A Quantum Diaries Survivor

While my spine was shivering for the amount of disturbing information I read today in Magdi Allam’s article “Islam, in regalo ai prof il libro che nega Darwin” (Islam, the book negating Darwin offered for free to school teachers) on Il Corriere della Sera , I could not help feeling the sort of reassurance that only old-fashioned Hollywood movies can give - the feeling that the division of good and bad can sometimes be perfect even in real life, that the bad ones are not just mean but also obtuse, and that I find myself, for once, rooting for the good.

The facts: A book called “Atlante della creazione” (Atlas of Creation) has been distributed for free in thousands of copies across Italy, but formerly in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain,  the Netherlands, to secondary schools and science and religion teachers, to libraries, scientific institutes, newspapers. It is a hefty book, 800 pages for 13 pounds, which is ordinarily sold with the price of 75 euros (about 100 US$). The author is the turkish writer and islamic theologist Adnan Oktar, and the publisher is the turkish Global Publishing, which only prints Oktar’s books. As to who pays for the thousands of volumes distributed throughout Europe: Who has interest to plagiarize our children ? That remains a mystery.

So what’s in the book ? Quoting Magdi, “A total dismissal without appeal of Darwinian theories on evolutionism, which is identified as the root of all the evils of our contemporary history: fascism, nazism, and terrorism”. And in the appendix the author maintains that “Islam is not the source of terrorism but its solution”. Oktar wrote many books, where he clearly shows to be either under the influence or deranged. A book called “The lie of the Holocaust”, of 1996, reads “what has been presented as Holocaust is the death of some jews due to the epidemic of typhus because of the war and of famine in the final phase of the germans’ defeat”.

In his insightful article Magdi Allam notes that in Turkey, 75% of high school students do not believe in the theory of evolution. So Oktar may be leaving a mark somewhere. Allam ends by noting that nowadays Europe appears to be conquering ground for creationists of christian inspiration from one side (coming from the US) and creationists of islamic roots from the other. Good lord. I think I’ll move to New Zealand. Kea , do you know of any opening for a HEP physicist down there ?