Or he would be, if he weren’t an inanimate corpse that had ceased to be. Erdogan is continuing his corruption of Turkish culture, opposing both secularism and — the usual target — the teaching of evolution.
Evolution will no longer be taught in Turkish schools, a senior education official has said, in a move likely to raise the ire of the country’s secular opposition.
Alpaslan Durmuş, who chairs the board of education, said evolution was debatable, controversial and too complicated for students.
“We believe that these subjects are beyond their [students] comprehension,” said Durmuş in a video published on the education ministry’s website.
Well, gosh, if we remove everything that is complicated from education, you’ll just end up with simple adults. Simple adults who get everything wrong.
I’m just waiting now for our president to treat this as an inspiration.
Betty De Vos is probably just as much of a worry.
You don’t have to wait. It’s one reason we have DeVos. The anti-science Idiot-in-Chief clearly appealed to religious wackos who believe they can stick their heads up their asses and make reality go away. So, cut education, cut research…pretty soon we’ll have a nation of even simpler people ready to vote for the latest version of Trump.
To children unburdened with a-priory religious indoctrination, basic principles of of evolution are actually very easy to comprehend.
You’ve Named Trump’s Worst! (New York Times edits in {curly braces}):
If – as could well happen – the orange guy gets impeached or just loses interest, his successor would be a man who would do exactly this if he could.
Too Complicated My Arse.
I suppose this is a situation where the half-assed decentralized system in the US is an advantage. Even with DeVos, there will always be places where evolution is taught in the schools.
But I mourn for Turkey.
Turkey is attempting to join the EU, or at least was. They have to pass, I think, some 46 tests for membership. They’d passed only one; the science test. Oops! Back to zero…
I’ve never been sure what to think of Ataturk. He turned Turkey into a secular democracy, which is good I guess, but one cannot force a country to be a secular democracy, and what’s happening now may be the backlash we could have expected for decades.
Lucky for me, I know exactly what to think of Erdogan.
Yes. I don’t know what the current situation is, albeit I think it is still as aspiration. I myself previously supported that aspiration, but at the moment, my support is now suspended — Erdoğan is multiple bridges and moats and mazes too far.
And don’t forget that willfully ignorant creationist theocrat, VP Mike Pense:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4656424/mike-pence-intelligent-design
Well hell, education is complicated, so why not do away with that?
bullshit.
what is happening is a power hungry authoritarian saw the opportunity with an unstable ME and open civil war between Islamic sects, to ride that to power by demonizing the usual suspects and turning Turkey into another “religious” autocracy.
it has FUCK ALL to do with a populist backlash to secularism. Turkey was HAPPY with the way they were, until these fuckers deliberately stirred shit for greed.
so, no I outright reject your entire premise.
Turkish government officially concedes children stupider under Erdoğan: details at
elevenall-fingers-&-one-toe.