“Islamic creationist group launches glitzy, global blitz”

That's the headline in today's Christian Science Monitor. The article is about Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (the Foundation for Scientific Research, the publisher of the “Atlas of Creation”). According to the article, the Foundation “says it is distributing its books – published in 59 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Swahili, and Polish – to 80 countries.” Unfortunately, its efforts have been pretty successful in Turkey. It's obviously hoping to have similar success elsewhere around the world.

The book is so full of preposterous claims and so bereft of any reasoned argument that I wouldn't be worried about its impact at all – except that the Foundation seems to have a lot of money. They're selling copies on an Amazon.com virtual bookstore for $99 apiece, but someone affiliated with the Foundation guessed that they have distributed more than 20,000 copies worldwide. Clearly someone has deep pockets.