Turkey has grand ambitions for the centenary of the Turkish Republic in 2023, aiming to become the 10th largest global economy. Political uncertainty and increasingly corrupt environment cloud such an optimistic outlook. Recently, another, equally significant obstacle to growth and development has been emerging. Instead of putting science and innovation at the heart of government strategy for prosperity and growth, the Justice and Development Party government is intimidating and politicizing country’s scientific institutions.
With its expert report submitted to the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office on June 6, declaring all leaked voice recordings to be “montage”, the recently purged The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) has now joined the ranks of state institutions that exist to advance government agenda.
Several phone conversations posted on the internet before the March 30 local elections and the corruption probe launched by prosecutors against dozens of officials, well-known businessmen and sons of cabinet ministers have been dismissed by the government as a “dirty plot”.
Large scale purges in the police force and the judiciary; government moves to block an opposition attempt to unveil charges at the parliament and the growing censorship have managed to push the issue off the agenda for the mainstream media.
The Prime Minister declared the 30 March election victory as a vindication of his government but the questions raised by leaked conversations remain unanswered. The motive behind the leaks may be dubious but so far, no credible evidence has been provided to show that the allegations were false.
If the government hoped to have the last word on the issue by getting the top scientific institution, (TÜBİTAK) to declare their innocence, it did not work.
Stating that the recordings were manipulated by using “a method of forming the desired new words by using syllables cut from other recordings”, the report said:
“The very large number of bulges found in the recording during the spectrum analysis suggests that it is a montage created by using several different other recordings”.
One of the first people to ridicule the report was the recently sacked vice-president of TÜBİTAK, Dr. Hasan Palaz. Dr. Palaz claimed that the language and style of the report indicated that it was written by outsiders and rubber-stamped by TÜBİTAK. Dr Palaz who claims that he was fired for not agreeing to an earlier manipulation of another illegal tapping investigation, called the report “laughable”.
Dr Palaz told the daily Cumhuriyet that the experts that were capable of a credible scientific assessment of the leaks were recently removed from their posts. He called the purge that resulted with removal of more than 90 senior scientists, sacking of 30 managers and hundreds of civil servants a “witch-hunt”.
This is not the first time TÜBİTAK’s scientific integrity came under scrutiny. In 2009, the editors of its science magazine were ordered to withdraw a cover story on Charles Darwin. Later, TÜBİTAK stopped the publication and sale of all books in its archives supporting the theory of evolution.
Another scientific institution attached to the office of the Prime Minister is the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA). In 2011, seventeen former members of the organisation broke away from TÜBA, protesting government intervention and set up an independent, self-governing organisation called The Science Academy (Bilim Akademisi). The Science Academy says that the “scientists should have the responsibility to publicize their findings and methods clearly and without distortion, present their sources and references clearly and completely. . As referees, committee or jury members, scientists and scholars should base their evaluations upon scientific and academic criteria of merit only”.
The government-controlled TÜBA’s most recent initiative is a project named Child Platform, otherwise known as The Turkish Twitter. It targets children aged 5 to 13, providing them with access to the internet without “the negative effects of the social media” and giving full control to parents over their children’s activities on the internet.
Turkey’s science establishments regularly come under fire for their short-sighted policy of ignoring fundamental sciences and promoting applied technologies only. The government has increased the overall budget for TÜBİTAK but the budget assigned for basic sciences has become smaller.
In December 2012, Turkey abandoned its full membership of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) , citing the high cost of 35 million Swiss Francs (TL 70 million) being unjustifiable. On May 12 this year, Turkey has gone back to CERN as an associate member.
To be discussing the validity of the scientific knowledge in this day and age is absurd. Without scientific knowledge and technological advances, economic growth cannot be sustained.
As for manipulating and misusing science for political and religious reasons, history is full of insidious examples that should not be repeated.
This post is also available in: Turkish
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