprisingly, one of the many grounds why Intelligent Design is not held to be science by the majority of researchers is because it confuses scientific jargon with everyday speech, a point which Michael Behe conceded to under oath during the Kitzmiller v Dover trial, when he admitted that his use of the word “theory” was so loose that even astrology would qualify as one. (“Theory” to a scientist does not mean an educated guess, but an explanation of data that has been investigated and scrutinized by researchers and found to be thoroughly reliable.)

Claiming that science exists in the Qur’an also betrays a willful double standard on part of Muslim apologists who so readily ridicule advancements made in evolutionary biology and even cosmology, solely because it doesn’t agree with their interpretations of Islam. It should be manifest to any educated observer that these people have not the slightest interest in real science or advancing human knowledge. They are sensationalists looking for whatever information they can twist into supporting their ideology.

Recently I debated two Muslim creationists on an Islamic networking site who tried to resurrect this kitsch, apparently as they realized they weren’t going to have any luck persuading me of their beliefs by criticizing a theory as strongly supported as evolution. I decided to contact an actual scientist, Dr. William Hay from the University of Colorado, about the matter. Dr. Hay, if you don’t know, is one of those infamous non-Muslim researchers from the 1980s, whom Muslim preachers are very fond of quoting whenever they say that there’s “science in the Qur’an.” I didn’t for a second trust the conditions under which the scientists had to work prior to making those claims, especially after reading an article thereabout in the Wall Street Journal. Hay studies marine geology, and while attending the Islamic science conferences in the 1980s was asked to comment on a verse in the Qur’an which described the phenomena of underwater wave movement. He allegedly suggested that it may have been divinely revealed. The verse in question is this:

Or (the unbelievers' state) is like the darkness in a deep sea. It is covered by waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds. Darkness, one above another. If a man stretches out his hand, he cannot see it...[Quran 24:40]

Our correspondence is as follows:

I wrote:Dear Dr. Hay,

I am a young college student aspiring to become either a biologist or a linguist some day. Although I can’t be sure just yet about a career in the sciences, I know I’ll always be at awe of their ability to explain our world. For said reasons it also saddens me to know that there will always be people who are ready dishonestly twist any information we learn for their own ideologies. If I could just have a moment of your time, perhaps we could set a chink in the propaganda machine and get a few people to think critically about their sources of information.

At present I’m dealing with two Muslim creationists who keep insisting there there’s science in the Qur’an and that such has been acknowledged by non-Muslim researchers. Having read much of the Qur’an (I even taught myself some Arabic to get a “Sprachgefühl” of the text), I can definitely vouch for its beauty (although not its inimitability), but I remain suspicious of the circumstances you and other scientists were subjected to when you reached your conclusions regarding its scientific accuracy. This article in the Wall Street Journal has confirmed my feelings somewhat, and I posted it to the network where the debate is currently taking place.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that for present purposes the writer elaborated enough about the pressures you were put under at that time. Do you feel that information about Muhammad’s life was hidden from you when you were pressed to make those statements? The person who was interviewing you said that Muhammad never visited a seaport in his life. Have you been able to confirm that? Was there anything else suspicious going on? What else have other researchers said? Most importantly of all, what would you say now, decades after this happened, to the people who keep passing around your quotes?

Finally, do you mind if I post your response? Undoubtedly some of the readers of my blogs will try to contact you afterwards, and I don’t want to involve you in anything that you aren’t up for. If not, can I at least send one person in particular your response in a private message?

I originally wouldn’t have gotten involved in this debate when I signed up for Muxlim (a Muslim networking site), if it weren’t for the incredible following creationists like Yusuf Estes or Harun Yahya have there. Their supporters post wildly-dishonest and misleading articles and videos almost every day about science, and I feel that other people have a right to accurate information by real scientists and not just some schizophrenic interior designer. I’m also outraged by the dishonesty some of these apologists display, for instance here in this article where Yusuf Estes announces that Darwin was an “amateur” and that there is “no genetic evidence” suggesting a kinship between humans and other apes. You and I both know that those are lies, but my problem is that I’m only an educated layman and don’t have the credibility to knock those claims down.

I’ve no illusions about being able to convince my actual opponents, since some people just don’t have the ability to think critically after being indoctrinated for so long. (I’ve been accused of taking evolution as my “lord and savior,” for example. Repeat that accusation and keep a straight face, if you can.)

Sometimes I struggle just to keep my temper. But I believe making an argument is still worth the effort, if just give other readers a bigger picture of what’s really going on in the world.

Sincerely,

Roy Meredith

Dr. Hay was very helpful and responded the following morning. My long-standing suspicions were confirmed.

