First they ban Richard Dawkins’ website, then they buy out the entire print run of the Turkish translation of The Ancestor’s Tale in a day. Clearly, we need to start making smuggling runs, bringing in copies of The God Delusion and printed pages of the daily commentary on richarddawkins.net, so we can make a fabulous profit.
There’s a certain romance to the idea of being a grim, scruffy smuggler, braving the rugged Aegean coast in daring midnight runs to bring atheist literature to underground freethinker salons of swarthy, hard-bitten raki-guzzling Turks.
Ha ha ha!! Count me in!
That’s rather sad that the Turks are doing this. Especially since it’s supposed to be a “Secular-Muslim” country.
I went there a year ago and the tour guide was really proud that he wasn’t living in a theocracy. He was also bitter toward the really Muslim countries for f**king up relations for all Middle Easterners.
I’m totally on board for athiest, romanting, scruffy smuggling! Where do I sign up?
Let’s focus on the positive here. The printing sold out! There is an audience for atheism and reason in Turkey (of course there is). And there was no ban on the book.
Of course … it may be that the nutters have bought all the books to have a public burning … but as long as it lines the pockets of Dawkipoo or his foundation.
I wonder. Might it be possible to set up a mirror of Richarddawkins.net in Turkey? If need be sans comments – for a start at least.
This is a good sign. Dawkins can make a bundle from his turkish translations and put it toward the Richard Dawkins Foundation. I suggest that they now print 10,000 copies of 20,000
Congradulations Dawkins! Whatever the reason they bought it you still have the $$$$$$ (whatever money unit the Turks use.) I think they print money on tobacco leaves. The “nicotine standard” as its called.
I suggest trying to print some copies in Arabic and Farsi there are lots of secular intellectuals there. They hate living under “president” Im-a-dinnerjacket as much as we hate living unless Jesus W. Bush
And to clarify: my last post was not directed as a slight toward Muslims in particular; it was merely directed toward theocrats.
Was by any chance Armenian genocide mentioned in either book?
Maybe I’ve seen too many showings of Midnight Express, but perhaps smuggling and Turkey shouldn’t be uttered in the same breath?
You forget to say “kebab munching” as well.
You forget to say “kebab munching” as well.
I envision a reenactment of “Midnight Express”, with all the sordid and dangerous realities, and instead of drugs being the downfall, “The Ancestor’s Tale” is the run for the border! Movie in the making!
The world gets a little more like my angry young man novel everyday.
Has anyone brought up the possibility of aerial book drops?
Damn! I do love me a good kebab.
The world gets a little more like my angry young man novel everyday.
Has anyone brought up the possibility of aerial book drops?
wildifer @ 8
I see we were on the same wavelength! Scary when one considers the chance of a similiar happening over this shit.
I am always amazed that in a country where, according to the CIA World Factbook, 99.8% of the population is Muslim, people do drink so much Raki!
Oh well, fits with this inconsistency, too.
Haha! From now on, we should call you PZ Solo!
“Hokey religions and ancient superstitions are no match for a good science book at your side, kid. Now here, read ‘The God Delusion.'”
Pissing off religious fanatics is the best publicity in the world.
REPENT SINNERS!!
HERE IS DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT EVOLUTION IS A LIE AND THAT DINASUARS AND HUMANS COEXISTED!!!
I don’t think you want to make Muslims angry by smuggling in a book which you think they should believe in. Their punishments are much more severe over there than they are here…lol
Why should T E Lawrence get all the fame?
A semi-automatic, Mini-14 with a 40 round banana clip, a cigarette boat and some E.O. Wilson. Sounds good.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think that in 5,000 years of written history, anyone has ever accused the people of Anatolia of being consistent.
Your jihad envy is noted, and is stupid.
Maybe there’s hope for Turkey, but there goes Pakistan. Boom! Oh, well.
Unless some agency bought out the books to bury them. Hmm..
@19
Ok, you’ve convinced me. That video is credible.
