DANGER OF PSEUDOSCIENCE

 

#STANDPOINT 1

In a speech at the 106th Indian Science Congress, Andhra University Vice Chancellor G. Nageshwar Rao said that the Kauravas of the Mahabharata were test tube babies,born due to stem cell technologies and that India possessed  missile technology thousands of years ago. Such a statement is both historically as well as scientifically false and shamefully unfortunate for India’s scientific community.

These incidents of pseudoscience propagation and  forceful connection between Indian culture and modern technology has become frequent in the Indian Science Congress. Another self proclaimed scientist K J Krishnan declared that Newton and Einstein had little knowledge about physics, and that their theories were wrong. He went on to claim that his own unproved theory of gravitational phenomenon to be more relevant.  Random and erroneous statements by politicians, linking religion and culture  to science have also become frequent in public domain. Such statements in most cases are populist propaganda and in some case, mere ignorance of the speaker. In either case, such unscientific claims have made a mockery of both Indian culture and India’s scientific progress.

Infact, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India K. Vijay Raghavan, in response has said that a formal complaint should be lodged, and the country’s science academies must voice their objection to it. To protest against such irrationality,  IT professionals, students, teachers and scientists also gathered in front of IISc Bangalore. Thus there is a need for Indian Science Congress to prevent such irrational statements and protect the sanity of the scientific community.