Monday, September 29, 2008

Oktar Offers Prize for Evidence of Evolution

Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar has offered a prize of ten trillion (that's 10 zeroes!) Turkish Lira for fossil evidence of evolution. That's over 8 trillion US dollars (we're still talking nine zeroes here!). The story notes:

Mr Oktar, 52, who successfully campaigned for Mr Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey, has said he will give 10 trillion Turkish lira, roughly equal to £4.4trn "to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution."

Mr Oktar is a household name in Turkey after publishing hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDs to contest Darwin's theory of evolution.

Using the pen name Harun Yahya, his book The Atlas Of Creation sold 10,000 copies worldwide.

The 800-page book detailed his claims that for millions of years life forms have not developed, thus supporting his Islamic creationist beliefs

Here's why this reward will go unclaimed: as with Kent Hovind before him, any evidence of evolution he will simply dismiss as being unconvincing. He will claim that the intermediates are simply aberrant animals of one kind of another.

The author's website is a breathtaking journey inside rampant enthusiasm and boundless ego. In the "About the author" section, I counted no less than 49 pictures of the author in various "Joe Cool" poses. Nowhere, however, are there guidelines for the challenge (if I missed 'em, please let me know). At least Dr. Dino gave guidelines, even if no one could satisfy them. Kent Hovind is, by the way, in prison for tax evasion.

Of Oktar's Atlas of Creation, Richard Dawkins said this: "I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content."

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous12:06 PM

    Adnan oktar is now in prison for running a criminal organisation. He tried to blackmail a woman into his bed as well. Any believers in these folk should factor in their immorality; Hovind's tax evasion and Oktar's blackmailing. And then go and read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, and Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne.
    That way they'll see that certain creationists are dishonest people and that real scientists know far more than Hovind and Oktar when it comes to real science.


    Shalenak:)

    ReplyDelete