@3
Dinoboy, you be the smuggler, I’ll provide my greek summer home as a base of operations. Otherwise, I would have to send them over the water in little bottles and let them wash to shore…
Meh. Just keep printing and shipping more of the books, in rapid succession. They can only buy-out so many batches before it becomes unaffordable… and, in the meantime, it’s easy money. :D
Hahah, reminds me of those morons in Texas who burnt all those Dixie Chicks CD’s because Natalie Maines said they were ashamed Bush was from Texas (despite actually being from Connecticut).
Yeah. Like they’re going to get real upset you morons went out and bought their CDs. Use your head.
Wow. Congratulations. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that amount of stupid, in such a relatively concise if erroneous post. Thanks for cheering me up.
But, PZ, I thought you were too scared to pick on the Muslims? I don’t understand.
PZ, you know you are welcome anytime here in Turkey, just pick the date and, i think, you’ll be overwhelmed by the turnout to you lecture. And we can even enjoy some raki afterwards, if that’s your thing. No need to get all anti-Crusader on us. :)) (The offer is dead serious by the way. Not the raki, lecture.)
Besides the author’s well known views, I must say there isn’t anything overtly atheistic or anti-religious about “The Ancestor’s Tale,” at least not as I read and understand it.
(Other than the fact that it presents an origin story that blows all genesis derived or related accounts out of the water in terms of power, sweep, beauty, and coherency. With the added bonus of being true, inasfar as one can call anything “true”)
I must say, though, that the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs would not necessarily invalidate evolution. If the dinosaur fossils dated to recent, human times, it would merely be evidence that some non-avian dinos survived the KT extinction. If it is the human fossils dating back to Cretaceous times, that is more of a problem, but could potentially simply indicate an earlier diversification of mammalian lineages than previously known.
The populations of Turkey and Idiot America have a higher percentage of creationists than any other Western country.
Cartoons attacking Creationism
amphiox wrote:
Either that or time travel will exist in the future.
Has anybody here been watching “Primeval” on BBC America?
I just realized that some might not know what the hell I’m jabbering on about since the Time article only talks about a part of the survey, so here’s the press release from Baylor themselves where you can read their conclusions first-hand.
The gloating “traditional Christian religion greatly decreases credulity” section comes right after the section on guardian angels that includes the quote “Conservative Protestants are more likely than liberal Protestants, Catholics or Jews to report religious or mystical experiences”.
All their conclusions show is that you can define your way to any conclusion you want.
dammit!
i don’t think the selling out of the book is good news. buying entire newspaper runs or book editions is a common practice for avoiding these printings get to the real public. At best, the books will end up stored somewhere. So, no contradiction, the ban is on
Ummm… usually when a first printing sells out, especially very quickly, there’s a second printing.
I hope Dawkins and his crew are smart enough to realize that they can make a ton off of this, since they almost certainly have already.
I’m looking forward to the second printing, to see how much money the nutters want to invest.
Two words. “Turkish Prison.” Not exactly a Turkish Delight.
OK, I admit my ignorance. Being eager to learn, I must ask– what is raki? Is it alcoholic? Is it good? If the answers to the two previous questions are both yes, is it obtainable in the US? If not obtainable, is it possible and/or legal to make it at home?
By the way, what is biting those poor Turks so hard? Insects? Should we smuggle in bug repellant also?
#5: The Turkish currency is the lira. Inflation is at near-infinite levels so the book probably costs a few billion lira. Anyway, I’ve been to Turkey several times, mostly the Aegean Coast which is much more secular and westernized than the eastern part, but I love the country and want to go back some day. Turkey has a long and proud tradition of church-state separation (or mosque-state I suppose you would say) but unfortunately there has been a lot of backsliding in recent years as an Islamic party has come to power. There is an east-west divide in Turkey similar to the red state-blue state thing in the US, but even in small rural villages I’ve found Turks to be surprisingly tolerant and open-minded. I hope they rein in the Islamists and eventually become fully integrated into the EU.
Be careful with the clandestine excursions into Turkey…..
……..anybody remember the movie “Midnight Express”?
