In Istanbul’s Taksim Metro Station—perhaps the busiest in the city—my friend and I noticed a beautiful feline skull sitting on a pedestal just outside a large room. It was smiling, as all skulls do, and seemed to bid us enter the room.
“Let’s see the science exhibit,” my friend said, tugging on my sleeve. Excited that there was a free and public exhibit much like those in New York, I enthusiastically agreed. The New York City Municipality does a great job at educating the public with art, culture and science exhibits scattered all over Manhattan. One can’t help but to feel a strong affinity towards a city that so readily spends its money on its inhabitants’ cultural enrichment. I will never forget the “You are in an art museum” signs all over New York’s subway stations and trains. I honestly can’t remember the works of art plastered on the walls, an obvious sign of my firm belief in the maxim about tossing the cheap gift aside while embracing the donor for their thought, but I will always appreciate the effort. I entered the exhibit feeling a distinct satisfaction. It was now clear that the Istanbul Municipality too placed an importance on my personal betterment.
I shuffled through the first area of the exhibit, which was mainly comprised of beautiful fish, feline and leaf fossils, as well as glossy posters of skeletons. My Turkish is awful, so I read what I could and ignored the rest.
I stared down at a complete fossil of a fish, which looked something like a Perch. Beside the fossil was a glossy photograph of the species of the fish, accompanied by the words, “25 MIL YILIK.”
“Wow,” I remarked to my friend. “This one is 25 million years old.”
I sidestepped to the next, a medium sized leaf fossil replete with the stem and a clear imprint of every vein. 53 MIL YILIK. Again, a modern day photograph of the green leaf. I was amazed at the age of these wonderful fossils, which dwarfed the span of those Roman and Nabatean ruins I’d seen in Jordan to the most miniscule of proportions. Granted, the ruins are the products of human hands and minds, while the fossilized organisms are natural occurrences, vestiges of those things created without first being conceptualized in a mind and drawn on paper or scraped on a sandstone wall.
I wondered, though, what was so special about fossils of organisms that had yet to be extinct. As I pondered this point, I came upon a dark poster of classic Darwin, outsized beard and all, sitting at his desk and staring off in thought. The title said something like, “Darwin’s Hatred of the Turks.” My friend translated a bit of the white text below, which drew on one of Darwin’s letters saying that “an endless number of lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world,” using the “so-called Caucasian races’” victory over the Turks in their “struggle for existence” as an example.
I had to admit that I never knew Darwin was a racist. Nonetheless, I initially thought the exhibit was on Darwin and evolutionary theory, but the poster on Darwin’s “hatred of the Turks” didn’t seem to make any sense. But if you’re targeting an exhibit at Turks, then I suppose its success does, to a certain degree, depend on its relevance to a Turkish viewer’s life. But how could anything be more relevant to one’s life than an exhibit on evolutionary theory? I ruminated. I moved on.
I crossed the room and came to a poster positioned at the end of the exhibit entitled in Turkish, “Why Is the Struggle Against Darwinism Important?” Below it another picture of Darwin, but in this one his hat is pulled low over his brows, his wrinkled face is distant but stern, and his beard is as thick and white as God’s in The Donnadio. My friend translated it, her eyes getting wider and her voice getting higher with each new sentence; “Communism, Fascism, Nazism are all based on Darwin’s theories;” “If you still believe in Darwinism you are blind to the truth,” “Darwinism is totally incompatible with the Holy Koran,” etc, etc, etc.
The veil had lifted from our eyes. I looked about nervously for further proof of my worst fears about the exhibit. I found an English poster on the “myth” of the evolution of the horse. I read it over quickly, feeling the heat in my face begin to rise. To my left a well-dressed man with a warm smile and perfect stage presence moved about in front of a large screen with DNA models projected onto it. He lectured a large group of young couples, old men, and mothers with their children. I became embarrassed and I began to laugh.
I quickly moved away from the lecture, stopping in front of a new poster. This one looked more like a horror film advertisement. The title said, “Darwinist Ideology: Communism and Fascism.” Below it was a sea of blood dripping from a large picture of Darwin—bald, bearded, and severe looking—and onto pictures of Mao, Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. The backdrop featured a pile of naked bodies. At the bottom of the poster three cheetahs pounced upon and sank their teeth into a gazelle. I hadn’t realized that cheetahs were fascists, but considering their dinner time behavior, I could understand how one might draw a connection.
