When science and religion combine the results are almost always entertaining. Browsing through Pharyngula today, I came across a link to an post on the Bad Astronomy blog. Both of these point to some extracts from a page published by the Middle East Media Research Institute. (Now this is a Washington based institute so it may not be actually representative of what Middle Eastern beliefs and opinions are).
The transcript is about an Egyptian researcher who has put forward scientific reasoning to abolish Greenwich Mean Time and replace it with “Mecca Time” and begins with this chestnut:
Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid: When British colonialism or the British kingdom were in control, and it was “an empire on which the sun never sets,” it imposed Greenwich Mean Time. This creates two problems for the world. The first problem is that in Greenwich, the magnetic field of Earth is 8.5 degrees, whereas in Mecca the magnetic field is zero.
Wow. Does this mean compasses dont work in Mecca? There follows some nonsense (often badly spelt which makes me doubt the legitimacy of the MEMRI transcribers) about how the problem with this magnetic field is causing a “difference” in the northern and southern hemispheres.
The transcript closes with this insight: (I can only assume the ellipses mean an ad break or something)
Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid: This is because the magnetic force is concentrated there, which affects people’s blood and the biological movement of life. It has been proven that if magnetism, anywhere, exceeds 1,000 gauss, which equals one tenth of a tesla, it affects the ability of the hemoglobin in the blood to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues, the ability of the blood to carry oxygen to the tissues.
Interviewer: In other words, the ability to live…
Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid: Yes, to live… This means is that when you are in Mecca, the ability of the blood to carry oxygen to the tissues is greater than anywhere else in the world.
Interviewer: That’s why, when people travel to Mecca, they return full of energy.
Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid: In Mecca, you don’t exert any effort. That’s why you may see an old man, who cannot walk, or who walks with crutches, and even though it gets very crowded around the Ka’ba, he is filled with great strength, and he circles the Ka’ba. You do not exert any effort, and you are filled with energy, because you are in a place in which there is no magnetic force.
[…]
Anybody who studies human chemistry knows that all circulation in the human body is to the right. All the components are called “dextro-rotatary,” which means circulating to the right. They call it dextro-rotatory, which means circulating to the right. When I’m circulating [the Ka’ba] from right to left, anti-clockwise, I increase my body’s circulation, and consequently I am filled with energy.
Interviewer: I get filled with energy too?
Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid: Yes, because the right-to-left circulation in my body increases.
Amazing. don’t you just love “science” like this. Now I am not going to go to any lengths to deconstruct the obvious nonsense (ie. why don’t MRI’s kill?) as that has been done on Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy but one thing did get to me. This guy is claiming to be a “researcher” so what is he researching (it certainly isn’t physics).
A quick Google Search produces 97 hits at the time of writing. Oddly, nearly all of them are links to the MEMRI transcript. This includes some which are neutral and appear to just be scraping content from other sites, some which are ranting about the bad science (good on them) and some which are pretty disturbing – Christians Under Attack is one such example (I may spend some more time looking round that site for amusement soon). Mostly though, they are simple reposts of the MEMRI transcript with no comment (even the offensive Christians Under Attack makes no comment).
I find it odd that in this day an age, that a researcher (even an Egyptian one) has no presence on the Internet. Especially a researcher with enough prominence to get air time which is then picked up by the MEMRI and used to “inform Washington about Middle Eastern Opinion.” Wondering more about this, I had a look at the Egyptian National Research Center where he is supposed to work. Google returns the National Research Centre in Egypt so I assume they are one and the same.
Sadly, although this website appears to be dated from 2005, nearly every link is “Under Construction” so I can not search for staff or publications.
Similar results are found when searching for published papers in various scientific journals – I find no traces of Dr Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyid.
I am not a fan of conspiracy theories but it still strikes me as odd. the MEMRI transcript claims to come from Mihwar TV, the closed I can find to that is Mehwar TV channel (probably transcription error as the alphabets are radically different) – which is far from a representative example of middle eastern though. Reading about the channel is quite entertaining though, so you may want to visit http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Fall02/Mehwar.html.
OK, while the “science” alluded to in the transcript is totally farcical is it as bad as the blogosphere seems to have made out. Have Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy jumped upon this because it is religious based nonsense? Is this any worse than the crackpottery which is pushed out on “This Morning” or any other truly dross-like daytime TV show in the west? Does Gillian McKeith make any more sense with her explanations about how the body works?
More worryingly in the short term, does this person exist? Is he really a “researcher” (or a “scientist” as alluded to in some places) and does MEMRI really think this opinion is representative of Middle Eastern Thought?
It is more than bad science… but now I feel sullied as it may look like I have defended a religious nutcase. I need to go back to Technorati and find some more targets for abuse!