In Turkey, fertile ground for creationism

The Washington Post ^ | Sunday, November 8, 2009 | Marc Kaufman, Washington Post Staff Writer

[Gondring]

Adnan Oktar, who as Harun Yahya is
Turkey's best-known and most assertive
critic of evolution, says he is
"following the path of Allah."
(Marc Kaufman/the Washington Post)

ISTANBUL -- Sema Ergezen teaches biology to Turkish students interested in teaching science themselves, and she has long struggled with her students' ignorance of, and sometimes hostility to, the notion of evolution.

But she was taken aback when several of her Marmara University students recently accused her of being an atheist, or worse, for teaching anything but the doctrine that God created the Earth and everything on it.

"They said I was a liar if I called myself a Muslim because I also accepted evolution," she said.

What especially disturbed -- and amused -- the veteran professor was that the arguments for creationism presented by some of the students came directly from the country where she was educated in the biological sciences years before -- the United States. Translated and adapted for a Muslim society, the purported proofs that Darwinism and evolution were wrong came directly from American proponents of Christian creationism and its less overtly religious offshoot, intelligent design.

[...]

To many Turkish scientists and educators, this is a worrisome development. The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was an advocate of science, education and, some say, even evolution. Turkish science has been especially strong in the Muslim world. If Turks close their minds to evolutionary thinking, advocates say, it won't be long before religion and politics shut off other scientific pursuits.

[...]

[Gondring]

You mean like trolling FR with atheist talking points, while ignoring literal theocracies run by Muslims over there?

Huh? I'm the one who posted this disturbing article, where theocracy threatens science.

[Gondring]

Actually, it has had something to do with some of those. Very quietly, scientists are using the findings of evolutionary research to create self-improving mathematical models. A sprinkle of randomness (you know, that thing mocked by hardcore creationists) as multiple models are run, and a culling of the less successful for the next generation...and an self-perpetuated evolution of models occurs.

[count-your-change]

Self improving mathematical models? That should convince the Turks of the value of evolutionary theory in their lives.

In fact, had Charles Darwin devoted his life to his pigeons and not promulgated his theories, would any Turk be worse off, be lacking in anything they have now? Would I? In a word......no.

[Gondring]

Only if believe that knowledge has no meaning.

[grey_whiskers]

Huh? I'm the one who posted this disturbing article, where theocracy threatens science.

Exactly! Why aren't you over there DOING something about it: I suspect that the proportion of Turkish creationists among the denizens of FR is something less than a plurality.

But the creationism alone isn't worrisome to me: what worries me is whether Turkey is sliding from a more-or-less secular state to an explicitly Mohommadean one -- given that we have nukes stored at Incirlik.

Cheers!

[a_Turk]

You will find few IQs over 80 on this forum anymore.

[eleni121]

The founder of the parastate of Turkey Kemal Mustafa was a proponent of the final solution—the butchery of 4 million Christians betweem 1915 and 1923.

Turks are what they are: cold blooded amoral murderers. As such what they do or do not teach makes no difference in the grand scheme of the Lord.

Pity them.