New Creationist Prize

. . . and it’s sillier than the old ones.

Adnan Oktar, who writes as Harun Yahya, is offering the prize, according to the Telegraph.co.uk (HT: Breaking Christian News, surely an interesting place to find this):

Mr Oktar, 52, who successfully campaigned for Mr Dawkins’ official website to be banned in Turkey, has said he will give 10 trillion Turkish lira, roughly equal to £4.4trn “to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution.”

The problem with all these prizes is that the folks offering them demonstrate no comprehension of even the most basic elements of how an historical science is carried out, and simply cannot recognize the abundant evidence when they see it.

Of course, the effort to ban the Dawkins web site amply demonstrates Mr. Oktar’s particular methodology. He doesn’t have the facts, so he prefers to ban the opposition.

As an interesting side note, and a case of “with friends like these, who needs enemies,” Mr. Oktar defended Dr. Michael Reiss:

Mr Oktar has also defended Professor Michael Reiss, the British biologist who resigned as the director of education for the Royal Society earlier this month after suggesting science teachers should tackle creationism if the matter is raised by pupils.

I also believe Dr. Reiss was treated wrongly, and even more the cause of sound science education was dealt a blow. But Mr. Oktar should consider that he wants to ban a web site entirely for disagreeing with him, while complaining that a scientist lost one position. He should be too embarrassed by his own actions censoring dialog to complain about those of others.