After admitting that the Muslims in the UK, at least, were a little bit better than the Christian fundamentalists in the US, look what Turkey has gone and done.
The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported.
Where once Turkey had the pride of being one of the most secular Islamic nations, they’ve now fallen far.
I’m flabbergasted. The TÜBİTAK is real, it’s not some Patriot Bible University.
At least the comments on the Hürriyet article are good… Hürriyet is a big newspaper, sold everywhere in Vienna; didn’t know there was an English version.
Face? Meet Palm.
Only tangentially related, but….allow me to completely dampen spirits, and pull all those overconfident– even arrogant– in our ranks who think we are slowly but steadily ‘winning’ to be ratcheted down a notch or two. Observe….
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/10/bucking-previous-trends-survey-finds-growth-of-the-religiously-unaffiliated-slowing/
Hardly surprising. Democracy without education. Not good.
Good to see Latvia beating the US though (albeit not by much)!
Who really needs anything so old-fashioned as truth–and meaningful standards of same?
OTOH, they might not find that ignorance is as inexpensive as they hoped. It is cheap, though.
Glen Davidson
And to think that they had illusions of becoming a member of the EU.
Another way to look at it: Ignorance is easier but the price is very very high and the payment methods are legion.
‘Bout time for that extinction level event isn’t it?
kreativekaos @ 2
And what else do you expect a religiously tainted page to admit to?
The last thing would be reality…be not of faint heart tis but shadows a tap tap tapping at your bedroom door!
Once upon a time in Turkey.
Sigh.
From the comments there:
I have some of those doctors as collegues. Cognitive dissonance on full power. Spoke to some about Hox genes once, 500 million years and all, didn’t go down well. Then it sank in that they are actually all creationists.
Forget the Ottoman Empire. It’s poor old Ataturk who’ll be turning in his grave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk
thorgolucky — Yes, I wondered the same thing. How will the EU see this? Not that the EU has been exactly chomping at the bits to get Turkey in, but Erdogan has been working on it for years.
Despite the officially secular stance of the government, Turkey has been functionally theocratic for a long time now.
I’m afraid that I fail to see a significant change in Turkey. That country has long
opposed evolution, to the point that it has been illegal to publicly state that people
are related to animals (actually being animals no less). See the Nat Geo website
showing that evolution has been even less accepted in Turkey than within the US.
NatGeo
Hey if it wasn’t for Turkey, the US would be bottom of the list as far as industrialized nations and belief in evolution.
Hooray for Turkey!
anubisprime@8: Well and artfully said.
This is the moment when the hoi-poloi should begin their protests, but no – they’ll tell themselves that the theists have their hearts in the right place and perhaps it might be best to wait and see.
MEMO
TO: The civilized nations of the world
Recent educational policy changes in Turkey will force rational, intelligent Turk parents to send their children out-of-country for a real education.
Expect to see more Turks applying to your universities.
…
Expect to sell more medium to higher end technologies, and the support staff to operate it, to Turkey as they lose the ability to produce or operate any themselves.
…
Expect, in the long term, to sell to Turkey the most basic technology, such as pencils and crayons for the same reason as above.
…
Alas, I do not know where Turkey will get the resources to pay for any of it. There is a limit to their natural resources.
Sparks
I think we are in the process of an extinction event whether we are at the beginning , middle or toward end only time will tell.
When I look at other events in the past it is my impression that many took many years not the Hollywood death blow. the only “wild” species that I know of outside of our vermin and transplants that has not been diminished world wide is us.
On Turkey and theocracy of all majority Islamic countries it has suffered the least in this latest round of upheaval, I do not think it will continue like that.
uncle frogy
“The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey”
Only a bit Orwellian, that name.
Creationism?
That’s nothing.
http://khalas.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/a-flat-earth-the-islamic-perspective/
jnorris @18
I expect they will get the money from the UK, EU and the USA.
What – in New Fucking Zealand!?!?!
Erdoğan wants to be caliph. Disappointed with the EU, he’s looking in the other direction now, towards Iraq and Syria. As soon as China lets him, he’ll have Assad strangled with a silken cord… ;-)
That’s not Turkey.
Already lots of them in Germany (I believe they are our single largest minority, by a large amount), I guess we’ll get more … apart from the time when the PKK and the Turkish secret services held part of their war over here (which was the main reason the PKK was declared a terrorist organization in Germany, long before the US “war on terror”), I’d say overall, they have also been the least problematic group apart from our direct neighbors.
Of course, Turkey and Germany have a long history with each other, going back at least to Ataturk (who called in a few German linguists to create the modern Turkish writing system – there’s a reason they use a Latin script with lots of German-style ü and ß and so on).
Remember also that Turkey is not only the only Islamic NATO member, but was until recently the only Islamabad state with military cooperation with Israel. (And I remember back in my BITNET times … um, wasn’t LISTSERV a Turkish development?)
But modern Turkey has always struggled between the secularists (especially the military) and the Islamists.