Turkey is in this mess up to its neck just as far as is the U.S. has been. Turkey can be likened to a specimen version of the United States since 1922 when it became a democracy and began its long struggle to survive. What happens there you may as well apply to what you see in the U.S, perhaps on a smaller scale.
I do hope the people who purchased that printing were individuals, and not the authorities bent on censorship.
Ironic thing about Turkey is the incredible early christian sites and relics found there (Ephesus, being probably one of the most notable). Talk about being at a cross-roads of our two worlds and the war being fought there, Reason v religion. What better place.
I agree, kabob, onions & tomatoes, a handful of ekmek, a dollop of “yourt” to dip it in, and Raki to slosh it down with, spiced some of my best memories of that beautiful, historicaly wealthy country.
Raki (#40) is a highly alcoholic beverage based on the herb “anise” – tastes a lot like licorice. Turns a milky white when mixed w/water. Will knock you on your ass.
No, Turkey doesn’t have an inflation problem now. The current currency is the Turkish new lira. There was a revaluation in 2005 from the old lira which was virtually worthless, after a period in which the average inflation rate was around 40% per year. The Turks haven’t been in Turkey for 5000 years, 1000 years would be closer to the truth. I went to Turkey last year, and the guide seemed remarkably non-Muslim. Pity he seemed to think everyone in the tour group wanted to see the Christian sites in Turkey (where the wise men came from, where St Paul preached, where the Virgin Mary lived out her last days, etc. Oh hum, nice scenery though). We can’t scoff at the Turks for having mad creationists. I know there’s enough of them in Australia, even after we managed to deport Ken Ham to America, as revenge (before the event? How clever can we be?) for America getting us involved in Iraq (even in such a token degree).
Nasikabatrachus @17
“Haha! From now on, we should call you PZ Solo!”
what? you don’t recognise a wookie when you see one? :D
Turks make a very nice beer, Efes (especially the dark version), which they export to the US. I’d sure like to taste their domestic beers. And you guys can have the kebabs; I’ll just bogart the hunkar begendi.
I hope you’ll pardon me if I read at the table, speaking of whetted appetites. I’ve barely touched The Ancestor’s Tale so far.
I seriously doubt the book buyers were censorship minded. A much more likely scenario is that, the banning of the website led to such a degree of curiosity among the public that all the copies were grabbed off the moment they made it to the market. I obviously haven’t seen the Turkish book and couldn’t read it if I did, but Dawkins makes no secret of his atheism in the original, so they will be bound to come across that if it’s there.
Dawkins 1, Harun Yahya 0
It appears that the Turkish government is in favor censoring anti-Islamic books, while a sizable portion of the Turkish population is not.
Ooh, Turkey! I was there a month ago. I made friends with a train driver and wound up driving the ‘Trans-Asia Express’ through Kurdistan. ‘Express’ was a bit of a misnomer, however.
Hey, all.
Please help out with this PBS poll:
Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States?
Yes 51%
No 46%
Not Sure 1%
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
Norman Doering #34:
Yes, indeed. However, if you think about it, time travel to any extent beyond the occasional very rare “miracle exception” does, in fact, invalidate the theory of evolution. Common descent doesn’t work if large masses of descendents can willy nilly move back in time to coexist with their ancestors.
And some future creationist really could go back and put that colony of rabbits into the precambrian. (Assuming he and his rabbits don’t instantly suffocate in the oxygen depleted atmosphere. Of course, they could still fossilize in that scenario.)
It just occurred to me after writing #52 that time travel renders common descent unfalsifiable. Evolution, even if true, would then become a religion, which adherents could only accept on faith.
So what the DI and the rest of the creo crowd should be doing is investing heavily into the invention of time machines.
I would like to point out, once again, that it was not the Islamic-leaning government of Turkey that decided to censor RichardDawkins.net.
Anyone can go to a Turkish court and claim to be insulted by, for example, the contents of a website. All that is necessary for a temporary injunction to be filed by the court is that the matter be accepted for future trial.
