prasad1
Active member
A couple of weeks ago, the Indian Science Congress, a century-old gathering of scientists, made news for all the wrong reasons. In keeping with a long-standing tradition of featuring headline-generating statements, one speaker at the conference claimed that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were wrong about physics. Another researcher argued that ancient Indians had discovered stem-cell research centuries ago, because a character in a well-known myth supposedly gave birth to 100 sons.
These stories earned ridicule and censure, but they weren’t unusual for the event. The government officials who open the conference have a long and illustrious history of making ridiculous or jingoistic claims on stage. Last year, a union minister said Stephen Hawking had claimed ancient Vedic texts contained a theory superior to Einstein’s theory of relativity, a statement I traced to an Indian-run Hawking fan page on Facebook. Speakers have even claimed that the ancient texts contain evidence of advanced interplanetary aircraft and that cows carry bacteria that turn everything they consume to gold. The two speakers at this year’s event were part of a larger trend.
This controversy is a classic example of the complex and contradictory nature of science in India. Though there is little outright denial of science, science often exists hand-in-hand with confirmation bias. This is especially propagated by the far right, where anything inherently Indian is stamped with approval to instill pride in ancient India. This happens in regular political discourse and even permeates scientific conversations — as it did at the conference.
This nonsense needs to be called out. The deeper reach of the Internet in India and the availability of tools such as WhatsApp have enabled the rampant spread of misinformation. These statements also diminish the growing reputation of Indian research and tarnish efforts to decolonize science and extract actual historic knowledge from ancient texts.
These stories earned ridicule and censure, but they weren’t unusual for the event. The government officials who open the conference have a long and illustrious history of making ridiculous or jingoistic claims on stage. Last year, a union minister said Stephen Hawking had claimed ancient Vedic texts contained a theory superior to Einstein’s theory of relativity, a statement I traced to an Indian-run Hawking fan page on Facebook. Speakers have even claimed that the ancient texts contain evidence of advanced interplanetary aircraft and that cows carry bacteria that turn everything they consume to gold. The two speakers at this year’s event were part of a larger trend.
This controversy is a classic example of the complex and contradictory nature of science in India. Though there is little outright denial of science, science often exists hand-in-hand with confirmation bias. This is especially propagated by the far right, where anything inherently Indian is stamped with approval to instill pride in ancient India. This happens in regular political discourse and even permeates scientific conversations — as it did at the conference.
This nonsense needs to be called out. The deeper reach of the Internet in India and the availability of tools such as WhatsApp have enabled the rampant spread of misinformation. These statements also diminish the growing reputation of Indian research and tarnish efforts to decolonize science and extract actual historic knowledge from ancient texts.