Darwin No Longer Welcome in Secular (?) Turkey

In what is being touted as a further sign of once-secular Islamic Turkey’s march toward fundamentalism, Charles Darwin has been given his walking papers. As of next year, evolution and 169 other topics will cease to be taught in Turkey’s schools to the consternation of critics of the Erdogan regime who describe a “reshaping” of the educational system according to the president’s clear shift toward conservatism. According to the Associated Press, Turkey’s education minister terms the academic directional shift a “value-based” program that “simplified topics in harmonization with students’ development.” The deletion of Darwin applies to high school level where it is presently taught in 12th grade but does not affect college-level courses.