Intelligent design science publication policy?

Posted on March 13, 2009 | 4 Comments

Is this the sort of “theistic science” publication policy the proponents of intelligent design (ID) advocate? Is this what they mean by “academic freedom.”

Does this give us an idea of the future of science if the ID Wedge strategy was successful?

From Russia Today – Darwin brushed out of Turkish scientific journal.

“The removal of an article devoted to Darwin from a Turkish scientific journal just before publication, as well as the dismissal of its chief editor, has sparked criticism over ‘censorship’ and ‘politization’.

2009 sees both the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and has been declared the International Darwin Year.

The world’s leading scientific institutions and science-devoted media are marking the event in different ways – and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) has also decided to join in, Turkish Hurriyet Daily News newspaper says.

TUBITAK was planning to publish a 16-page article devoted to Darwin in the March issue of its magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) and to put his image on the cover, but almost out of nowhere, TUBITAK Vice President Professor Omer Cebeci removed the story, pulled Darwin’s image and reportedly fired Dr. Cigdem Atakuman – the journal’s chief editor.

The former chief editor of Bilim ve Teknik confirmed she was fired but refused to comment, nature.com reports.

The March issue was published a week later than planned – and without any traces of Darwin.

Both this TUBITAK’s move and the August 2008 amendments to TUBITAK’s charter that gave the government a certain degree of control over the institution have been considered an indication of growing political influence over the science institution.

“What is the reason for removing the Darwin story and photo from the journal?” the motion of Turkey’s main opposition party is quoted by Hurriyet as asking. “Isn’t it a kind of censorship to intervene in the journal’s content and cover page during the publication process? Is this an acceptable situation for a science institution to allow such an implementation?””

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4 responses to “Intelligent design science publication policy?”

  1. Heraclides | March 13, 2009 at 12:03 pm |

    I posted a comment on this on the Nature discussion that follows their article on this (http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090310/full/news.2009.150.html) a couple of days ago, but am unable to see all 90 comments to see if my comment has been published. Is anyone else having trouble seeing all the comments? Is there something you are supposed to do to see them all. It’s supposed to be an “open” discussion.

    From memory, one comment said that they didn’t just pull one article, but replaced the entire issue.

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  2. alison | March 13, 2009 at 8:53 pm |

    No, I can’t see them all either (well, not on the home computer anyway). Almost all of what’s available seems to be by Turkish creationists, some of whom are into quote-mining in a big way (shock horror) 😉 And into repeating the usual garbage: no transitional fossils, how could you have ‘half a nose’, etc etc. *sigh*

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  3. Mahaneesh chandra | March 13, 2009 at 11:30 pm |

    wow. great posts. by the way from where do you get such nice ideas and contents. I love your posts.

    Like

  4. Heraclides | March 14, 2009 at 8:54 am |

    Hi Alison,

    Seems we weren’t the only people, the last comment and the moment is from the Nature moderator:

    Apologies for the holdup in moderating comments, caused by technical problems.

    Report this comment13 Mar, 2009Posted by: Mark Peplow

    Well, you don’t say?! 😉

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