Things That Make Me Cry

But what do educated Muslims think about evolution? That’s the question Hampshire College’s Hameed is asking in an ambitious three-year study supported by the National Science Foundation. Now halfway through the survey, Hameed is interviewing physicians and medical students in five Muslim countries and three Muslim diasporas in the West.

He has found that attitudes about evolution vary greatly from country to country. For instance, most Pakistani doctors accepted evolution, even human evolution. “But in Malaysia, we were really surprised to find a major rejection of not only human evolution but evolution in general,” he says.

Hameed expected to find more acceptance of modern science because Malaysia has a sophisticated high-tech industry. He and his colleagues now speculate that Muslims are trying to carve out a cultural niche that’s distinct from the more educated Indians and Chinese in Malaysia. “We think the rejection of evolution has become part of their Muslim identity,” he says.