Secular Turkey's evolution battle

Turkish biologists have much to be worried about: the drift to Islamism is creeping ahead in the perception of many academics so the enthusiastic welcome for an American evolutionary biologist earlier this year provided a welcome fillip for university staff. Turkey represents a unique state: formed from the remnants of the centuries-old Ottoman empire in 1923, it was headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who became Turkey's first president. Ataturk was determined to create a modern state and prevent Islam from being as influential in government as it had been during Ottoman times. He scrapped the Arabic alphabet in favour of the Roman one, granted equal rights for women and reformed education, including the elimination of the compulsory religious courses and introducing evolutionary theory as an important part of the biology curriculum. He also decided to avoid Istanbul as the capital of the new state in favour of the geographical more central, Ankara, less steeped in complex religious history. In the new Turkey, the Army was secularised so that Islam could not have any military power and it banned education in extremist Feature sectarian centres. A new legal system was adopted, creating a new Western-style country within ten years of Ataturk's control. In the educational reforms, Ataturk himself wrote some of the chapters of the 'History and Civilised Knowledge' textbook for high schools, which defended evolution, materialism and Western science. But, since Ataturk's death in 1938, Turkey has seen upheavals in Ataturk's plans with religious conservatives seeking to recreate conditions more reminiscent of Ottoman times, popular with many people. But Ataturk's secular state has established many supporters within academia, the law and the military. Creationism is creeping into the universities to the alarm of researchers supporting Ataturk's vision of a secular state. Nigel Williams reports. Embedded: Both Christianity and Islam are deeply interwoven in the history of Istanbul, as the ancient, originally Christian, church of Hagia Sophia shown here displays. Turkey has sought to separate religion from the state but researchers fear for the future. (Photo: Hamis/Alamy.)