Stupid.

Usama Hasan, meanwhile, criticises Muslims for their “childlike” view of evolution, and science in general.

There’s an attempted response by Adam Deen, a Muslim blogger, to Hasan’s views on the need to reconcile evolution with their religious beliefs. Although, I am not sure it is much of a response, and only seems to underline Hasan’s argument about Muslims indulging in bad science…

Update: Abu Hasan in the comments links to another response to Usama Hasan’s article at Ummah Pulse. I don’t think the piece deserves any sort of serious analysis, but at least the author of that piece doesn’t copy and paste snippets of “evidence” found at creationist websites.

And please note: I am not saying Usama Hasan or his views are beyond criticism.

Related: See an earlier Talk Islam post on Richard Dawkins’ views about Muslim creationism and read about the role of the Turkish military establishment in pushing creationism into the mainstream.

Unsurprisingly, the usual set of bigots that populate Comment is free are happy to suggest Sabir deserved to be arrested simply because of his name.

The book is called Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. Davidson’s views were noted in an earlier post. In the book he points out how the economic success, dwindling oil resource, and need for foreign investment “could clash with the ideological, religious and cultural legitimacy” of the ruling family.

Looks like a spectacular own goal, really. There is no point in talking about knowledge economies and university cities if this is the attitude to critical thought (and this book was published by Columbia University Press, so it had been peer reviewed). However, Faisal Devji’s words are worth noting:

“This management (of information) is not political so much as corporate, resembling regulations common in workplaces around the world, since the UAE is as much a corporation as a country. In this respect it represents the global future of politics and capitalism…”

It wouldn’t surprise me if they lifted the ban, eventually.

(And yes, this is what you can call censorship.)