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Who is Stefano Bigliardi?
This is a new episode of Real Sciences podcast and in this episode we are welcoming professor Stefano Bigliardi. He is a professor of philosophy in Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is interested in research about Islam and science, New Religious Movements, movies and philosophy, and Ancient Aliens. His research interests are very close to the topics that we are interested in, in Real Sciences. welcome Stefano and I hope I pronounced your name correctly.
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Yes, the pronunciation was perfect. Thank you so much for the invite and for the introduction. Indeed, I’m a professor of philosophy at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco since 2016. By education, I am a scholar in the philosophy of science. I graduated in philosophy with a focus on the philosophy of science from the University of Bologna, where I earned my PhD. Then, I worked at different institutions around the world until I received an offer from AUI, where I am happily serving as an associate professor. I’ve been specializing in the debate on religion and science, with a focus on Islam and modern science. Then, 10 years ago, I started studying New Religious Movements and science as well.
If you wonder what my methodology is, I would say that I have two hats. On the one hand, I’m an historian of ideas or ethnographer in the sense that I reconstruct the debate from the outside. Also, I engage in interviews with the participants in the debate. This is one of the advantages of studying modern authors; you can send them an email and interact with them! But still, I’m a philosopher at heart, you can say, and therefore, if needed, I also engage in criticism of ideas.
To contact Dr. Stefano Bigliardi: S.Bigliardi@aui.ma
We’re interested in your main publications and your academic journey. How did you come to focus on studying these particular topics?
It’s a long story, in fact, but I’ll try to summarize it. As you may know, in Italy, being a secular country, religious education is optional. When I was a kid, my parents opted me out of religious education in primary school, so while my schoolmates were attending that class, I would do something else in a classroom nearby. There was an Egyptian kid, a girl by the name of Abir, who, by the way, is currently a journalist. She would talk to me about Egypt, she would talk to me about Arabic, and my interest started, in fact, with Arabic, which I perceived as an interesting intellectual challenge. So, later on, while I was already a university student, I started studying Arabic at the university in a sort of parallel course to my official studies. Then, I traveled to Egypt multiple times to study Arabic in Alexandria and also to teach Italian. That’s how I got exposed to ideas on Islam and modern science. Then, I decided to conduct research in the field for my postdoc work. That’s the story in a nutshell.
Islam and Science
I wanted to ask you about your book The Crescent and the Splitting Moon (in Italian: La Mezzaluna e la Luna dimezzata, 2018). I wish that we see this book translated to Arabic one day. My first question is what attracted you to study the relationship between science and religion particularly for Islam?
Okay, my interest in religion perhaps stems from the fact that I was not raised religious. Maybe the more you are deprived of something, the more you get interested in it. Islam, in particular, wasn’t mainstream and in fact it was stigmatized; my interest peaked in the aftermath of 9/11. I also started wondering whether the debate on religion and science in the Muslim world would be different or similar to that among Christians.
The book was published in 2018, so it’s already a few years ago. It focuses on pseudoscience in the Muslim world. Now, there is a vibrant debate on Islam and modern science. For those who are not familiar with it, it can be summarized as follows: you have thousands of voices, including voices of Muslim scientists (people who have studied and do actual science in the lab at university), and they all agree on some generic facts or ideas. So, they will all tell you that Islam highly values science and knowledge. They will tell you that the Qur’an encourages people to observe the natural world. They will all agree that there was a “Golden era of Islam” during which science was flourishing in the Muslim world. But then, when it comes to the details of the harmony of Islamic science, they are in deep disagreement. So, there are many controversial issues, including, for instance, miracles or evolution, and so on. And that’s what I find fascinating to reconstruct. Within this big conversation, there is an ongoing, I would say, not so visible but not so minor either, conversation on Islam and pseudoscience. That is, there are certain authors who call other ones pseudoscientific, or in other words, who claim that others are advocating the harmony of Islamic science but, in fact, what they’re doing is a form of fake science. And this is what I find highly interesting.