The creationist cult leader, Adnan Oktar has made use of this feature of Turkish civil law several times in the past.
Click on the Banned in Turkey banner at richarddawkins.net to see the details.
Interestingly a great many of the commenters at Richard’s site also cannot get it through their heads that it is not the evil Islamic government that decided to block the site.
There’s a whiff of bigotry in the air.
#53
Wibbly wobbly…timey wimey…stuff.
Lugar: The Turks haven’t been in Turkey for 5000 years, 1000 years would be closer to the truth.
I know, and that’s why I wrote “Anatolia,” not Turkey. My point was — and I say this as a compliment — if you try to stereotype the people in that part of the world, or force them into some narrow characterization, you’re going to be wrong. I guess that’s true for any place, but I think Turkey has always been wildly diverse and inconsistent to a wonderful degree, since long before Helen’s face launched a thousand ships and Achaea crossed the wine dark sea to face the lofty towers of Illion.
It’s the crossroads between East and West, and there have always been all kinds of contradictory ideas and attitudes jostling for space there.
Sorry if that didn’t come across in my one-liner above.
Your proposal for dashing book smuggling has historical precedent. Back then, though, it was print in Holland, slip into France. See Robert Darnton’s “The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France” and “The Literary Underground of the Old Regime”. Informative and quite entertaining.
:) Two of my very favorite traveler’s tips are these – pack light, and carry Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale” as your carry-on book. I love the book, and have been reading it off and on since I received it as a gift shortly after the 2005 paperback book edition came out. The last time I flew with it, I was seated next to a passenger who, shortly after take-off, pulled out a laptop, a bible, and a sheaf of notes, before turning to me to start a conversation. I smiled, said hello, pulled out my book, and faced the cover in his direction. I am not exaggerating when I say that he recoiled, and didn’t speak to me again. It was lovely. Not so much productive in terms of educating the ignorant, but lovely none-the-less. It was the most quiet flight I’ve ever been on. :)
@ctenotrish above,
It’s also heavy enough to knock small children unconscious.
Had I been allowed to stay on the plane, it would have been everyone’s quietest flight ever…
Back in June when I first got to Turkey for my dig this summer, I posted something about finding the God Delusion for sale in a super market in Istanbul.
I would also note that, while I bought a copy (my Turkish is too poor to read it), I also know that Turks buy it.
As for the Turks themselves, many of them are strongly secularist, and are quite upset when they see women in traditional coverings etc. Most of them I met were hardly religious at all, and not a single person at the dig attended religious services or prayed. Although, since they were all professors and university students, it might be a non-representative sample.
Turkey is like anywhere large, the developed cosmopolitan ports could be anywhere. But drive into the hinterland to small towns and it changes. Just like anywhere. Also the ‘Islamist’ party in Turkey is less theocratically inclined than the Republican party in the US it seems.
I too am a supporter of Turkish entry to the EU, just offering them the possibility of entry has improved and liberalised the lives of Turks. Just think what full membership and recourse to the European court of human rights could do.
Also if you know Ouzo, you know Raki though my researches (hic!) suggest the Turks like their Raki a bit rougher than the Greeks like their Ouzo. At least in the West you see odl men sitting outside cafes playing dominos with little glasses of milky watered Raki. Efes is not a bad beer either, perfectly drinkable (hic!). The advertising hoardings for it are everywhere, can’t miss it. However I never saw a drunk Turk, lots of drunk tourists, yes, but no drunk Turks. Lets hope they don’t learn that one from us.
But it is the government’s fault that they have such a bad attitude and policy in the first place. In order to act pre-emptively (ie issue an injunction without having had a trial yet) the case should have to have merit rather than be clear nonsense. Rather like the situations in which people get locked up before trial vs the ones where they don’t (not counting inevitable errors in that determination of course – just dealing with what the policy is).
For defamation, judging by what the person on another thread presented as being the law, the Turkish seem to have a completely wrong-headed view. Ie they are routinely acting on meritless cases of non-defamation falsely called defamation (viz where the bad things being pointed out are true things for which the bad person should be censured rather than the truth-teller being censored).
gocart mozart said: “REPENT SINNERS!!
