Turkey Bans Richard Dawkins' Web Site
Science | Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 1:29:21 pm PDT
The Turkish crackpot creationist known as Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) has actually succeeded in getting a court order to block Turkey’s access to the web site of British biologist Richard Dawkins.
Ankara - Turkish internet users have been blocked via a court order from accessing the site of prominent British biologist Richard Dawkins after complaints from lawyers for Islamic creationist author Adnan Oktar, the website of Turkish television station NTV reported on Wednesday.
A court in Istanbul ordered that Turk Telekom block access to the site and since the weekend Turkish internet users seeking the site have been redirected to a page that says in Turkish ‘access to this site has been suspended in accordance with a court decision’.
NTV reported that Oktar complained he and his creationist book ‘Atlas of Creation’ had been defamed by comments made by Dawkins on the site.
‘I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content,’ Dawkins, a distinguished advocate of the theory of evolution, wrote on his website in July referring to the Atlas of Creation.
Dawkins’ exposé of the Atlas of Creation is absolutely brutal; you can see why the Yahya gang wants to prevent Turks from reading it: Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya.
On page 244, Yahya wishes to say that caddis flies have not changed since some 25-million-year-old insects preserved in amber. Once again, the caption:
These living things have survived for millions of years without the slightest change in their structures. The fact that these insects never changed is a sign that they never evolved.By now, we have come to expect something pretty good when we look at the photograph of the modern animal. What will the modern ‘caddis fly’ be? A minnow, perhaps? A garden slug? A king prawn? No, in a way is better than any of these: A fishing lure, complete with prominent steel hook!
I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the “breathtaking inanity” of the content . Is it really inanity, or is it just plain laziness – or perhaps cynical awareness of the ignorance and stupidity of the target audience – mostly Muslim creationists. And where does the money come from?
