Students from Youngstown, Ohio are learning creationism from a video produced by an Islamic group that is accused of both being a sex cult and denying the Holocaust,
The Daily Beast reports.
The teachers in the public school district are encouraged to use, among other approved educational material, a creationist movie "Cambrian Fossils and the Creation of Species" produced by the Turkey-based Science Research Foundation as part of the curriculum for high school science class.
The video presents one of the main theories behind creationism, which is that during a relatively short time period some 500 million years ago most of the major animal phyla suddenly appeared, thus supposedly discrediting the much slower process of evolution.
Youngstown education officials did not answer queries as to why they are using materials produced by the Science Research Foundation.
But the Islamic connection to the video is difficult to catch, which might explain why they did not realize its source. In the film, a black screen flashes for a nanosecond that says "this film is based on the works of Harun Yahya," which is a pseudonym for Science Research Foundation founder Adnan Oktar.
Yahya expert Anne Ross Solberg, who
wrote a book on Oktar, described him as one of Turkey's most notorious cult leaders who allegedly lures female devotees and then makes them perform sexual favors. In addition to promoting an Islamic brand of creationism, he has published books denying the Holocaust and other antisemitic publications.
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