Turkey Blocks Web Pages Touting Darwin’s Evolution Theory
The blocking by Turkish state authorities of Web pages advocating the theory of evolution has put the focus on wider concerns by teachers and academics that the ideas of Darwin increasingly are being undermined by the Islamic-rooted government.
Numerous web pages advocating the theory of evolution recently were deemed unsafe for children by Turkey’s regulatory board controlling the Internet.
Yaman Akdeniz of Istanbul’s Bilgi University is an expert on Internet freedom.
“The authorities are trying to establish one view, one morality that the youngsters of our generation should subscribe to,” said Akdeniz.
Undermining evolution
The result was an outcry by the media and academics. Soon after, regulatory authorities re-instated the web pages, with the regulatory authority claiming the ban was a “clerical error.” Recent media reports, however, say the evolution sites still remain blocked in schools.
The controversy is not only confined to the Internet. Professor Asli Tolon is a molecular biologist at Istanbul’s Bosphorus University. She has been tracking the changes in how evolution is taught in school text books.
Tolon said the idea of evolution increasingly is undermined by creationists who argue the world was created by God.
