Country of people spitting over research

1) Studies that suit me; and

2) Studies do not suit me.

As they are illiterate of scientific methodology, or forget about methodology, as they are ignorant about the concept of science, they make assessments with the feeling of "I don’t care," or "He is awesome! Do you see how he crushed it into pieces?"

Due to being clueless about science, they are never ashamed of spitting over research methodologies of scientists and do not care about putting themselves in an awkward position in front of scientists at the cost of protecting the government.

That’s why I analyzed the methodology of the field study on "neighborhood pressure" conducted by a team of scientists led by Professor Binnaz Toprak. I reached the following conclusion:

"The methodology of the study, conducted on laic circles only, is in-depth interview! In such research no certain numeric results come out.

"Similar perceptions and events in different places are not scientific findings, but they compose strong opinions and give birth to hypothesis for future studies."

I knew all along that the attacks would be made on the methodology. In fact, as far as I see Bülent Korucu, Mehveş Evin, Ahmet Taşgetiren, Emre Aköz, Ayşe Böhürler and regrettably Hayrettin Karaman verbally attacked the methodology.

Some have never heard of a research methodology called "in-depth interview."

Emre Aköz of daily Sabah, speaking on ATV, commented on the pressure applied by drinkers to non-drinkers and said, "Stop building opinions through drinks."

That’s fine, but didn’t his wife with the following remark prove a short while ago that he is not buttering up Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan;

As reported in Radikal on Nov. 16, 2008, "He [Emre Aköz] was the one who drank Talisher whiskey across the Prime Minister, this is called buttering up, I think!"

And I think Aköz was sipping Talisker as he was reading this study or speaking on ATV. I have nothing to say for columnists like Ahmet Taşgetiren who fail to see the neighborhood pressure applied in the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government period on laic circles, due to their training of thought.

However, I am of the opinion that the study on laic circles only taught ex-liberal- new-pro-AKP columnists a good lesson.

Former liberals saying "Neighborhood pressure certainly did not exist in the AKP period," and condemning Şerif Mardin for introducing the concept, have begun to dance around as this study was released and say, "Come on, there is always neighborhood pressure, lack of tolerance has always existed in the society!"

They are right, neighborhood pressure always exists, but what they want to cover up is that the concept of "pressure" always goes hand-in-hand with the concept of "government" and these two concepts always move in the same direction.

The following conviction attributed to laic circles and voiced almost all the time by Professor Toprak is very critical:

"We heard from retailers, businessmen and civil servants that most people have begun to attend Friday prayers or closed down their stores just to be seen as though they are going to mosque during the praying time and people whom their wives began to cover their heads since then as salutations have transformed into "Selam aleykum" from "Hello," they hesitate to have drinks in public places and began to act as if they are fasting during Ramadan though they are not..."

The situation is put into numeric values as follows: The number of Memur-Sen members, a pro-government trade union for civil servants, jumped up to 325,000 in 2008 from 42,000 in 2002 as the number of the Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions, or KESK, members dropped by 39,000!

Tomorrow, we will look at the Fethullah Gülen religious community.