Turkey is Banning Evolution in High Schools

The Story
     On June 23rd Alpaslan Durmus, chairman of the Turkish Education Ministry’s Education and Discipline Board (pictured above) announced that high-school text books will no longer contain a chapter on evolution as of September. 
    First thing I need to say is: I don’t speak Turkish.  I’ve had to find English translations and transcripts of what he said, so if any Turkish speakers feel I’m misrepresenting him please let me know.  As far as I can glean though, Durmus said evolution was “debatable, controversial and too complicated for students,” so instead of teaching it in high-school “this section will be delayed until undergraduate study”. 
    Durmus did make it clear however that students “would still be taught an evolutionary point of view” but this raises a lot of questions.  It’s a vague statement because if he’s fine with an "evolutionary point of view" why not just let the topic be taught properly?  The whole of Biology comes from an evolutionary point of view so he might as well be saying "Biology will be taught in a Biological context".  Until he clarifies what he means, we have to assume the majority of evolution is under threat.

We’re Not Talking About Religion
    I’m not going to talk about the religious implications and overtones of this debate.  They are relevant of course but that’s not what I’m here for.  I never mention my religious beliefs on the blog (I've explained why) and I don’t tell them to very many people.  So the best way to read this is not to assume I’m an atheist or religious.  Just assume I’m a Science teacher.  And, as a Science teacher, I disagree with the decision being made.  I’ll do my best to outline why.

I ain't touching this

Is Evolution Too Complicated?
    Durmus says evolution is complicated and therefore shouldn’t be taught in high school.  The first objection is obvious: learning things you don’t understand is the whole point of school.  His argument seems to be that schools shouldn’t be teaching things children don’t understand.  The alternative would therefore be to teach things they already know - another way of saying don’t teach them at all.  Learning always involves challenge because it involves putting new information into your brain.
    Secondly, most people aren’t stupid.  OK, some are not very good at understanding things or come from homes where they aren’t encouraged to think.  And yes, all humans are prone to making silly mistakes (myself included).  But most people are able to understand something if a) they’re motivated and b) it’s explained properly.  Eventually you might find a topic you don’t have the motivation to understand, but it’s up to you as an individual to decide where that line is, not the government. 
    Now, I do agree with Durmus that evolution is complicated in its entirety.  Ideas like punctuated equilibrium, gene transposition, enclaves, limiting factors and the molecular machinery of DNA itself are fiddly concepts.  Evolution is definitely tricky...but so is every Scientific topic.
    Take light for example.  The fully fleshed theory of light involves an understanding of tensor calculus, quantum mechanics, field theory and special relativity, so in high-school we teach an age-appropriate model.  This doesn’t mean we lie to children, we just teach them the bits they can handle and move onto the details later.
    In year 8 I talk about light travelling in straight lines.  In year 9 I talk about the fact that light is a ripple in an invisible field.  In year 10 I talk about wave interference.  In year 11 I introduce the equations which predict refraction.  In year 12 I talk about wave-particle duality and at University, physics undergrads will learn Maxwell’s equations. 
    At each stage we build the complexity and go deeper in understanding.  We don’t always get it right but it means people understand as much as they are able to.  Evolution is the same.  I wouldn't go straight into a Year 9 class and start talking about phosphylation, but the basics of evolutionary theory aren’t hard to grasp.  I’ll prove it:
 
1) Every living thing has a chemical in its cells called DNA which determines what features it has.
2) When the creature has offspring, the DNA is copied and the child has features of its parents.
3) DNA can mutate slightly.
4) DNA mutations mean a child can be different to a parent.
5) When the child has its own offspring the mutation can get passed on.
6) Sometimes a mutation makes the creature struggle to survive its environment, making it less likely to have offspring – the mutation is less likely to get inherited.
8) Sometimes a mutation gives the creature an advantage to survive its environment, making it more likely to have offspring – the mutation is more likely to get inherited.
9) A large species can end up being split into groups, some with mutation A and some with mutation B, corresponding to different ways of surviving the environment.
10) Run this process for 3.5 billion years of changing climate and geography.
11) The result is that a single species can become the ancestor of every species on Earth.
 
