I was asked to join a discussion about Islamic embryology by a fellow named Kenny Bomer (he has a YouTube channel), and I foolishly agreed, since it’s a topic I know well — well, the embryology part, at least — and I’m willing to try and educate. I’ll be on his show at 6:30pm Central time on Friday, 28 August. I see that a lot of his videos go on for hours, but I can’t see that happening here, since all the Quran has on embryology is a scant few lines cribbed from Aristotle and Galen…but then, the Christians go on for decades about a few lines on just the first page of the book of Genesis, so I’ve learned to never be surprised at how much religious folk can obsess over the exact interpretation of tiny fragments of text.
Oh well. I’ll be on for as long as I’m having fun. We’ll have to see how long that will be. Bring a stopwatch!
Islamic embryology? Do Muslims develop differently somehow? TIL.
Similar to @1, ? Big Warning Bells — think Tardis Cloister Bell — here…
It’d be interesting to cross reference the bits that are claimed to be embryology with the bits lifted from pagans, the bible, and jewish sources. I suspect that very little is islamic as opposed to plagiarized. But that would be a lot of work.
Old fashioned youtube debate !!
Science vs Religion !!
Rationality vs Faith !!
seems like a good opportunity for viewers to learn a little about Islam and embryology.
good luck having fun with it!
Whoa! I thought you had given up on doing these faux debates. But we’re all a little stir crazy these days…
This is not a debate. It’s a discussion. If he tries to rope me into one of those structured “debates”, I’ll hang up.
@6
absolutely
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
The argument for pro-universe proponents has been losing popularity ever since.
Guesses about what will happen….
“Even pagans like Aristotle arrived at the same conclusions as the Quran.”
“But those things aren’t how it happens”
… followed by furious backfilling
As I recall, Islamic embryology mostly works by being so vague that it can be mapped unto pretty much any set of facts you want. Difficult to prove outright wrong, but that’s just because it doesn’t actually say anything.
Much like your street discussion in England, try to get them to specify what the Koran says about embryology, then explain why that is wrong. Then enjoy the backtracking.
Curious about what type of character this guy is, I went to the web page you linked and looked at a few of his blog posts. Let’s just say… I was less than impressed. Typical fundie garbage. I’m not optimistic this will be a productive conversation.
There is quite a bit of what could loosely be called original embryology in the Qur’an and it’s not all lifted from Aristotle or other sources. However attempts to relate it to real embryology are so bad they are completely illogical. I have read the Saudi special edition of Moore’s embryology text with it’s interposed “Islamic” additions by the Hadith scholar, Zindani. That’s right he ain’t a scientist of any kind despite his appointment to head an institute for looking for science in the Qur’an. The text is packed with errors. For instance it claims that important structures like somites are like lumps of chewed flesh. This astonishing claim is made on a page facing a clear photo showing the somites which shows they are anything but “chewed”. Even crazier he rejects more than a century of research which gave us the Carnegie stages of embryonic development and recommends reducing them to just 4 based on his interpretation of the Qur’an.
At least whenever he says something stupid you’ll be able to roll your eyes and say “Ok, Bomer”.