By this point my friend and I were laughing quite loudly. A man who’d heard us speaking English approached my friend to tell her that there was an English speaker there who’d be happy to tell me about the “exhibit.” I gladly accepted.
His name was Altug. He was tall and had a quiet demeanor. I resolved to be respectful and let him do most of the talking. I had a feeling these might be a persecuted people, the type that Darwin hates, so gentleness seemed the best approach. He told me first of their ideas: evolution is a myth; there are no fossils of intermediate species; there were many more species millions of years ago than there are now; those species living today are not related to those of the past.
“As time moves forward, the number of species gets lower,” he told me in perfect English. He formed a triangle with his hands as he said this. I appreciated the makeshift graphic. It made me think, for a moment at least, about where my life was headed.
I had to admit, what with the scientific terminology he threw around, as well as the numbers he put out, it was somewhat convincing to a mind not well versed in science. I took a few notes on his theories and numbers, resolved to check them online at home, and moved on to questions about the organization. There were no posters advertising the sponsors of the exhibition, raising my friend's and my suspicions. Altug told me the exhibit was put on by the Science and Research Foundation, founded by a man named Harun Yahya. Again, vague, yet very authoritative sounding name—my suspicions grew.
He finally said that they were creationists, but did not use God or verses from the Koran, like Americans used the Bible, to promote their ideas. Furthermore, they did their work all over the world, had literature in schools and universities, and their books were translated into 40 languages. I asked him what he thought Darwin would say about the idea that he, as the progenitor of violent political and social movements, is directly responsible for the murder of millions of people.
“I think Darwin would be very sad and disappointed to learn that he caused so much suffering,” Altug said. If I were Darwin, I thought, I'd be pissed at the fact that you people don't use a more flattering photo of me. I shook his hand, thanked him for his time, and said, “Iyi aksamlar.” He wished me a goodnight in return.
At home I googled Harun Yahya. I first visited his website, which is a labyrinth of links, texts, images, and movies dedicated to the refutation of Darwinism and atheism and the promotion of Old Earth Creationism. It would have looked very academic had it not been for several graphics featuring an army of animals, a pair of celestial, golden doors, and a colorful Eden with the words, “Jesus will return,” the last of which might have been inserted by some young, mischevious, Christian creationist hacker.
I went back to my original search and clicked on a link saying, “Who is Harun Yahya?” I found out he is something of a hybrid of L. Ron Hubbard, the Reverend Moon and David Koresh. His real name is Adnan Oktar, but he generally goes by his nom de plume. He never graduated from university, and he has been to court for charges ranging from blackmail, to possession of unlicensed weapons to sexual intercourse with minors. Unfortunately, he and his group hold considerable influence in Turkey. In fact, one website (www.wordpress.com) published an article attacking Adnan Oktar. Oktar took the site to court, charging it with libel, and the Turkish judiciary blocked the entire site to all of Turkey. I tried to access the site and sure enough, a message came up saying, “Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.”
It seems that Oktar is loosely connected with Turkey’s most powerful political party, the mildly Islamist AK party. He has recently published an 800 page Atlas of Creation, a 13 pound book with glossy pictures of ancient fossils and pictures of their modern counterparts whose superficial resemblances are supposed to prove that species don’t evolve into other species; they are created. The book has been sent, rather mysteriously, to thousands of schools and universities all over the world without the name of the sender or a note. The Turkish Education minister hinted a while ago that he would like to see the book added to a list of Turkish textbooks.
I looked up a picture of the imposter Harun Yahya. The many flattering pictures on his website portray him, for one, as entirely self-indulgent and narcissistic, and, two, as if he were a model human specimen himself. In his profile shots, yes shots, he stands rigidly, chest thrown out, eyes squinted ever so slightly. He wears a bright, white suit, dark fashion sunglasses and a neatly trimmed beard. His skin is waxy and oleaginous, and his salt and pepper hair is slicked back. My computer had downloaded 22 pictures, and I still had yet to scroll more than half way down the page. I suddenly became very depressed and closed my laptop.
I felt cheated and duped. What appeared at first glance to be an innocent science exhibit turned out to be a cunning assault on logic, science and the life of the great Charles Darwin. It was manipulative. It was brainwash. It was approved by the Istanbul Municipality, which happens to be run by AK party. Worst of all, I thought, the thousands of people exposed to these factoids and blatant lies, presented albeit with a scientific veneer, will so easily fall for it. I tried to find a silver lining, but could think of none. I decided to simply go to bed.