The book that I published in 2018 focuses on Islam and pseudoscience. One of the general observations that I draw in the end is that, in fact, pseudoscience in the Muslim world doesn’t have anything special. I mean, of course, the forms of pseudoscience that you find there do refer to the Qur’an, so, in a sense, they are distinctly Islamic. But if you analyze the structure of the arguments that are being used, or if you look at historical connections, you will see that all forms of pseudoscience are similar or related. So, at the end of the day, there is nothing essentially special about pseudoscience in the Muslim world.
Is that compared to pseudoscience with Christian world for example?
Let me provide you with a couple of examples. One of the discourses on Islam in science that is labeled as pseudoscientific by Muslim critics is the so-called “scientific miraculousness of the Qur’an.” This idea suggests that the Qur’an contains very precise scientific information that was not available at the time of its revelation, and this could be proof of the Divine origin of the Qur’an itself. This is a very popular discourse; I encounter it among students and colleagues. However, there are a few Muslim scientists who criticize it. Of course, since it makes reference to the Qur’an, you would say that this trend is distinctly Islamic. But if you look at other religions, you will find that similar claims are made by their theologians and authors. For instance, you will find similar claims concerning the sacred scriptures of the Mormons, just to name one religious movement. Another case is Islamic creationism. Of course, the Book of Genesis in the Bible and the Qur’an do not totally overlap, so there are certain theological concerns that are not shared across Islam and Christianity. For instance, the original sin. But there are similarities, including the story of Adam. Indeed, historically, it is demonstrated that prominent Muslim creationists, I think of Harun Yahya or Adnan Oktar, Turkish creationist, have been literally copying and pasting from Christian creationists. So, again, there are very strong links that speak against an exceptional character of pseudoscience in the Muslim world.
The title of your book and the picture on the book, which is the half-moon, does that refer to the idea of the Islamic i’jaz on the fracture that’s in the moon? The story goes like this: NASA discovered there is a fracture on the moon, and that’s supposedly linked to some verse in the Qur’an.
Yes, I truly was exposed to ideas on Islamic science during one of my stays in Alexandria, Egypt. One of those ideas was precisely the narrative of the splitting of the moon. We had a very good Arabic teacher who would also teach us Arabic based on the Qur’an. So, we came across the ayah about the splitting of the moon, and he commented that scientists had discovered proof of this. This is very interesting; on the one hand, you have a supernatural miracle. Of course, if the moon was ever split, then there had to be an interruption of the laws of nature. At the same time, what is claimed is that scientific expeditions have verified this, and there is also this picture circulating that is claimed to confirm it. In fact, it does represent a fracture, but it’s only superficial, and it doesn’t go around the whole moon, and it’s no sign at all of a complete fracture of our satellite. So yeah, this is a sort of supernatural miracle and scientific miracle combined.
What I also find fascinating is that in order to subscribe to this narrative, you also have to go against another very popular conspiracy theory, that is, the moon landing conspiracy theory. According to it, nobody ever set foot on the moon. But of course, if no one went to the Moon, no one could observe the evidence of the splitting! So that’s why I decided to have it on the cover. I mean, it was important for me; this narrative was an important step in my research. It’s an interesting case of miracle, it combines many elements. And also, I thought it would make for an excellent illustration.
Movies vs religion in their cultural impact on science perception
Something else that you’re interested in is movies, which may be a more essential part of the culture for many youth now. You study how fiction works, like Omega Man, and how it can impact our sense of perception of science. So, how do you compare this to religion? Can we say, for example, that movies are more impactful? Or how does this ratio go based on different types of people?
