Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Darwin-Alexandria conference coverage on a Pakistani TV channel

Location matters.

The British Council made a terrific decision when they picked Alexandria to hold its conference on Darwin's Living Legacy (also see my posts about the conference here, here, here, here, and here). This initiative has generated a broader conversation about evolution in the Arab and the larger Muslim world. The conference also brought in journalists from all over the world, including Sohail Yusuf (and his cameraman, Tauseef Aleem) from Pakistan. They have done a good job as a 2-person crew in preparing this report about the conference, and it has already aired twice on a Pakistani satellite channel, Metro One. The first part also provides a brief tour of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where the conference tool place:



and the second part here:


The fact that this aired on a Pakistani television channel twice, again, underscores the variety of reactions to evolution in the Muslim world. I think that Muslims will be okay with evolution as long as it doesn't get lumped with atheism (which it doesn't have to), and its applications to medicine and biotechnology become widely known. Hope to see more efforts like this one.

Related posts:
BBC debate and more pics from the Darwin conference in Alexandria

More thoughts on Darwin conference in Alexandria
Darwin conference in Alexandria - some pics
Darwin in Alexandria I
In Alexandria for Darwin's Living Legacy conference

6 comments:

JAMSHED MOIDU said...

After seeing the videos please visit
http://www.askdarwinists.com/
http://www.atlasofcreation.com/index.php

http://www.darwinismssocialweapon.com/index.php

http://www.fossil-museum.com/

PLEASE VISIT THESE SITES IF YOU DO """REALLY LOVE SCIENCE""".

Ali said...

Nice!! Very refreshing to see this kind of coverage from Pakistan!!! Also nice piece from you there in the second clip.

So is there anything specific in Islamic text that points towards evolution or is it absence of it that implies no conflict?

Salman Hameed said...

Ali,

Good to hear from you.

"So is there anything specific in Islamic text that points towards evolution or is it absence of it that implies no conflict?"

Well...it depends on interpretation. There is nothing in the Qur'an that has to contradict. Of course, one can also have an interpretation that is completely incompatible with evolution. The point here is to keep science separate from religion - just like we do for thermodynamics, valence shells for atoms, and for figuring out the way plants pollinate. The change of species over time is an observational fact (just like universe has changed over the last 10 billion years). This is independent of religion. There are many Muslims who find no contradiction with this view - and there are others that are uncomfortable with this idea. But I'm not sure what to do if the theory of gravity starts bugging some people... :)

Ali said...

Simple, they can jump off a roof top and prove it wrong. :-)

JAMSHED MOIDU said...

After seeing the videos please visit
http://www.askdarwinists.com/
http://www.atlasofcreation.com/index.php

http://www.darwinismssocialweapon.com/index.php

http://www.fossil-museum.com/

PLEASE VISIT THESE SITES IF YOU DO """REALLY LOVE SCIENCE""".

waiting for your " Deletion"

Anonymous said...

JAMSHED MOIDU said...
"PLEASE VISIT THESE SITES IF YOU DO REALLY LOVE PSEUDOSCIENCE".


There Jamhed, that tells the truth of what you're trying to push on us.
By the way Jamhed, why isn't Adnan Oktar winner of the Nobel Prize yet, if he has destroyed evolutionary science?

Arda Simsek.

Powered by Blogger.