The (d)evolution of scientific temper in India

Jawaharlal Nehru was most instrumental in instilling scientific temper at the birth of modern India. In contrast, as Bharatiya Janata Party came into power in 2014, their top-down governance is explicitly trying to promote Vedic science. The Prime Minister boasted off of genetics in Mahabharata, and plastic surgery in the Vedas. The origin of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle form the Vedas is the pride of the Home Minister. The Minister of Science and Technology contended that the Vedas contain better theory than E = mc. There is increased veneration of cattle. A large-scale promotion of bovine urine and dung as medicine, called cowpathy or, as they embrace it, panchagavya is on the rise. To that effect, gold was discovered in the urine of Gir cows, but really to no effect. Their cows breathe in and out oxygen, and peafowl are confirmed celibates. The Minister of State for Human Resources Development ridiculed evolutionary biology proclaiming that Darwin’s theory is scientifically flawed. We, the people of India, deserve better wisdom. As Nehru would have put it, “a baseless dogma or a hopeless aspiration” of this sort will never elate India, or any nation for that matter, to scientific progression, not to say economic and social developments. Received 28 February 2018 Accepted 06 March 2018


Introduction
It shall be the duty of every citizen of India h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.
-The Constitution of India 1949 Article 51A. Fundamental Duties.
... I am quite sure that some elementary scientific training in physics and chemistry, and especially biology, as also in the application of science, is essential for all boys and girls. Only thus can they understand and fit into the modern world and develop, to some extent at least, the scientific temper. 3 It is the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard discipline of the mind-all this is necessary, not merely for the application of science but for life itself and the solution of its many problems. 4 Religion as defined in the first proposition must be in accord with science... In other words, religion if it is to function, must be in accord with reason which is merely another name for science. 5

The Indian (Science Congress) circus
The Bos with a golden pee

The moral of the peacock story -celibacy with beauty
Are we not justified in believing that the female exerts a choice, and that she receives the addresses of the male who pleases her most? It is not probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is most excited or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males. Nor need it be supposed that the female studies each stripe or spot of colour; that the peahen, for instance, admires each detail in the gorgeous train of the peacock-she is probably struck only by the general effect. 44

Summary
It would be a retrograde step to remove the teaching of the theory of evolution from school and college curricula or to dilute this by offering non-scientific explanations or myths.

Article
The Hon. Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Shri Satyapal Singh has been quoted as saying that "Nobody, including our ancestors, in writing or orally, have said they saw an ape turning into a man. Darwin's theory (of evolution of humans) is scientifically wrong. It needs to change in school and college curricula." The three Science Academies of India wish to state that there is no scientific basis for the Minister's statements. Evolutionary theory, to which Darwin made seminal contributions, is well established. There is no scientific dispute about the basic facts of evolution. This is a scientific theory, and one that has made many predictions that have been repeatedly confirmed by experiments and observation. An important insight from evolutionary theory is that all life forms on this planet, including humans and the other apes have evolved from one or a few common ancestral progenitors.
It would be a retrograde step to remove the teaching of the theory of evolution from school and college curricula or to dilute this by offering non-scientific explanations or myths.
The theory of evolution by natural selection as propounded by Charles Darwin and developed and extended subsequently has had a major influence on modern biology and medicine, and indeed all of modern science. It is widely supported across the world.