Hey captain, are you planning to make a debunking video for your channel? Your Pharoah debunking is maybe the best I've seen, along with stopspamming1's Haman debunking (I put them both on the links page on my site - see sig). I bet you would rip Hamza's masterpiece to shreds. Klingschor's vid following the PZ Myers ambush got 20,000+ views, so there's a sizable potential audience for exposing our friend, Mr Tzortzis. Maybe more so this time as some people who are given this paper because of proselytizing & his £10,000 spamfest will google things like "iera embryology paper debunked". I'd be very happy for you to make use of anything I've noted in this thread. This stuff about mudghah exposes his dishonest / careless referencing practises pretty well:
His reference #64 for the following claim on pg 26 about mudghah (lump of flesh)...
"Other meanings include something that teeth have chewed and left visible marks on; and marks that change in the process of chewing due to the repetitive act."
...is a scientific miracles promoter called Dr Zaghloul El Naggar, who in turn gives no references. He goes on to infer from this that it can mean something chewed only once on pg28.
I was too kind in my post above about his ref #62 to Lane's Lexicon for mudghah. The page he references isn't to the wrong word, the page doesn't even exist. There is no page 411 in vol.5. Perhaps he couldn't find it so he just made up a reference hoping no-one would check. It is actually vol. 8 page 3021 (Hamza didn't even give the right volume). I know he is using the same edition of Lane's lexicon as me since I confirmed some of his other citations were correct.
http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume8/00000275.pdfAnother thing I noticed was that he says this mudghah stage refers to the 4th week, but even in the 5th week the embryo measures only 4mm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_development#Week_6The lexicon seems to says it's a piece of flesh such as a man puts in his mouth. I guess you could say "bite-sized". 4mm is obviously too small to fit that description, so his metaphor is limited (if you are sufficiently deluded) to form, certainly not scale.
Another thing is that he uses Abdel Haleem's translation, which is completely different from every other translation where it says at the end of 23:14 "and later we made him into other forms" (
compare with dozens of others). It also says "clinging form" instead of clot like most others, and as I noted above, translates fa as "and" instead of "then" a couple of times.
YEt another thing:
It seems we have a quote mine job for sullalah (extract) in 23:12 as in extract of clay. He cites Lane's Lexicon to translate it as extract, but says this means extracting certain elements from the clay. On page 11 he says:
"By applying a scientific analysis to this verse it becomes clear that this stage
appertains to certain essential chemical components. It is significant that these
chemical components are found in clay. They include: Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen,
Nitrogen, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Chlorine, Sodium, Magnesium
and Silicon; all of which are required for human functioning and development"
Lane's Lexicon says:
"[an extract of a thing: and hence,] the clear, or pure, part, or the choice, best, or most excellent part [of a thing]; (Mgh, and Ksh and Bd and Jel in xxiii:12;) because drawn from the thick, or turbid, part. (Mgh.) It is said in the Kur [xxiii.12],وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ مِن سُلَالَةٍ مِّن طِي, meaning [And verily we created man from] what was drawn forth from every kind of dust, or earth: (Fr, TA : ) or from a pure, or choice, or most excellent, sort of earth or clay. (Ksh, Bd, Jel)"
http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume4/00000121.pdfIn other words, just a specially selected sort of clay
Topic: Hamza's paper on Embryology "miracle"