Dr. William Hay wrote:Hello Roy,

Thanks for contacting me.

What happened to me was as follows. In 1983 or 1984 two Saudi's approached the Geological Society of America to locate experts on certain aspects of Geology which might relate to the Koran. At that time our understanding was that the Saudis wanted to make it possible for science to flourish in the Arab countries as it once had, but the religious authorities stood in the way. The Saudi Royal Family sponsored a "holy man", Sheik Zindani for this project. Accordingly, I was flown to Jedda, and met with the Sheik for the better part of a week.

For me one of the questions concerned a passage in the Koran that seems to refer to internal waves in the ocean, and the idea was that these had been discovered only recently. I suggested that perhaps Mohammed was highly intelligent, and a good observer, and had been on a sea voyage. In case you are not aware of it proper Islamics believe that Mohammed was uneducated, illiterate, and to attribute a high level of intelligence to him is heresy. Also, the Sheik and his colleagues insisted that Mohammed never saw the sea (in spite of the fact that Mecca and Medina are almost in sight of the Red Sea. I suggested that perhaps Mohammed had friends who were observant sailors again this was considered heresy. So after one long afternoon on a boat in the hot sun, all of the caveats about observations having been rejected you come to divine inspiration! So none of my skepticism was reflected.

On the same trip I gave a geological lecture at the university in Jedda and talking with faculty there I got the impression that the assumption that the goal was to make the pursuit of science safe was essentially correct. However, even today there is a problem about studying geology in Saudi Arabia, since nothing of importance is thought to have happened before the birth of Mohammed. This is why there are no archeological investigations there, and why Aramco still has almost no arab geologists.

When I got back to the US I started to look into how old information about internal waves was, and discovered that the Vikings certainly knew about the effects of the phenomenon, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Greeks/Romans knew about it, and almost certainly the Arabs, who were the best sailors, would have had some experience with this phenomenon. In practical terms where there is a sharp interface within the water, the waves on this interface control the motion of the boat so that it does not correspond to the surface waves or currents.

A couple of years later a conference was organized by Sheik Zindani in Islamabad bringing together most all of the non-Islamic scientists he had conferred with. We were asked to prepare papers to be published in the Conference Proceedings, and mine included what I had been able to learn about possible ancient knowledge of internal waves in the ocean. Needless to say it did not get included in the published proceedings. Since then a much simpler explanation of the "internal waves" occurred to me. When you look down in clear, shallow water on a sunny day, you see the effect of dffraction of light passing through the water on the bottom as narrow bright bands separated by broad dark bands. These often seem to have little if anything to do with the surface waves that actually produce them. Those might be the "internal waves."

I do not read Arabic, and hence had only the translation provided by Sheik Zindani to go on. I know that Islamic scholars believe the words of the Koran have been preserved exactly, but I would question whether the meaning of the words has remained unchanged. The meanings of words drift with time so that for example, the BBC Productions of Shakespeare have modern English subtitles so one can understand the nuances of meaning. In some cases the meaning of words has changed completely. Another example is “The meek shall inherit the Earth”. When the King James translation of the original biblical text was made, the word ‘meek’ had nothing to do with its modern meaning; it meant ‘charitable.’ I suspect that this may have happened with arabic as well. If this is the case, it makes the modern interpretation of obscure passages of the Koran an exercise in futility.

The meeting in Islamabad was an extraordinary experience. I later realized that many of the clerics must have been Taliban. One night at dinner we asked those who were at our table why there were no women present, and were told that it would be inappropriate, since women were like animals, they have no souls. Sheik Zindani, as I understand it, is now in Yemen, and a major supporter of Bin Laden.

Since then some highly edited TV clips of me (and others) have appeared on Arab TV and even on Youtube (although we got those taken down).

Dan Goldin’s insightful article for the Wall Street Journal is about the only piece I know of that gives a good idea of what happened.

Bill Hay

Needless to say, unless apologists are able to demonstrate that their findings are the result of rigorous inquiry and not wishful thinking/manipulation, we shouldn't be afraid the induldge ourselves in a little inductive reasoning and assume that what happened to Hay happened to the other scientists as well.

Blackadder · #2 by **Blackadder** » Jul 24, 2010 5:57 pm

We should be sceptical of Quranic Science because there isn't any. It's a bunch of specious nonsense peddled by those who think that twisting half-coherent 7th century Arabic gibberish into new shapes to somehow fit with scientific advances of the modern age is valid scientific practice. It's not. It's a crock of shit and convinces no-one with a mental age greater than 8.

Oeditor · #3 by **Oeditor** » Jul 24, 2010 9:30 pm

While agreeing that the whole idea of "Islamic" science is as ridiculous as "Christian" science (not to mention "Christian Science", I get a feeling of deja vu. Have you said this before on the RDF forum? Or maybe I've seen Prof. Hay similarly quoted elsewhere?

