Turkey to stop teaching evolution in high schools

[quote]At a news conference last month, Turkey’s education minister announced that new textbooks will be introduced in all primary and secondary schools, starting with grades 1, 5 and 9 this fall, and the rest next year. They will stop teaching evolution in grade 9, when it’s usually taught.

“Evolutionary biology is best left to be taught at the university level,” Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz told reporters. “It’s a theory that requires a higher philosophical understanding than schoolchildren have.”

That means students who don’t go on to university may never learn who Charles Darwin was.[/quote]

It’s interesting the defense for taking it out is developmental not religious. But I suspect the real rationale is different.

It’s a pretty pure case of religious anti-evolutionists capturing school policy. There has been a concerted effort by people promoting disinformation about science who’ve driven toward for this for several years now.

The one astrophysicist quoted also added:

“It is not only evolution. Evolution is a test case. It is about rationality — about whether the curriculum should be built on whatever the government chooses to be the proper values”

And of course one of these quotes:

“In school, they taught us humans evolved from monkeys. But that’s not true,” says Suat Keceli. “I support our government taking it out of biology textbooks. I think it’s Satan’s work.”

Sounds like they need some BioLogos over there:

“Most Turks don’t believe in evolution because it implies that God doesn’t exist, and we’re all here on earth just by chance! That’s confusing”

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