HERE IS DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT EVOLUTION IS A LIE AND THAT DINASUARS AND HUMANS COEXISTED!!!
Too bad I can’t watch you proof as Turkey has also blocked access to YouTube. ;) And WordPress blogs. And Pirate Bay. And my amateur porn site. And… Pretty soon there will be no point in having the internet at all. :(
SEF,
But is the Turkish defamation laws really that much more strict than the British? Remember, Ben Goldacre and the Guardian were forbidden from writing about ‘dr’ Rath from the moment he filed suit – whether it has merit or not (it didn’t).
And a coupla years back there was hella brou-hah-hah over rumours that prince Chuck had been involved in some sorta buggery – couldn’t be reported in the British media at all – lese-majesty presumably.
So, yes, Turkey has a long way to go, but they’re hardly the only ones.
Yes, if the person’s account on that other thread is true – although “strict” isn’t the correct word. The Turkish policy seems to be about protecting people from something which isn’t even defamation – ie it includes anything bad being said about them at all even if that thing is true.
In contrast, the UK version is at least supposed to distinguish between truth and falsehood – in that it isn’t defamation of character at all but exposition of true character if the thing being said is true. Also there usually (and this is where the Ben Goldacre case seems to be an example of the law gone wrong) has to be obvious merit in the case, ie evidence rather than mere whinging.
However, perhaps it’s unusual here that the whinge itself was pre-emptive, ie preceded the book actually coming out, rather than just being in reaction to something already published (the Grauniad column). For most situations, the whinger would have to be claiming mind-reading skills to say they knew that a specific someone was about to say something not only bad about them but untrue – and it’s that untrueness which is crucial to it genuinely being defamation rather than uncomfortable (to the wrongdoer!) truth carefully mislabelled as defamation.
Meanwhile, flattery isn’t a crime anywhere much (to my disgust, if not most people’s). You are allowed to tell all sorts of lies about people / organisations if those lies are generally considered to be nice things to say. The only time the law cares is when it falls within the territory of the Advertising Standards Authority or similar.
I’m picturing a remake of “‘Allo ‘Allo” about the incompetent atheist smugglers in Turkey.
It happened before and we can do it again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knygne%C5%A1iai
Great idea PZ, but convincing new publishers might be even better.
Regardless, I’d love to greet people on the border when they’re bringing the books, or meet them in Greece or wherever suits you so that I can pack the books up and bring them home. Just make sure the donors write some sort of contact (e-mails, maybe?) so readers here will know who to thank to.
Turkey has got a lot of bad press but I think that many people there truly want the country to remain secular. This news is good to hear…especially after the banning!
It just seems that people get so damned offended by anything critical and are playing the victim more and more. In a thread over at
anthropology.net
I mentioned that creationists lie, I was attacked by someone named michael with this: “I find this comment both disturbing and outrageous. Disturbing because you have just labeled a large proportion of the worlds population as liars with nothing to back your comment up with. Outrageous because as someone who at the very least is reading an Anthropological website the contempt for aspects of human culture contained within the remark itself is staggering.”
Contempt indeed!
I can’t tell where this guy is coming from yet…either a creationist or an extreme cultural relativist who thinks all views are equally valid. Either way, he’s offended damnit! And annoying and oh so wrong.
This idea of banning things because of offensive remarks has to stop…else it leads to people like Adnan using laws to grow ignorance.
Maybe we can smuggle in a little freedom of speech!
Sili #64 – I think the difference here is between criticising an idea and criticising a person. A personal criticism can be seen as a direct insult, and there are laws such as libel and slander laws to deal with attacks of this sort. Anything else comes under “Free Speech” as far as I’m concerned.
Say what you like about my race, religion, country, or any non-personal insult and I couldn’t care less. (NOTE: couldn’t, not could – Get it right, people!) But if you slander or libel me (or my family), I’ll see you in court. Simple really.
