Creation, evolution, and the debate in Bosnia

Hello, y'all,

I have been off list for the past six months, as I accompanied my wife Maria to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where she was a Fulbright scholar teaching at the Faculty of Islamic Studies (FIN). If you are receiving the ASA Newsletter and have gotten the March/April edition, you'll find a story about my science and religion activities in BiH, and in particular the lecture I delivered to the Association of Scholars of the Islamic Community of BiH in the auditorium of FIN. If you don't receive the Newsletter, you can read the story on line at the ASA web site: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/newsletter/marapr05.pdf. Briefly, in the lecture, "Evolution or Evolutionism, Creation or Creationism? Distinguishing the Terminology of Science from Ideology," I sorted out the meaning of these and other terms, and argued that when both theology of creation and the science of evolution are understood for what they really are, there is no conflict between them.

Let me add a few comments about the larger context of my lecture. Some writings of the Turkish (Islamic) creationist Harun Yahya are beginning to have an effect upon the conversion about religion and science in the former Balkan countries. Two of his writings had been translated into Bosnian, and a popular weekly newsmagazine, "Dani," published in Sarajevo carried two articles debating the issue, one by a local scientist. So, my talk carried a subtext that responded to some of the more outrageous statements against evolution in Yahya's writinngs. (I recall, dipping into the ASA archives, that Yahya's work had come up in some postings last fall.) Yahya's writings are even more libelous against evolution than some of the AIG and ICR writings. I'm happy to say that my lecture was received favorably by the imams and teachers present. An article about it appeared in "Preporod" ("Renaissance"), a bi-monthly publication aimed at the Islamic Community. The journalist who wrote it was probably the one who taped the lecture (it was delivered in Bosnian). To my delight, he identified the most important points of the lecture and put them in the article. I also gave the lecture later at the Islamic Teacher Training School in Bihac, western Bosnia, co-sponsored by the University of Bihac. With the recent publication of the Bosnian version in the journal "Novi Muallim" ("The New Teacher"), the lecture will reach an even wider audience.
  
I'm glad to be checking in again.

Peace (or, as the different religious communities of BiH would say, Salaam, Shalom, Mir),
Bob Schneider
Received on Sat Mar 19 15:09:19 2005