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.
Adnan Oktar, an active creationist who began his work in 1998, describes how Darwin has lost all esteem in Turkey…’
