A Real Laff Riot

That bastion of independent, unbiased journalism, the BBC, has written up a great howler of a "news article" (note I did not say "opinion piece", but, in fact, an objective, ostensibly fact-based news article). The subject matter is the call by a Muslim group for the world to adopt "Mecca Time" as the standard for all timekeeping rather than Greenwich Mean Time. The article itself digs a little deeper and also discusses the phenomenon of Ijaz al-Koran, the attempt to point to the Koran as preceding and confirming modern scientific findings.

Now, this can certainly be a newsworthy piece of factual information, particularly in our information-obsessed age where any tidbit is worthy of a quick and painless post on the Web somewhere. But here's the greatest screamer of all, right at the end:

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

Yes. The only mistake of the "scholars" is that they dare muddle the absolute truths of the Koran with the silly little flights of fancy that science has to offer*. And this was the only criticism the author could find, or even imagine. This, in a news item. Hey BBC? Next time you want an unbiased piece about something like this, hire somebody just a teensy sconch less committed to Islamic Supremacy.

*Far be it from me to pull a Derb here -- I don't think true faith and science are incompatible at all