Which of those points is too complicated for 15-year olds?

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Debatable and Controversial
     I agree with Durmus on this one too.  Evolution is up for debate because every Scientific idea is up for debate.  The idea of fires giving out heat is a scientific claim and you’re allowed to debate it.  “Debatable and controversial” doesn’t mean "nobody knows if it’s true".  It means we’re not arrogant enough to assume we know everything.
     Some evolutionists take the wrong tac here and say things like “if you object to evolution it’s because you’re stupid and don’t understand it.”  Nope, sorry, that’s the wrong approach.  Everyone should be allowed to discuss evolution. 
    For me personally, evolution is no longer debatable because I had the debate several years ago...and lost it.  I went to a school where evolution was vaguely frowned-upon and I started off not believing it.  I even decided to research the topic so I could disprove it...but in the process of trying to debunk evolution I found the evidence so powerful (overwhelming in fact) I had no choice but to accept its truth.  Perhaps at some point in the future some evidence will come along that forces me to change my mind, if so then fine.  That’s what an honest Scientist does.  Science involves listening to counterarguments, not dismissing them.
    And that’s a problem with what Durmus is saying.  While I personally don’t think evolution is debatable I understand that for many it still is.  Debates and discussions are a healthy part of a Scientific education but if you remove one side of the issue you can’t have the debate at all. 
    Durmus says, “If our students don’t have the background, the scientific knowledge, or information to comprehend the debate around controversial issues, we have left them out [of the syllabus]”  In other words: if students don’t know the facts they will be unequipped to have debates about them, so we are removing those facts.  Simply put “we are removing their ability to debate”.  This isn’t how Science works. 
    Leaving evolution to undergraduate level is not an acceptable compromise either.  There are 11 Universities in Turkey offering a degree in Biological Sciences.  If we assume approximately 200 places on each course say, and given the population of Turkey, we will end up with around 0.003% of the population being taught evolution.  If Durmus truly believes evolution is debatable he should allow a debate to happen.  Preventing 99.997% of a population from understanding one of the side’s arguments doesn’t sound like an informed debate to me.  A healthy debate about evolution should let evolution have a say.  That's what a fair fight looks like.

More like it!

Teach the controversy
    A lot of anti-evolutionists, particularly in America, have adopted the catchy slogan “teach the controversy”.  The idea is that because evolution isn’t accepted by everyone we should be teaching alternative ideas in parallel and letting students make up their own minds.  This “teach the controversy” idea fails to understand how education works, how Science works and how philosophy works.
    Science is all about presenting the evidence and training people to evaluate it.  That’s what a Science teacher’s job is.  Whether the person actually accepts the evidence is out of the teacher’s hands.  There are indeed people who don’t accept evolution and, for them, it’s a controversial topic.  But a teacher is supposed to teach what the evidence is, NOT say “here’s some non-evidenced stuff as well”.
    Take the theory of rain.  The Scientific viewpoint is that clouds are made of water vapour condensing and when the droplets get bigger the warmth from convection fails to support them and they fall.  That’s what the evidence says so that’s what we teach in Science class.  Let’s consider an alternative explanation: there are water creatures hovering above the clouds (which are actually made of cotton wool).  When they cry, the cotton gets full of tears and the rain falls.
    Now we have a controversy about rain.  But as a Science teacher it’s my job to teach the evidenced idea.  You’re welcome to study the water creatures in philosophy class but in Science we’ll look at what the experimental, falsifiable evidence says. 
    Teach the controversy means “teach things other than evidence” which is another way of saying “go beyond what Science knows.”  And I have no right to do that.  How dare I be arrogant enough to go beyond the remit of Science?  That would be so offensive to parents.  For that reason Science teachers aren't permitted to teach any controversy, we are only permitted to teach facts.
    Sure, people don’t have to accept rain theory and they are welcome to research and investigate the water creature idea.  I will even encourage students to discuss the rain theory and object if they want, but permitting questions doesn’t mean teaching alternatives. 
    In the Biology classroom I actively encourage discussion about evolution.  In fact, on Monday I did exactly that, and let all the students debate with each other on how strong the evidence was.  Questions are good in Science; non-evidenced and non-falsifiable hypotheses on the other hand, are not.
    Besides, when it comes to evolution we have a bigger problem.  The sheer number of alternative explanations for how diverse life arose on Earth would make it impossible to cover them all.  Some anti-evolutionists in America might insist we teach the literal creationist account of Adam and Eve found in the Tanakh for instance.  But what about all the alternatives to that idea?
    In Mayan mythology Kukulhan fashions living things out of corn.  In Norse mythology Odin carves wooden logs into the shapes of various animals, including humans.  In ancient Egyptian religions Ra crys a river which contains humans as impurities.  In Kuban mythology the god Bumba vomits out all life on Earth.  And so on.
    If we taught the controversy we would have to teach every creation story on Earth and with over 4,000 to go through, that’s quite a lot.  Science education should focus on the evidence and that happens to be evolution.  Yes, people should be given all the facts and should be permitted to question and debate them, but we just don't have time to teach the controversy, because we'd have to teach every controversy, including things like this...