You’re hinting an article that I wrote a couple of years ago, analysing the way in which science is represented in the movie Omega Man (1975). That was during COVID time, so I had a lot of time to watch movies, analyze them, and write articles about them. To be honest, I cannot recall the exact details, the article is not very fresh in my mind. In general, science fiction movies play an important role in the way in which science is perceived at a popular level. This movie, which is a post-apocalyptic one, is quite pessimistic about science, but it’s also optimistic in a sense: humanity is wiped out by biological warfare, but then a cure is also found through science. Science fiction movies can also play a role in inspiring interest in science. Sometimes, interest in scientific topics can be sparked, for instance, by a series like Star Trek or a movie like Star Wars.
New religious movements and science
It’s a critical area where movies can fuel your imagination about science, but at the same time, believing any of these ideas may plant some scientific ideas and other beliefs in your mind. In your book on new religious movements and science, you talked about five movements, and analyzed them. I think our audience would be highly interested in knowing more about these movements, such as Scientology.
Thank you so much for mentioning my most recent book. It was published in the Cambridge University Press series, Elements in New Religious Movements. So basically, what I’m doing in this case is analyzing the debate over religion and science, but from a different perspective. Now the focus is not on Islam, nor is it on Christianity, but it’s on New Religious Movements, which are also known at the popular level as “sects” or “cults.” Scholars, for various reasons, prefer the expression “New Religious Movements.”
In the first part of this book, I analyze five cases: Scientology, the Raelian movement, a Satanist group that was active in Italy, Santo Daime, which is a new religious movement that originated in Brazil but has gone global, and finally Falun Gong, which originated in China but has also gone global. For each one of them, I scrutinize the different ways in which they conceptualize science.
Now, to elaborate a bit more on Scientology, which is perhaps the one that the public is most familiar with: Scientology was created by a science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed he had discovered a new science of the human mind, of human spirit, that he called Dianetics, a sort of analysis and therapy, that allegedly could also rid one of illnesses. Early on, his theory and practice was labeled as pseudoscientific by U.S. American authorities, and even today Scientologists have to make it clear that what they are engaging in isa religious practice, without any therapeutic impact. Additionally, their beliefs include ideas that are at odds with science, because Hubbard claimed that he could reconstruct human history going back to trillions of years, and that conflicts with evolution.
. So in this case, we have a movement that claims it is home to a specific science, like they have their own science that they regard as discarded or marginalized by mainstream science, but then, of course, it is labeled by external observers as pseudoscience.
I’m really interested in knowing about the other ones as well. I may be interested in some of them when you are going to define them, maybe it’s going to be the first time someone is writing about this in Arabic.
“One that lends itself to an interesting comparison with Scientology is the Raelian movement. In this case, we have a New Religious Movement that was created by someone who claimed he was contacted by aliens. By the way, there is currently a series on Netflix about this movement. Perhaps it’s as well-known as Scientology is. What Rael, the leader, claims, is that the extraterrestrials revealed to him that humanity has been created by them and it’s now time for humans to become creators, scientific creators, of another race. So we have to work on our scientific progress. Another claim made by Rael, indeed a Raelian belief, is that especially deserving individuals will have the opportunity to live again in the form of a clone on these extraterrestrials’ planet. In sum, this is a New Religious Movement that makes use of science fiction. Because of course, cloning is not really a way to make yourself immortal, it creates your twin Raelians do not claim they have discovered their own science; they glorify extant science. But then again, they attribute to it supernatural powers.
The satanist group I studied was in fact an atheist organization that used Satan as a symbol of rebellion and individualism. What is interesting is that they engaged in campaigns against pseudoscience and against superstition, like other rationalist associations in the country. Why? Well, because they were opposed to Christianity, to Catholicism in particular. They constantly conceptualized Catholicism as a superstition, and they symbolically used science against it.
The other New Religious Movement I studied is Falun Gong, that originated in China. It has a very complex history, and doctrine. Its founder, Master Li, claims that he has come to his doctrine by way of research rather than by way of mere revelation. On the one hand, he appreciates science. On the other hand, he claims that science and technology are inferior to the spiritual teaching he imparts. Additionally, he teaches that science and technology were introduced by evil aliens who covet the human body, try to control humanity, and plan to replace us through clones. We cannot do without science and technology, but we should not prefer them over spirituality, and be aware that they can be used to control and indeed eliminate us.
