Need some money? Creationist offers prize for fossil proof of evolution.

[Joanne98]

By Toby Green
Monday, 29 September 2008


A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.


Adnan Oktar said that he has "issued a call to all evolutionists" that he will give "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution" – a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.

The Muslim writer, who uses the pen name Harun Yahya, is a fierce critic of what he calls "the Darwinist dictatorship" and a popular figure in his home country, where – according to a 2006 survey – only a quarter of the population believe in Darwin's theory.

The 52-year-old former architecture student, who has been heavily criticised in the West, claims there are no fossils to support Darwinist theories. "Evolutionists are at a dead-end in the face of the fossil record," he said. "Not one belongs to strange-looking creatures in the course of development of the kind supposed by evolutionists." However, scientists reject his claims that these fossils do not exist. Dr Kevin Padian at the University of California told The New York Times that Mr Oktar "does not have any sense of what we know about how things change through time. If he sees a fossil crab, he says, 'It looks just like a regular crab, there's no evolution,'" Dr Padian said. "Extinction does not seem to bother him."

Mr Oktar found fame in 2006 when 10,000 copies of his The Atlas Of Creation were distributed worldwide. The 800-page volume illustrated his claims that for millions of years life forms have not developed, supporting his Islamic creationist beliefs.

Richard Dawkins, the British biologist, called the Atlas "preposterous", speaking of "the breathtaking inanity of the content". Mr Oktar responded: "We could have spoken on a more scientific basis if he had been able to produce an intermediate form fossil capable of confirming evolution in the face of all the hundreds of fossils in my book."

Mr Oktar defended Professor Michael Reiss, the British biologist who resigned as the director of education for the Royal Society earlier this month after suggesting that science teachers should consider creationism "not as a misconception but as a world view".

Mr Oktar called it "concrete evidence of the panic Darwinists are experiencing". Earlier this month he successfully brought a case against Mr Dawkins to a Turkish court, claiming that his website contained blasphemous and defamatory content. Internet users in Turkey can no longer access the site.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/creationist-offers-prize-for-fossil-proof-of-evolution-945289.html

4 trillion is a lot of money. Do you think he really has it?

[C_U_L8R]

1. I've got your missing link right here

McAnus Eruptus

[ElboRuum]

7. Wrong Taxonomy...

This is Cainus Loopius.

[ElboRuum]

10. Orrrrr.... Philanderus Arizonicus Pseudomaverikii

[angstlessk]

2. any absolute proof will be, to him, proof the devil is fooling us mere humans

it's all been done before!!

[LiberadorHugo]

3. Put the bastard in Gitmo...

We don't need these reactionaries corrupting our youth with their ignorant, anti-science agenda. The Turkish military needs to step in and deal with the Justice and Development Party. Voices opposed to the secular state deserve to be silenced; Dawkins does not.

[wtmusic]

4. Call in the dudes with Bigfoot in a freezer

Hmm, seems like the line is disconnected

[LunaSea]

5. Oh yeah, trillionaire "former architecture students" are quite common...

Didn't you know?

They get brazillions, and brazillions for dreaming up that crazy shit they build in Dubai.

[ElboRuum]

6. Counter offer...

I defy Mr. Oktar to define just what he means by intermediate form fossil... just before I show him one of an Archaeopteryx.

[Jim__]

8. He doesn't need 4 trillion.

All he needs is to claim that your fossil does not demonstrate evolution. Since he has already rejected all intermediate fossils, he will have no problem rejecting any new ones.

[zbdent]

9. There you go Wall Street ...

a Religious Reichie just offered you your God ...

[depakid]

11. He should come to Oregon

where the horse evolved. We've got a TON of cool fossils like that.

[conscious evolution]

21. Damn you!You stole my example!1!1

Im callin congress RIGHT FUCKING NOW!1!!!1!!11!!

In 7th grade I did a report for science class on evolution using horses as my main example.
The best part of the report was the fact that it was at a fundy southern babtist run school.The teacher had been forbidden from teaching that chapter and here I came along and taught for him!!Got an A+ on report and on my report card for the rest of the year in his class.
The worst part was the physical assaults I had to suffer from my fellow students and teachers for being a godless satan worshipper.

The changes in horses over the eons is still,imo,the best example of evolution in action.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. I win!

[Hugin]

18. Darn, I was gonna show my...

Carnivorous Ungulates!

Sinonyx (land-dwelling) -> Pakicetus (swims occasionally) -> Ambulocetus natans (swims predominantly) -> Rodhocetus (paddling reduced hind legs) -> Basilosaurus (vestigial hind limbs) -> Dorudon.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. We can share! n/t

[DavidDvorkin]

13. They're all intermediate-form fossils

Every creature is a transitional stage.

[GirlieQ]

14. From PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula:

I had to look up the exchange rate. That's $8,010,890,000,000. Eight trillion, ten billion, eight hundred and ninety million dollars. I could live reasonably comfortably on that.

Instead, though, I'm going to suggest something that will help out the entire country. The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums. Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan.

Unless…

You don't think…

Adnan Oktar couldn't possibly be lying about how much money he has, could he? And he couldn't possibly by planning to weasel out of accepting any honest evidence, could he?

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

15. It's a bit ironic, isn't it?

Someone whose entire belief system is based on a book that was written 2000 years ago, then translated, edited, re-translated, and reedited, is demanding "proof" frobm the scientific community.

Hilarious.

[Indenturedebtor]

16. Maybe he'll accept a deactivated cold virus from 07 and one from 08?

I've recently taken to shutting creationists up by explaining why they get a cold every year.

[Poseidan]

17. I Offer 700Billion

For proof of God.

[geomon666]

20. Even if he had it he wouldn't pay up.

This has been done before by some lunatic in the states. I forget his name but he offered up a million for proof of evolution. When it was brought to him he started adding conditions. It's a media stunt, one that gets his name and cause out but won't hear a peep from when somebody steps up.

[edhopper]

22. Where do I get my money?