How India’s top scientists are responding to Union minister’s denial of Darwin's theory of evolution

We live in the age of denial and skepticism. First, it was Newton and now it is Darwin. It could be “the earth is flat” or “climate change is a conspiracy of renewable energy industry” next. Before this list grows and becomes part of school textbooks, India’s scientific community has decided to speak up.

The controversy kicked off by the statement of the minister of state for human resource development, Satyapal Singh is important on several counts.

"Our ancestors nowhere mentioned they saw ape turning into man. Darwin's theory (evolution of man) is scientifically wrong and needs to be changed in schools and colleges," the minister recently told the media.

First, it adds fuel to the anti-evolution campaign – rather the creationists versus evolution debate – raging in the United States since the beginning of the 21st century. The statement is clearly an attempt to bring to India the same anti-science and anti-evolution arguments which creationists have been harping about in the US for the past two decades.

The minister advanced three key arguments of anti-evolutionists:

• There is no evidence of evolution (“Nobody has seen an ape turning into a man”)
• Darwin’s theory of evolution is scientifically wrong
• Darwin’s theory of evolution should not be taught in schools and colleges

Singh has refrained from making the fourth argument – the universe is result of a divine creation – although he did make a general statement (as reported in media) that “all the questions have been answered in the Vedas”.

By saying that “nobody has seen an ape turning into a man”, the minister has tried to rubbish one of the basic tenets of the method of science – indirect evidence (such as fossils and DNA studies, in the case of evolution) that scientists rely upon to prove a scientific theory.

As a follow-up of his conviction about Darwin’s theory being “unscientific”, the minister wants school and college curricula to change and reflect what he feels is right. This is exactly what creationists and the United States are doing – going to courts and lobbying with education boards to get creationism included in academic curricula. In Singh’s case, all he may need to do is get his ministry moving to implement his ideas about evolution.

Second, the statement is an indicator of the general level of scientific temper and rational thinking in the society. The minister claims to be a man of science – an MSc and M Phil in chemistry, followed by a doctorate in public administration from a foreign university. The support he is garnering from a section of people on social media shows that his statement is yet another means to push ideology-based science, about which individual scientists have been warning.

For a country, whose policy objective is to be in the top five global scientific powers by 2020, this certainly does not augur well.

The third and most important aspect of the controversy is the bold and direct reaction of the Indian scientific community. In a rare move, top Indian academies of science have jointly declared that “there is no scientific basis for the minister’s statements” and that “evolutionary theory, to which Darwin made seminal contributions, is well established”.

According to academies, many predictions made in Darwin’s theory have repeatedly been confirmed by experiments and observations. 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.

Academies have called the minister’s suggestion to change the teaching of evolution in schools and colleges and any move to dilute the age-old method “by offering non-scientific explanations or myths” as a “retrograde step”. The theory of evolution by natural selection as propounded by Darwin — and developed and extended subsequently — has had a major influence on modern biology and medicine, and indeed all of modern science, according to the joint statement of science academies.

Another open letter signed by several eminent scientists terms the minister’s proclamation that the Vedas contain answers to all questions an “exaggerated” claim that cannot be substantiated with available evidence. “It is an insult to genuine research work on history of Indian scientific traditions,” the letter says.

“Vedic traditions through the mimamsa discipline, teach us ways of analysing Vedas through rationality and logical reasoning. Your claims are at odds with the very traditions you claim to uphold,” it adds.

“When a minister working for HRD makes such claims, it harms the scientific community’s efforts to propagate scientific thoughts and rationality through critical education and modern scientific research. It also diminishes the image of the country at the global level and reduces faith of the international historical research community in the genuine research by the Indian researchers,” scientists have said.

YS Rajan, noted scientist and co-author of the seminal India 2020 report with India’s “Missile Man” APJ Abdul Kalam, said that Darwin’s theory has “withstood the onslaught of narrow ideologues of right, left, liberals and various other fanatics”.

There is nothing in the Indic traditions that would demand the rejection of such a theory or for that matter any scientific finding from anywhere in the world, Rajan wrote in an angry Facebook post.

The scientific community, led by various science academies, should now take the next logical step — call Singh and those supporting his idea of evolution for an open debate on the issue.

After all, logical arguments and counter-arguments are part of the scientific way.