Science isn’t Political
    Perhaps the biggest issue I have with Durmus’ speech is that at one point he says the new curriculum would be “in line with local and national values.”  He seems to think Science ought to conform to a particular government or cultural preference.  No.  No.  No.
    Science can never be in line with “national values” because Science has no nationality.  Science is Universal and represents the facts of an entire cosmos.  They cannot be bent to fit a government directive.  I’m sorry but if a policy disagrees with facts, shouldn't you change the policy? 
    And even more worryingly, Durmus seems to be implying that national and local values don’t have to be based on evidence.  What should they be based on then?  Aren't political decisions more likely to be sensible if they are based on the truth?  Am I missing something here?

It's not a Pick 'n' Mix Either
    I used to reject evolution when I was younger.  I actually preferred the non-evolutionary point of view.  I didn’t like having to change my mind and accept something uncomfortable but that's the way reality works.  To be intellectually honest with yourself, to have self-respect, is to accept uncomfortable truths rather than brushing them under a rug.  I have now grown to love evolutionary theory and appreciate its beauty, majesty and even spirituality. 
    But to accept one aspect of Science is to accept all the underlying principles which explain it, and therefore all the other things those principles imply.  It’s all the same Science.
    Right now you’re reading this on the internet.  If you’re accepting that the internet exists and this information is really in front of you, you accept the theory of electricity.  And that theory is based on particle physics.  So you accept the existence of particles as well.  To accept particles is to also accept the laws of quantum mechanics and therefore the principles of chemical bonding.  Chemical bonding is the theory which underpins DNA and biochemical behaviour.  Subsequently you have to believe in the laws of biology and therefore evolution. 
    Chopping out one bit of evidenced Science is liking chopping out one of the numbers between 1 and 10.  It’s all part of the same framework.  Perhaps Durmus genuinely does fear for the education of his students, or perhaps there is some other reasoning for the evolutionary ban.  I don’t know. 
    What I do know is that The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his desire was to build a nation in which Scientific education would be of the highest quality.  It was actually part of his political philosophy that Science teachers be given high status and be defended from their detractors.  Turkey began with a proud ideology of respecting Scientific advances, rooted in a deep respect for critical thinking.  This is a noble dream and I hope one day it is allowed to continue.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - the founder of Turkey

Image credits:
Alpaslan Durmus: nydailynews
God and Evolution: slayerment
Charles Darwin: darwinday
Superman vs Batman: mediastinger
Teach the Controversy: neatorama
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: turkishtravelblog