Taner Edis

Concerning crop circles Edis wrote that we know how these are created, we know the techniques. “So we do not need to find the perpetrator of every crop circle to figure out that probably they all are human made. Many true believers remain who continue to think there is something paranormal — perhaps alien — about crop circles. But the circles we know all fall within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes. Nothing stands out as extraordinary.”

Edis has given several lectures about Islamic creationism. One of his premises is that creationism in the United States is quite moderate compared to Islamic countries. Turkey for example, despite being known as a secular state, has high levels of belief in a young Earth. This is because the textbooks and curriculum in the schools do not offer both evolution and creationism, but only creationism. Teaching evolution is not part of the syllabus at all. Grothe asked Taner in 2007 if he thought that Islam could be compatible with western science. His answer was that it just depends on the type of Islamism. As in Christianity there are both liberal and conservative Muslims The more liberal their views the more compatible they are with science.

Edis was an editor of the book Why Intelligent Design Fails, which has received positive reviews. His book The Ghost in the Universe received the Morris D. Forkosch Book Award for “Best Humanist Book of 2002”

Taner Edis (born August 20, 1967) is a Turkish American physicist and skeptic. He is a professor of physics at Truman State University. He received his B.S. from Bogaziçi University in Turkey and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Edis is the author of several books on creationism, religion and science. He is a Scientific and Technical Consultant for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.