From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy

An academic project hosted by Cambridge University platforms
creationism, the belief that the world was created by God in seven days.
It promotes an academic paper demanding that schoolchildren be taught to rCLactively resistrCY the science of evolution.

At Charles DarwinrCOs old university, where a college is named after him, DarwinrCOs discovery is now described by one Cambridge researcher as an example of rCLpotential challenges posed by Eurocentric monoculture.rCY

It is the latest sign of fundamental problems at CambridgerCOs education faculty, the same department which hired Jason Arday.

The project which platforms the creationist claims, the Islamic Educator Learning Community (IELC), is led by CambridgerCOs assistant research professor of education, Farah Ahmed, a former activist in the since
banned terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir. AhmedrCOs extraordinary CV, and her
long record of grossly bigoted, extremist and separatist views, were
revealed by a 2002 pamphlet exposed by The Spectator on Tuesday.

IELC is rCLhosted byrCY and rCLpartners withrCY a university body called the Cambridge Teacher Research Exchange, Camtree. Camtree is a project of
Hughes Hall, the Cambridge University college where Ahmed is a governing fellow. Ahmed is also an rCLaffiliaterCY of Camtree.

IELC publishes on its website, with a Camtree address, a paper on
rCLIslamic scientific critical consciousnessrCY which asks: rCLDoes the common modern biological assumption that humans have common ancestry with other
life forms conflict with [Islamic] religious beliefs about God creating
Adam and Eve?rCY

The author of this paper, Usama Javed Mirza, was at the time a
researcher at Cambridge UniversityrCOs faculty of education and at AhmedrCOs IELC. He still is, according to his LinkedIn entry.

The paper says that rCLcountering colonial hegemony in science education
for MuslimsrCY could include rCLidentifying gaps in fossil records to make
the case that the evidence of humans descending from apes is inconclusive.rCY

It adds that rCLfitnarCY (trial or temptation) rCLmay occur, for example, when a Muslim student in the science classroom begins to believe that humans emerged on Earth without any role played by the Creator.rCY

It says that fitna rCLboil[s] down to two beliefs being inculcated in
students that are problematic from an Islamic standpoint,rCY namely that rCLthe meaning of existence is socially constructed as an evolutionary response. There is no afterlife or soul; and the universe exists by
chance, and runs according to mindless laws of physicsrCa. To counter
these hegemonic ideas, it is not enough just to intellectually dispel
them. RatherrCa it is necessary to also instil within students a capacity
to actively resist the influence of this monoculture.rCY

On Tuesday, in the wake of the Jason Arday scandal, The Spectator
revealed that Ahmed had been given the prestigious assistant
professorship. We noted that in a 2002 pamphlet, republished in 2017,
she attacked rCywestern educationrCO as a rCythreatrCO to Muslims, condemned democracy and integration, and criticised British schools for teaching
that child marriage is wrong. Like the paperrCOs author, Mirza, Ahmed has
also said that modern science is a problem, because in the rCLteaching of evolution, Muslim children will be exposed to ideas that contradict
Islam.rCY She said in 2010 that she was no longer a member of Hizb
ut-Tahrir and did not agree with rCLallrCY its views.

After that story created a storm, the education faculty took decisive
action. It removed the names of all its staff from its website,
presumably to stop anyone who doesnrCOt know about web archive tools
checking to see if theyrCOve hired any more wrongrCOuns (spoiler alert: they have.)

Other action has been less forthcoming. The faculty clearly hopes to
ride this one out, issuing a statement that it is rCLcommitted to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law.rCY Well, we must reluctantly agree that Ahmed rCo benefiting from the democracy she condemns rCo should have the freedom to say that English is rCLone of the most damaging subjectsrCY a school can teach, or (while teaching at Cambridge) write
that Muslim students shouldnrCOt have to worry about rCLgaining literacy and numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications.rCY

But thatrCOs quite different from believing that Cambridge University
should fund her to promote her ideas to the future leaders of the country.

Still more indisputable is that a university subject, even one as
debased as Education at Cambridge, should not promote baseless, anti-scientific twaddle in the name of academic research.

But it does.


Andrew Gilligan
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