I couldn’t care less. (NOTE: couldn’t, not could – Get it right, people!) – El Herring.
I’ve observed here and elsewhere that “could care less” seems to be the standard American expression. Makes no sense if interpreted in terms of the meaning of the individual words of course, but it has apparently become part of the American “phrasal lexicon”, so I’m trying to get used to it.
Stop fighting a losing battle on the could/couldn’t front. Prescriptivism is unbecoming when there’s no basis for misunderstanding.
But Dawkins was banned exactly because of comments deemed offensive to Otkar – from the commenters, not the posters, themselves.
I can’t really see the difference between this and the libel suit by Rath.
Both systems are obviously broken, but it’s unfair to lay reduced freedom of expression solely at the door of Turkey. By law you can’t defame Atatürk; by law you can’t defame the royals. Tuh-may-toe, tuh-mar-toe.
Norman Doering (#34):
Dear God (rhetorical), is there a market in America for every piece of sub-standard crap that we Brits produce? I’m starting to feel deeply ashamed of the gross asymmetry of the cultural exchange. You give us Buffy, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, we give you Torchwood and Primeval.
Nick – ah yes, of course, another example of the steady American-style erosion of OUR language!
You can get used to it if you want to, but I have no intention of using or getting used to it. It’s sloppy, confusing and plain wrong. I don’t correct other posters in general, but if I use the phrase myself I will use it correctly, and point out the fact that it IS correct (which I shouldn’t have to do, but feel I must nowadays!)
The latter would imply huge problems with the fossil record, molecular dating and thus speeds of evolution, biogeography, and several other things. It would mean big trouble.
Has been mentioned several time already. Why don’t you start reading at the top of the thread?
In the interest of equal time I am obligated to mention on this fair & balanced blog that there’s also a Kurdish beer, Roj (j pronounced as in French).
Yesterday it had ten million votes in total. Today it has twenty-nine million. And the percentages haven’t shifted at all. I say forget about it.
Uh, I just arrived in IStanbul for a conference I am speaking at. I just got into the hotel, and I am getting to Dawkin’s site just fine. I also have a copy of the “portable atheist”, “quirkology”, “irreligion” and a Simon Signh book on me. I am tempted to leave some of them in the hotel, but I am too broke to buy myself new copies.
Well if you leave them at the hotel, there’s no way they’re going to make it to a library. If you intend to leave them, try a university library. I can tell you the nearest university if you tell me which district or hotel you’re at :)
The current Turkish Government (the AKP) may be more Islamist than previous secular governments but they were voted in because of their pro-EU outlook. Much of the western population of Turkey distrusts the Islamic past of Prime Minister Erdoğan but like the way he is taking the country forward. The AKP play up their religiosity for their more conservative voters, but this is hardly a Turkish problem.
I have just come back from Turkey and am already missing my daily intake of apple tea -sigh-
I bet they’d call you Kaptan Supya, PZ.
Uh, anyone want to buy a Turkish rug. All I can say is it has been a rough day.
Who’s scruffy-looking?
#34 and #52
The past is safe from time travel.
There are only two ways that time travel is theoretically possible with the physics we know, and neither is useful for altering the past to affect the present. One involves traveling through space at 99% the speed of light, which aside from requiring almost infinite amounts of energy, can only take you into the distant future.
The second method of time travel involves using a wormhole, one end of which stays with you, while the other end takes a long trip at 99% lightspeed into the distant future. But that wormhole can only take someone from the distant future back to the time the wormholes were made,
The second method also ignores the effect of paradoxes that would immediately wipe out any changes you made, since you no longer had any reason to travel back in time. In theory you could leave instructions to yourself in the future to go back on what would be a one-way trip, but they would make no sense, and unless carved in 100′ tall letters on the side of a mountain, would not likely survive the ravages of time.
I always assumed “I could care less” was short for the sarcastic “as if I could care less”. Personally I prefer “further indifference is infeasible”, although oddly I seem to be in the minority on that point…
Jane
What the…? I don’t know where that last line came from. Ignore it…