A "Mathematician" Who Converted to Islam

[siddharth]

Another "The Quaran is scientific/accurate" video doing the rounds.

Gary Miller, a mathematician and former preacher from Canada who converted to Islam, explaining his thoughts about Quran

[arvindiyer]

The preacher in the video ends with a flourish by claiming that any book in which even one false statement is found cannot be divine. That is a safe bet to make when most of the claims in the book are not even wrong.

Had he known of the hypothesis that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, he wouldn't at all have been surprised to know that there is whole host of organisms which our embryos share similarities with. There is no reason to suppose that the resemblance with leeches particularly stands out among all these ontogenic resemblances. It seems so much likelier that the choice of leeches was simply a messy metaphor chosen at the whim of a fanciful poet.

If indeed these are scientific revelations to help the faithful flourish, then why does the text dwell almost exclusively on things which don't have the remotest relevance to human welfare, like our leechlikeness, and at the same time deliberately exclude all those revelations which might have been useful like the Germ Theory or desalination membranes?

[arvindiyer]

The previous post in the thread ended with a mention of desalination membranes. Here's Prof. Dawkins' exasperated narration of his encounter with the favorite 'Science-in-the-Quran' fiction of 'salt water and fresh-water not mixing'. It is a sobering thought that debunkers maybe pouring water on an upturned vessel.
http://youtu.be/qSr77MU982A?t=7m23s

[THAPLIYAL.SHASHI]

(05-Mar-2011, 12:20 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: The preacher in the video ends with a flourish by claiming that any book in which even one false statement is found cannot be divine. That is a safe bet to make when most of the claims in the book are not even wrong.

Had he known of the hypothesis that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, he wouldn't at all have been surprised to know that there is whole host of organisms which our embryos share similarities with. There is no reason to suppose that the resemblance with leeches particularly stands out among all these ontogenic resemblances. It seems so much likelier that the choice of leeches was simply a messy metaphor chosen at the whim of a fanciful poet.

If indeed these are scientific revelations to help the faithful flourish, then why does the text dwell almost exclusively on things which don't have the remotest relevance to human welfare, like our leechlikeness, and at the same time deliberately exclude all those revelations which might have been useful like the Germ Theory or desalination membranes?

I agree, development of embryo is almost same not only in mammals but birds reptiles and fishes. It goes without saying that all these all animals were in eating plate of man much before he had any sense of religion. There are big animals like camels, giraffes even ostrich having embryo and fetus  bigger in size.  It is possible that butchers, poachers even cooks in kitchen might have observed different stages of blastocyst and fetus development and formed there opinion about humans as well.