My brother just passed on a bit of weirdness to me, knowing I like this sort of stuff.

A British psychiatrist, Imad Hassan, is promoting a Muslim blend of creation and evolution. He accepts common descent, even denouncing Harun Yahya. Humans, however, are a partial exception, and he is convinced intelligent design is the overarching reason behind common descent.

That much is not at all unusual. Hassan says that Darwin died a Muslim, interpreting the fact that Darwin described himself as an agnostic rather than an atheist as an indication that he was a generic monotheist and hence “Muslim.” Fine—strange, but not hugely unusual for a Muslim.

But then, he gets seriously weird. There’s all sorts of crazy Quran-decoding, weird scenarios about what the Adam and Eve story was all about, and denunciations of Richard Dawkins. The crowning glory, however, is where he talks about extraterrestrial cattle. Yes,

Camels, cows, sheep and goats were created outside this planet and were brought down to the ape man ‘ Adams ’ after they were converted to intelligent beings.

That explains a lot.

I sometimes suspect that whenever you have belief in a sacred text communicated by God, you must have some substantial craziness lurking in the background.