Oeditor · #4 by **Oeditor** » Jul 24, 2010 10:12 pm

Blackadder wrote:We should be sceptical of Quranic Science because there isn't any. It's a bunch of specious nonsense peddled by those who think that twisting half-coherent 7th century Arabic gibberish into new shapes to somehow fit with scientific advances of the modern age is valid scientific practice. It's not. It's a crock of shit and convinces no-one with a mental age greater than 8.

While the whole idea of science embedded in the Koran is indeed nonsense, we shouldn't confuse it with early pre-koranic science (from Greece and elsewhere) being preserved, used and developed by Arabs while there was a lot of Christian fundamentalism clouding European thought. Who knows whether Christianity or Islam did more to retard or progress science? For now, I'll settle for science developing despite religion while taking advantage of commercial opportunities. Advocates of Christian or Muslim altruism, speak now. (Attempting to use science to support religion being opportunistic, not altruistic, btw.)

Ubjon · #5 by **Ubjon** » Jul 24, 2010 10:32 pm

Even if the Bible or Quran held scientific knowledge its largely useless given that it requires scientists to do all the leg-work because it can be identified. As it is all these claims of hidden knowledge as suspect given that they are based on liberal intepretation of religious writings that can be made to appear as if they give a general description of the science without actually providing any of the justification.

Wasn't there some bollocks on the RDF about how the Quran predicted the Big Bang theory because it says the existance started with dust or something?

Oeditor · #6 by **Oeditor** » Jul 24, 2010 11:09 pm

Ubjon wrote:Wasn't there some bollocks on the RDF about how the Quran predicted the Big Bang theory because it says the existance started with dust or something?

Maybe. There was certainly some very dubious trigonometrical drivel ripped apart. Something to do with the speed of angels, perhaps?

scruffy · #7 by **scruffy** » Jul 25, 2010 12:01 am

If you scroll to the bottom there are numbered links showing you each example of science. It's bull-shit obviously.
http://www.miraclesofthequran.net/index.php

This 'scientific' information is fucking pointless considering it can't be found in the holy book until hard-working, honest scientists uncover the information independently, and exactly.

Hugin · #8 by **Hugin** » Jul 25, 2010 8:29 am

How the "miracles" work: http://www.reocities.com/freethoughtmec ... tation.htm

Weaver · #9 by **Weaver** » Jul 25, 2010 8:48 am

Whenever this topic comes up, I am reminded of my introduction to Islamic Science.

While watching a Space Shuttle launch on TV in Iraq, at an Iraqi Army headquarters, the Arabic chatter picked up when the Shuttle began the roll program. Through our translator, the Iraqi Army officers informed us that they were talking about the Shuttle heading for Jerusalem. When we asked what they were talking about, they were happy to instruct us.

There is a hole into space located over Jerusalem - it's where Mohammed was raised up to Heaven. The Shuttle has to aim for this hole to get to space. If it misses ... well, you see, that's why Columbia and Challanger were destroyed - they missed the hole into space.

All these Iraqis, educated men mind you, nodded wisely as they taught us uneducated Americans of the facts their "science" knew.

Alan B · **#10** by **Alan B** » Jul 25, 2010 9:21 am

All these 'Qur'anic science' claims are the Islamic apologists' attempt to claim that the Arabic 'Golden Age' of science and philosophical thought (mid-8th to the mid-13th century) was due solely to the advent of Islam. At that time Arabic scholars discovered Greek and Indian texts and translated them into Arabic and as always happens in any culture with such discoveries, brilliant minds will build upon this knowledge - the Arabic culture at that time was no exception.
It has to be said though, that with the advent of Islam with its need to conquer and convert all to that religion, Arabic scientific thought (together with the knowledge of Greek and Indian texts) found its way into Europe. The rest, as they say, is history.
But to claim that this 'Holy Book' contains actual science and was the foundation of the 'Golden Age' (as some people allege) is utter nonsense.

And, yes, this subject has been 'done to death' on RDF but it wont hurt to regurgitate it for newer members...

Blitzkrebs · **#11** by **Blitzkrebs** » Jul 25, 2010 2:04 pm

Oeditor wrote:While agreeing that the whole idea of "Islamic" science is as ridiculous as "Christian" science (not to mention "Christian Science", I get a feeling of deja vu. Have you said this before on the RDF forum? Or maybe I've seen Prof. Hay similarly quoted elsewhere?

I posted a link to my exchanges with Dr. Hay last month in another thread. However, I feel that the issue is significant enough to warrant a topic of its own.

