Posted by Darwin issue of a magazine is banned in Turkey:
The title summarizes all the lunacy at once. After all the censorship towards evolution (and many other things), Turkish government finally took a giant step -backwards- for all mankind and blocked the whole issue of a scientific magazine.
Darwin is now completely banned in Turkey. What a shame.
(Note that the above link belongs to RichardDawkins.net, which is another banned website in Turkey. Therefore readers from Turkey can not access it)
According to the news, the cover of the biggest and oldest magazine called Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Tech) has been changed after the release has been completed and ready for printing, due to the decision made by the new Vice President of the institution: Omer Cebeci PhD. Omer Cebeci was just assigned to that position when the government decided to be in charge of all the scientific institutions.
Turkey is an American ally in the bridge between Europe and the Middle East. It is in a strategic location. Turkey has been a secular country for most of a century, although largely Muslim by population. Freedom of thought and speech was largely respected in Turkey (if not for the Kurds and the Greek Cypriots,) but at least in academia. Turkey is moving dangerously towards a Muslim religious takeover of government, and most frightening is the censorship of science that embarrasses creationists.
It may be the influence of Adnan Oktar, the sex criminal, whose idea of defending Islam is to spread lies about the facts of evolution. People more familiar with Turkey, such as my reader Betul, can better analyze what is going on. In fact, Betul sent me an e-mail alerting me to the censorship of a science and technology magazine whose entire issue was to have been devoted to the 200th birthday of Sir Charles Robert.
Nature on Turkey’s Darwin Censorship:
I am glad Nature has put this issue out there. Read the article: Turkish Scientists Claim Darwin Censorship
Turkey takes another step in its downward spiral towards Islamic fundamentalism:
Turkish newspapers (here and here), the journal Nature as well as Turkish bloggers (here and here) are reporting that TÜBITAK, the government-controlled science funding organization of Turkey has removed from the March issue of its own popular-science magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) an article about Charles Darwin and evolution. A planned cover featuring a picture of Darwin was also replaced.
The blatant censorship was apparently ordered by TÜBİTAK’s vice-president Ömer Cebeci. It’s a sad occasion for Turkish science and the intellectual future of the country.
Darwin too controversial for Turkish science magazine:
In the US, creationism is a menace that can do real harm to science. But at least the US is not a Muslim country.
In the latest news about creation and evolution from Turkey, it appears that the leading, government-supported popular science magazine in Turkey has been prevented from running a cover story on the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. Ömer Cebeci, a high official in the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (who incidentally is an engineering Ph.D. from Iowa State University), intervened at the last minute to change the cover story and delete the 15 pages of Darwinian material.
From the news I’ve read, I’m having trouble reading between the lines to figure out what must have happened behind the scenes. Perhaps Cebeci is a creationist. Creationism is not uncommon among engineers, quite common among Muslim engineers, and very common indeed among Turkish officialdom under the current Islamist ruling party. On the other hand, it may just be an attempt to protect the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey from being associated with “controversial” ideas such as evolution, which may draw unwanted attention, or worse, budget cuts, from the Islamists.
Turkish scientists claim Darwin censorship:
The main Turkish government agency responsible for funding science has provoked outrage by apparently censoring a magazine article on the life and work of Charles Darwin.
The article was stripped from the March issue of the widely read popular-science magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) just before it went to press. The magazine, which is published by Turkey’s research funding and science management organization, TÜBİTAK, also switched a planned cover picture of Darwin for an illustration relating to global warming.
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