France, Politis, 18-24 October 2007
"The Theory of Evolution Has Begun to Be Questioned in French Universities"

Politis, a French weekly news journal, took anti-evolutionary creationist activities as its cover story under the banner headline “Creationist Attack on Darwinism.” The four-page story by Ingrid Merckx largely concentrated on the impact of Atlas of Creation in France. After describing how the book had spread through the country and stating that UNIVERSITY STUDENTS HAD NOW BEGUN DOUBTING THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION, the article went on to say: “Universities have been slow to realize this. THEY NEVER EXPECTED THAT STUDENTS WOULD ONE DAY ASSAIL THEM WITH THESE QUESTIONS.”

France, Le Figaro, 18 October 2007
French Students Stand against the Theory of Evolution

Le Figaro, one of France’s leading daily newspapers, offered another evaluation of Atlas of Creation on 18 October, 2007. The report in the paper, which has a circulation of 400,000, began with the caption heading “The Darwinism Debate in France Is Spreading Ever Wider.” It then went on to refer to “AN INCREASING RISE IN THE NUMBERS OF STUDENTS PROTESTING AGAINST THEIR CLASSES” in France and to “TEACHERS WHO ARE BAFFLED AS TO WHAT REPLIES TO GIVE TO THE PERSISTENT QUESTIONS OF SOME STUDENTS.” It also said that “the debate on the origin of man which have continued in USA for years has now begun to shake French schools.”
The report said that Atlas of Creation was on sale in bookstores in Paris and stated, under the sub-caption “The Effect of Internet Sites:”
“The impact of creationist web sites and the fact that these theories are continually spreading is a significant reality. Last February, schools received in the post a lavish book titled Atlas of Creation that refutes Darwinism throughout its 770 pages. The work, written by a Turk called Harun Yahya, was sent from Turkey and Germany and aimed to tell everyone of ‘evolutionists’ deceptions and misleading claims’.”
Le Figaro then described how French students are reacting against the theory of evolution:

The European Association of Global Bioethics, Studia Bioetica Journal

The April edition of the journal Studia Bioetica, published by the European Association of Global Bioethics, carried a report titled “Is the teaching of (human) evolution in danger?” The introduction to the piece, written by Charles Susanne of Brussells Free University, contained the following comment on why the report had been issued:

“This paper has been written to study the actual links between religions and education of evolution. It does not intend to be polemic, but only to be informative. ...

IN BELGIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS, BUT ALSO IN MY OWN UNIVERSITY TEACHING, SOME STUDENTS REACT TO THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION, AND, MORE SPECIFICALLY, HUMAN EVOLUTION. It therefore seemed interesting to me to study these reactions and this societal problem...”

In that section of the report titled “Islam,” the author states that Europe owes Islamic civilisation a great deal for its liberation from the darkness of the Middle Ages. In that part of the report concerning Turkey, it gives the following information about Harun Yahya:

“Creationism is coming strongly back nowadays and an “Islamic Scientific Creationists and Science Research Foundation” (BAV) exists… The most active author of the BAV is Harun Yahya!”

Harun Yahya on Australia’s ABD Radio

A program about Harun Yahya’s documentaries was aired in June 2006 on the Australian national broadcaster ABD Radio. The program covered parts of the documentaries based on Harun Yahya’s works, and the presenter, Margaret Coffey, offered the following comments regarding these sections. Gary Dargan, a New South Wales paleontologist and a director of the Islamic Education Trust of Australasia, also participated.

A transcript of part of the program reads as follows:
Audio from Harun Yahya DVD: Anyone with wisdom and conscience will understand when he examines the living things around him that they are created by a superior wisdom, knowledge and power.
Margaret Coffey: On ABC Radio National, this is Encounter… Harun Yahya is the pseudonym of the front person for an organisation based in Turkey. This organisation produces a prolific amount of audiovisual material and books with titles such as "Evolution Deceit". As Gary Dargan explained to the seminar, the material is produced in many languages and a Harun Yahya representative has visited Australia to promote the organisation's ideology.
Audio from Harun Yahya DVD: Materialism, the philosophy which holds that everything is composed of matter, and which denies the existence of God, is actually the contemporary version of paganism ... This superstitious belief of materialism is called evolution ... the belief in evolution first introduced in the pagan cultures of the ancient Sumerians and then the ancient Greeks was, in a way, revived in the 19th century by a group of materialistic scientists and brought on to the world agenda - Charles Darwin is the best known of these scientists.
Gary Dargan: Harun Yahya's views have become very, very strongly accepted in the Muslim world. In Nigeria, for instance, Harun Yahya's textbooks are now being used in their biology syllabus. In NSW I have been contacted by a biology teacher at a high school saying, "I'VE GOT A LOT OF MUSLIM STUDENTS, THEY QUOTE HARUN YAHYA AT ME, AND SAY ALL THIS EVOLUTION BUSINESS IS RUBBISH; WE ARE NOT GOING TO BOTHER LEARNING IT."