And finally, I write about a Brazilian New Religious Movement by the name of Santo Daime. To put it in a few words, it’s a movement that uses as a sacrament a brew that they drink during their ceremonies that usually involve singing and dancing. Now, this brew, called ayahuasca, is hallucinogenic, or psychoactive, as it induces visions. By the way, I tried it once for scientific fieldwork. Santo Daime practitioners are eager to embrace scientific descriptions of the chemical composition of ayahuasca and its effect on the brain. In this, they fully align with science. But at the same time, they claim that the merely scientific interpretation of what ayahuasca does to the human mind, is too materialistic. It only stops at a very materialistic conception of the human mind. For them, what happens is not just a disruption of ordinary brain chemistry, but it’s the unlocking of superior dimensions where human beings can interact with spiritual beings and receive visions that teach them some sort of eternal wisdom. In sum, this movement accepts science but at the same time it transcends it.
I just have another question that’s out of the questions that I was thinking about, which is what this particular drug that they take? And to which family of drugs it belongs? and what kind of effects it has? The reason I’m asking is that the articles we have about some types of drugs in Real Sciences get many reads. Maybe something in the Google Search algorithm, but many people are interested in this.
Ayahuasca contains DMT. You can find the complete name and explanation on the internet. I’m not a chemist, so I’d rather leave that to an expert. But let me just specify that Santo Daime practitioners would be very unhappy to hear that it is described as a drug because, by definition, a drugs addictive. Daimistas take issue with this. They explain that ayahuasca does exactly the opposite – it does not create addiction (in time, one can obtain the same visions with smaller quantities; and it causes no withdrawal symptoms) They also point out that ayahuasca can be used in drug rehabilitation programs. So again, they wouldn’t call it a drug; they would call it an “entheogen,” a substance that is spiritually inspiring rather than recreational.
I think we have mentioned Ayahuasca before in some articles, and it’s interesting also about the Raelians that there is a pseudoscientific concept of the afterlife in their religion, so even in a modern religion, there is this concept invented because people are interested in this concept.
An interview with Adnan Oktar
I wanted to ask you about your other book, which we highly recommend, Islam and the Quest for Modern Science (2014). If you can tell us more about this book, but we are more interested in your conversation with Adnan Oktar. Particularly in the Arab world, some people don’t take him seriously because Oktar just appears in YouTube or Facebook videos sitting with many models and talking to them or saying “mashallah,” and then he doesn’t seem to be a scientific figure. So when you talked to him, did you see that he’s actually knowledgeable about his topics and his propaganda evolution? Also, anything you want to share about the book or about Oktar?
The book is meanwhile a but old, I published it 10 years ago. However, I think that some sections are still valid and make for interesting reading. In fact, I still use them in class. It is a collection of conversations that I had on Islam and modern science, both with Muslim scientists including, for instance, my good friend Nidhal Guessoum, an astrophysicist, and other Muslim authors who do not really have a scientific education but talk about science. One of such authors is Adnan Oktar, also known by the pen name of Harun Yahya. Meanwhile, he is sitting in jail in Turkey, but back then, I visited in Istanbul at his villa, and students love when I tell them what happened that night.
