What? Got a problem with natural selection?
Posted on 05/02/2023 11:42:16 AM PDT by JSM_Liberty
Scientists in India are protesting a decision to remove discussion of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from textbooks used by millions of students in ninth and 10th grades. More than 4000 researchers and others have so far signed an open letter asking officials to restore the material.
The removal makes “a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education,” says evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. Other researchers fear it signals a growing embrace of pseudoscience by Indian officials.
The Breakthrough Science Society, a nonprofit group, launched the open letter on 20 April after learning that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous government organization that sets curricula and publishes textbooks for India’s 256 million primary and secondary students, had made the move as part of a “content rationalization” process. NCERT first removed discussion of Darwinian evolution from the textbooks at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to streamline online classes, the society says. (Last year, NCERT issued a document that said it wanted to avoid content that was “irrelevant” in the “present context.”)
NCERT officials declined to answer questions about the decision to make the removal permanent. They referred ScienceInsider to India’s Ministry of Education, which had not provided comment as this story went to press.
“The country’s scientific community is seriously dismayed to see that the theory of biological evolution … has been dropped,” the Breakthrough Science Society said in a statement. “Students will remain seriously handicapped in their thought processes if deprived of exposure to this fundamental discovery of science.”
One major concern, Joshi says, is that most Indian students will get no exposure to the concept of evolution if it is dropped from the ninth and 10th grade curriculum, because they do not go on to study biology in later grades. “Evolution is perhaps the most important part of biology that all educated citizens should be aware of,” Joshi says. “It speaks directly to who we are, as humans, and our position within the living world.” Despite the growing protest, there is “not much hope” that NCERT “will suddenly admit the mistake and revisit the decision,” says Aniket Sule, an astronomer and science advocate at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. Biologist Satyajit Rath, former president of the All India Peoples Science Network, is also pessimistic. “Will [the protest] make any difference? Given the recent trajectories of such decisions of the government of India, probably not, at least over the short term. Sustained progressive efforts will be required to influence the long-term outcomes.”
Joshi, however, hopes the pressure will prompt other government officials to step in. He says other organizations, including the Indian Academy of Sciences, have expressed their concerns to senior government officials.
NCERT’s move comes amid what some see as the growing influence of pseudoscience in India. Researchers and politicians linked to conservative Hindu organizations have voiced doubts about evolution and promoted unsupported claims that ancient Indians built spacecraft and conducted stem cell research. And some observers fear India’s move could embolden evolution deniers in adjoining nations, including Pakistan. There, notes physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani science advocate, biology textbooks are already prefaced with notes warning readers that they will “encounter the theory of evolution—but you are advised not to believe it because it is unscientific, lacks proof, and goes against Islam.”
Please provide a comment, JSML. What are your thoughts?
Darwin was right. If we ever found anything that was irreducibly complex, it would prove that life was created.
And, DNA is irreducibly complex. They cannot even come up with any reasonable theories about how it could have evolved.
Darwinian evolution is the poster child of pseudoscience.
What? Got a problem with natural selection?
Never mess with anyone with 10 hands who can launch 10 weapons simultaneously at you 😂
How someone perverted Darwin’s Natural selection theory into “evolution” is beyond me. God created life. How HE did it is a good question, but we and all life on earth are not some random event that just happened because some elements started to react in a random fashion in a pool of water.
I earned an A- in statistics. I can tell you the odds of us being here as a random natural occurrence are Zero.
Science is “how”, religion is “why”.
“Evolution is perhaps the most important part of biology that all educated citizens should be aware of,”
I’d say that recent events have proven that is wrong. The fact that humans are grouped into immutable sexes, called “man” and “woman”, and of which there are only 2 categories, is a much more relevant and important part of biology that educated citizens need to be aware of.
Once teachers show us they can do that job correctly, then maybe they can make the argument that they have spare time to spend on evolution.
Be serious.
Give a herd of elk 100,000 generations to naturally select, and what will they be? A herd of elk.
Natural selection simply wipes out the slow antelopes. It doesn’t modify DNA.
Exactly. I don’t believe in evolution. But apart from basic belief, I don’t see it as essential for a High School student to know. There are other things that a young person has a more immediate need to know — and school seem to teach those things poorly. Adding concepts of speciation, genetic drift, natural selection, and descent from a common ancestor just doesn’t like essential knowledge for young people as they go out into the world.
Hey, if a kid likes biology, wants to go to college and study biology, then by all means go ahead and teach them: “Our best guess as to how the variety of life came about is explained by this concept known as the Theory of Evolution ...”. But to approach this topic with kids at a young age is pure political propaganda, in my opinion.
Well said.
Evolution is a hypothes that cannot be tested, not a proven fact.
“Darwin was right. If we ever found anything that was irreducibly complex, it would prove that life was created.”
As most anti-Darwinians, you confuse evolution with creation.
Even Darwin himself did not believe in Darwinian evolution. Natural Selection does not prove the origin of the species.
It should be taught as a theory, but not the only theory.
A few people beat me to it. I agree with posts 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11.
According to Richard Dawkins, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Atheists need evolution. Atheists demand that we all believe in evolution. Atheists insist that everyone be taught evolution. That’s what this is all about. Not science.
Evolution is made possible by DNA. DNA is the part that did not arise spontaneously. It is not reducible to minor parts.
DNA was created and life evolved because of it.
I just remembered a joke I heard: there is no theory of evolution, only a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live!
Sorry but it is just a theory without any factual evidence to back it up. Just wishing and hoping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.