PROFESSORS AT University College London (UCL) are troubled by their Muslim students dropping out of lectures on evolution as part of UCL’s biology course. It appears that, like fundamentalist Christians, they believe it was their God that created all that is around us, and anyone that contradicts this, is a blasphemer.
At least Darwin has managed to achieve inter-faith agreement between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims on something – even if it is only their mutual loathing of Charles Darwin and all his heretical works.
I do not see what the Muslims have to fear by listening to such a lecture. If I professed a religious faith, I would welcome the opportunity to smite all arguments that ran counter to it. I would welcome the chance to put the lecturer right on the things he had got wrong.
Not only is it impolite to refuse to attend a lecture that the tutor has probably spent hours preparing for; but I would question just how strong the faith of these students really was, if they could not contemplate (or even fear?) listening to a reasoned alternative to their faith.
Were they mindful of the possibility that they may be persuaded by the lecturer, and feared the consequences? Has any of them an understanding of Natural Selection? As men of science, are they not in the least bit curious to know what all the fuss is about?
These students will one day, in many cases become doctors. They will, if they are successful, treat NHS patients on the basis of the knowledge they acquired at UCL. But as a long term recipient of NHS care, I would, if not distrust their advice, nevertheless be wary of such closed minds.
I believe in science, and its enquiring ethos. It presupposes an open mind ready to absorb information that will help us understand our existence and will provide the knowledge that will undoubtedly help improve the human condition and advance our need to know how we became what we are. Science is coldly objective… and the object of its function is knowledge.
These students are not men of science because they censor curiosity. It is curiosity that launches a man of science on his chosen branch of the scientific tree. There should be no prohibited branch of that tree. The tree of science (like that of knowledge) should be a liberating experience, not a cause for ignorance, which is what these students exemplify.
If a person’s faith is rock solid, he or she will be able to challenge and defeat whatever science comes up with; but they must understand the arguments. These young Muslim students will make adequate doctors and nothing more. They will not challenge Darwin because they run from him. They will not break any new ground in their field of expertise; but merely labour in the fields.
WHEN WAS THE LAST time a scientist of either Muslim or fundamentalist Christian devotion win any Nobel prize for any branch of science? To such people curiosity is anathema if it runs contrary to their faith.
Charles Darwin hit the nail on the head. What was once considered a theory has become a practical scientific reality through what is known as neo-Darwinism. Neo Darwinism represents the great mans’ vindication. Crick and Watson, the discoverers of DNA helped elevate Darwin’s discovery from a ‘theory’ into a scientific fact.
Neo-Darwinism is the science of genetics. A science that vindicates evolution as the sole impulse for animal and human development.
As an atheist, I believe a God of any faith or description is not needed. But I appreciate that for millions of people, the scientific explanation is not an adequate explanation, and for such people, they will remain vulnerable; just like the UCL students who chose to abandon lectures on evolution. Their vulnerability however should not be allowed to stand in the way of science if their religion disagrees with its findings.
Science requires an open mind; not one imprisoned by faith if it leads to such actions as those taken by Muslim students at the UCL. These students should be told that they either follow the course they agreed to join on entry, or they should go elsewhere to seek their education.
But of course no such thing will happen. Those professors who are troubled by the behaviour of their students of biology will be in hock to all sorts of politically correct pressures to help keep them studying: and of course the students themselves understand these pressures and will work them to the full.
Darwin himself suffered from the truth of his findings. For he was a Christian and it troubled him that his findings ran contrary to his faith. He was once meant for the church but his curiosity and his need to understand overcame his religion; but not before his daughter was taken from him. This determined him upon his course - he no longer felt in thrall to religion.
RELIGION SHOULD only be tolerated if the particular faith itself is tolerant, and not only of other faiths, but also of none believers. I do not think Islam is a tolerant religion, or if it is it works very hard to disguise the fact. I feel sure that if the much hoped for caliphate came about, all faiths, as well as all atheists would fall victim of one of Islam’s many forms of medieval evisceration.
Those students who close their minds to any new knowledge are not worthy of a place in higher education. They should consider whether their true vocation lay not in medicine but as imams in a mosque. Medicine is linked to Darwinism, and an understanding of Natural Selection at the molecular level may not make them better doctors, but would certainly make them better informed ones.
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