Turkey Drops Evolution From Curriculum, Angering Secularists

Turkey Drops Evolution From Curriculum, Angering Secularists
By PATRICK KINGSLEYJUNE 23, 2017
ISTANBUL — Turkey has removed the concept of evolution from its high school curriculum, in what critics fear is
the latest attempt by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to erode the country’s secular character.
“But they do not have a coherent theological, religious ideology.”
The party and Turkish politics in general are best viewed through an authoritarian lens rather than an Islamist one, said Ms. White, the author of “Muslim Nationalism
and the New Turks,” a book about identity in contemporary Turkey.
According to Kerem Oktem, the author of “Angry Nation,” a history of contemporary Turkey, the country
is “not continuing along a process of secularization — it’s going into a post-secular context.”
Still, Turkey is not considered likely to morph into a second Iran.
“This is one of the basic topics you need to understand living beings, life and nature.”
Over the past five years, analysts have noted how Mr. Erdogan’s government has steadily increased references to Islam in the curriculum
and removed some references to the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder.
“Our students don’t have the necessary scientific background
and information-based context needed to comprehend” the debate about evolution, said the official, Alpaslan Durmus, the chairman of the Education Ministry’s Education and Discipline Board, which decides the curriculum, in a video posted on the ministry’s website.