On April 20, the Nazim Hikmet Academy for Marxist Sciences that had opened in December in Istanbul organised a discussion panel titled "Evolution theory and human beings" at the Taskisla Campus of Istanbul Technical University on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Darwin and the 150th year of publication of the Origin of Species. Nearly 200 people from different social backgrounds joined the event. {divide}
At the discussion panel Prof. Dr. Metin Ozbek, leader of the anthropology department at Hacettepe University gave a paper titled "The biological evolution of human beings", Don.Dr. Alaeddin Senel on the topic "Evolution or creation" and the philosopher Dr. Ibrahim Okcuoglu talked about "Darwin from the marxist point of view".
In Turkey publications which had talked about Darwin were censored by the state, and this situation was protested by people defending science. The Marxist Sciences Academy answered the censorship on the evolution theory with its event showing that it will defend the historical achievements of humanity.