For those who do not know about him, Oktar/Yahya has been an extremely active and prolific author in the field of Islamic creationism. He has been publishing a lot against evolution, but also he has been contributing a lot of articles and books about other ideas He also had this TV show that you can still watch on YouTube, in which he was interacting with ladies that he was calling his “kittens.” Well, this may look ludicrous, but there was a theological idea behind that. He claimed that they were converts, but he also was complimenting them implying that their beauty was yet another sign of God’s might. By the way, I did not meet them, either because they were not there that night or because they had not started featuring on his show. But I did meet Oktar after his staff made me wait for something like 3 or 4 hours. And then we had this interview that was, I would say, a bit clumsy because he doesn’t speak English. We needed an interpreter, and I was only given 30 minutes. Honestly, the interview was not very deep. Of course, this is because I had less time than I had for other authors with whom I was communicating directly in English. But in addition to that, I would say that his answers were very dry. There was no real depth to them. It’s something that my students never fail to see when we read the interview in class.
Then the next question I receive whenever I share this experience is, “do you think that he really believes what he’s saying?” That I don’t know. Answering this question would require the ability to read thoughts… Of course we cannot know for sure, but we know for instance that some of his publications draw heavily on Christian creationist literature.
He also admitted in his interviews, (and I think I was also stated to me in conversation by one of his assistants) , that his books and articles etc. were actually created by a team.
What do you mean by elements of religions and science you mentioned that in two of your books?
Well, it’s not something that I mentioned; it’s the name of the series. You have to know that Cambridge University Press has multiple series, each one of which is called Elements. The goal of each series is to convey essential, scholarly knowledge about a topic. I’m currently co-editing with the astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum, Cambridge University Press’s Elements series on Islam and science, including our introductory book entitled Islam and Science: Past, Present, and Future Debates. But a couple of years ago was asked to write a book on New Religious Movements for a different series that is edited by another professor, Rebecca Moore, although it was founded by the late Professor Jim Lewis.
Conspiracy Theory in the Muslim World
There’s a very interesting title for one of your papers, which is ‘What Osama Bin Laden Did Not Want to Know.’ Then, our question, as I read the summary, is how to summarize the relationship between religion in general or Islam and conspiracy theory, and again, what is particular for writing to an audience in certain countries.
You are mentioning a paper that I published a couple of years ago. Osama bin Laden is mentioned in the title, but the article isn’t mainly about him – it’s about an author called Manly P. Hall. One of his books is said to have been found in Osama bin Laden’s library. In this paper, I argue that it is very unlikely that Bin Laden actually read it, and if he happened to read it, probably he disagreed with everything that was written in it.
Speaking more generally about conspiracy theories — let’s first define conspiracy thinking. Conspiracies, meant as secret plots, secret plans, have always existed in human history. But conspiracist thinking is a fallacious way of thinking, a paranoid way of thinking in a sense, through which people see a conspiracy (usually a huge, very powerful one) where there is none. So they either misinterpret certain clues to claim that the conspiracy exists, or, when they do not find any clues, when they do not find any signs, they also take this as a confirmation because, of course, the conspiracy is so powerful it can obliterate the evidence of its own existence. You do find conspiracy theories in the Muslim world the same way you as well as in the West. Sometimes, conspiracy theories go hand in hand with certain ideas or narratives on Islam and science. Take the example of the splitting moon.
So I was asking one of my interlocutors who believed not only that the Moon was split, but also that NASA found evidence for it: why doesn’t everyone know about this? I mean, if that was really discovered, then the public should be aware, it should be in all science books, there should be documentaries, and so on. The answer I received was along the lines that NASA thought that would bring too much credit to Islam, and that’s why they somehow have covered it up.
I always ask researchers and philosophers any guests in real scientist podcast about some guidelines or anything they want tosay. Is there anything you want to say to students that study the field?
I would say that, if you are interested in Islam and science there are many resources if you’re just patient enough to look them up and to actually read them. But of course, one needs to be selective and to focus on scholarly texts because there are thousands of participants in the debate, but excuse me if I’m very blunt, there is also a lot of rubbish, there is also a lot of inaccurate information, there are a lot of fallacious ideas around, there is a lot of half-baked material out there. But I could recommend the book Nidhal and I wrote as an introduction to the field, in which the readers can also find a rich bibliography if they want to further explore specific ideas and build up their own knowledge.
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