Oeditor · **#12** by **Oeditor** » Jul 25, 2010 2:20 pm

Blitzkrebs wrote:I posted a link to my exchanges with Dr. Hay last month in another thread. However, I feel that the issue is significant enough to warrant a topic of its own.

Indeed. It merits a FAQ, even. I'll try to dig out the trigonometrical nonsense and post a link to it.

Oeditor · **#13** by **Oeditor** » Jul 25, 2010 4:26 pm

Right, here's the debunking of the trigonometrical nonsense. It's based on a bit of the Koran which says it takes an unspedified thing a month to get to heaven. Add jiggery-pokery and you get the speed of light. Here Richard Carrier points out
1) The moon's orbit, which features large, is not a constant
2) The verse is pinched from the Bible
3) Distance isn't mentioned, only the time taken, so velocity cannot be calculated
4) A fiddle-factor is introduced
http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=articles&id=168
I might add that it's another of these secret things, waiting to be found by Islamic numerologists - the speed on light isn't mentioned in the Koran.
(Other debunkings are available.)

Tim Danaher · **#14** by **Tim Danaher** » Jul 31, 2010 6:27 pm

This one's always worth a butchers when the subject of 'Islamic Science' is raised. There but for the grace of...er...er...:

Varangian · **#15** by **Varangian** » Jul 31, 2010 7:04 pm

Tim Danaher wrote:This one's always worth a butchers when the subject of 'Islamic Science' is raised. There but for the grace of...er...er...:

That was interesting, and explains why Islam has been a backwater for almost a millenium by now.

Oeditor · **#16** by **Oeditor** » Aug 01, 2010 12:23 am

OMFG! I've heard, vaguely, of that drivel about fire being somehow divinely ordained but never came across anything less advanced than the phlogiston theory at school. That some maniac thought that a god moves peoples hands... well, oh their FG!
Is there any evidence that any modern Muslims (ok, probably an oxymoron) believe that shit, be it fire or fingers?

Alan B · **#17** by **Alan B** » Aug 01, 2010 9:24 am

Tim Danaher wrote:This one's always worth a butchers when the subject of 'Islamic Science' is raised. There but for the grace of...er...er...:

I have heard of this before but not in such detail. So, Arabic science basically stopped with this religious nutter who had no understanding of the prevailing philosophical thought - or perhaps he did, but he had his own agenda. Just like all priests and politicians hungry for power...

Blitzkrebs · **#18** by **Blitzkrebs** » Aug 01, 2010 3:08 pm

In Ghazali's defense he was not stupid, but he had a critical lack of foresight when it came to understanding the importance of unfettered philosophical inquiry to science. He was also a very talented writer, although I've only read his Alchemy of Happiness.

The problem is that his theology was spot on. In Islam conforming to tradition and keeping the faith's purity is of a take-no-hostage importance, as Muhammad himself threatened his followers with Hell if they ever dared to deviate from the majority opinion.

ixolite · **#19** by **ixolite** » Aug 01, 2010 3:19 pm

Ask him why those scientists never converted to Islam. If they thought Islam were true, why wouldn't they convert?

Here is a response from another misquoted scientist:

Professor Alfred Kroner: and that many of the statements made at the time could be proven, but that modern scientific methods are now in a position to prove what Muhammad said 1400 years ago

http://www.thisistruth.org/truth.php?f=OriginOfEarth

Dear *********,
I have answered literally hundreds of e-mails over the years concerning this issue. In 1979 I attended a geological conference in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, and there was a TV-Interview with five western geologists, organized by the then Minister of Religious Affairs who had a PhD in Geology. The issue was whether the Quran was compatible with modern views on the evolution of the Earth. As you can imagine there are alsways aspects in religious writing that are compatible with nature, and the Quran is no exception. The citations that you now find on these religious sites are taken out of context, I cannot even remember details of the interview.
In any case, whatever you find on these sites I surely never said as it is quoted now. There is little I can do about this, I asked several friends in the islamic world for advice, and they all said just to leave it and live with it.

Best wishes, Alfred

http://www.german.faithfreedom.org/foru ... php?t=3858

...and another reply by Dr. Hay:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15933

Westerners Find $cience in the Quran!
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/ab ... _quran.htm

This is loosely related, it deals with supposed islamic inventions:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewt ... 138#321138

Here is a summary from the above, in a pdf-download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y9E50QH4

TheRationalizer · **#20** by **TheRationalizer** » Nov 21, 2011 7:49 pm

I recorded an interview William W Hay 2 days ago about his alleged statements that the Quran must have come from the divine being
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bygb30gAqOs

I also have a video interview with Alfred Kroner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClHuG880pqU