Switzerland, Le Temps, 16 April 2007
Turkey, Where Darwinism Is Being Increasingly Defeated

The Swiss French-language daily Le Temps, published in the capital, Geneva, carried a report concerning Atlas of Creation on 16 April, 2007. The leading Swiss daily, which has 150,000 readers, described Atlas as “a sudden and powerful attack” on the theory of evolution:
“In March, large numbers of a book, Atlas of Creation, that rejects the theory of evolution on the basis of the Qur’an, found their way into Switzerland. The editor of Atlas is from Turkey, where Darwinism is suffering an increasing defeat.
… After France and Belgium, Switzerland received the latest work by Adnan Oktar, better known under the name Harun Yahya and the publishing house’s sole author. The first of the seven volumes ‘finally’ offers Switzerland ‘the opportunity of seeing the truth’ with regard to the Divine origin of the world… Says Emre Çalıkoğlu, ‘Criticism is the mark of our success. The press are constantly referring to us. We have found distributors in France, Switzerland and Belgium.’
The same excitement dominates the Science Research Foundation (BAV) in Okmeydani, Istanbul. Founded in 1990, the BAV is Adnan Oktar’s flagship. Everyone, or nearly everyone, here speaks French… [BAV president Tarkan] Yavas, an optimist when it comes to the success of creationism, says: ‘Six million of Harun Yahya’s films and DVDs are downloaded over the internet every month. People will soon be wondering why they never realized the truth before.’
In Turkey, the war against Darwinism has effectively been won. A study published in Science magazine and carried out in the University of Michigan stated that Turkey was the country with the lowest level of belief in Darwinism among the 32 countries involved in the study. According to a statement by the Turkish Academy of Sciences, only 5% of students believe in evolution, while 25% believe it to be inadequate and 75% believe it to be totally unfounded.

Italian Daily Corriera Della Sera

One Italian news portal operating on the Internet carried a report published on 4 June, 2007, in daily Corriere della Sera, one of the largest newspapers in Italy, on that same day. The report described how Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation had found its way to a large number of Italian institutions and how before Italy it had been sent to several other European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, The Netherlands). Some of the important information carried in the report read as follows:

… Italy has been invaded by hundreds, maybe thousands of copies of the first, large 800-page volume of a book printed on top quality, glossy paper and weighing some 6 kilos…

A colleague of mine from daily Mezzogiorno told me on 31 May that the Atlas of Creation had been dispatched to a school in Altamura. I looked it up on the Internet and learned that the book had previously been sent to France, Germany, Switzerland, Britain and The Netherlands. Hundreds of thousands of copies had overflowed Europe…

… OKTAR’S POWERFUL STRATEGY WAS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE: the results of an opinion poll by the Turkish Academy of Sciences show that 75% OF TURKISH MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS NO LONGER BELIEVE IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION…

In the appendix to the book, the author maintains that “Islam is the solution to terrorism, not its source,” and that “the solution to individuals and groups attempting to apply their own ruthlessness under a religious guise is the teaching of true Qur’anic moral values.” Another extract indicates that Oktar is a supporter of the global Masonic conspiracy theory…

Harun Yahya’s Works on Creation in American Scientific Magazine

September 2006 European edition of the world-renowned scientific journal American Scientific carried a report concerning activities in Europe and Turkey on the subject of creation. The largest part of the article was about Adnan Oktar, better known under the pen name Harun Yahya, and his activities. The magazine described Adnan Oktar’s activities on the subject of Darwinism by saying that a book called The Evolution Deceit had been in existence for some years, selling millions of copies a year, and that the book had had a profound effect in the Netherlands, and went on to say:
Professor Leirs, an evolutionary biologist at Antwerp University, introduced classes on evolution during the last academic year. “AFTER CLASS,” he says, “A NUMBER OF MUSLIM STUDENTS CAME TO ME WITH THIS BOOK BY HARUN YAHYA. SINCE I WAS UNFAMILIAR WITH IT I WAS UNABLE TO RESPOND TO THEM. I later began examining it and saw that it was opposed to the theory of evolution. Allah was right and Darwin was wrong. That was the main theme of the book, which teaches this to all young Muslims.”