India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01770-y

by abhas9 • 3 years ago

287 230 3 years ago

nature.com

31337Logic• 3 years ago

Wow. I'd consider this grounds for a riot-level protest in the street.

jmclnx• 3 years ago

Is education free in India ? I believe it is.

With that said, seems India is mirroring the US in making sure only the wealthy will get a good education (private schools).

It is a dangerous game doing that, eventually the mass will rise up once they realize their children have no hope in succeeding.

benced• 3 years ago

It is far more common in India to go to a private school. As a rule of thumb, if you know an educated Indian, they went to private school.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/in...

This makes this decision both more and less outrageous. On one level, it had less effect than a similar decision than the US. On the other, it helps cripple the poor in India (who are actually poor, not American poor).

schoubey2• 3 years ago

Both public and private schools in India use NCERT books and have the same examinations. Private schools only ensure things are taught better, what is taught is still the same.

Dig1t• 3 years ago

That goes against what I heard from my Indian friends. I was told that public schools are actually more prestigious than private schools, they are more rigorous apparently?

mtoner23• 3 years ago

Its free but there aren't enough schools and many kids dont attend. The trend in the us is not making sure only the wealthy get a good education. more people in the us than ever go to college and we are smarter and more educated than ever before.

Arnavion3• 3 years ago

(I'm Indian but left India ~15 years ago, so my info may be out of date.)

It's free in government schools, what Americans would call public schools. Middle and upper class kids usually go to public schools, what Americans would call private schools, which have fees and may use non-NCERT textbooks too. I believe that for a school to be ratified it is only required that it teach at least what is mandated by the relevant education board (generally the national level one, CBSE), so it would be okay for a ratified school to use a private textbook that teaches the NCERT syllabus + periodic table + evolution.

Also college coaching classes (for IIT-JEE etc) may continue to cover these topics anyway. Even during my time they were covering topics that had been cut from the government-mandated curriculum, so it wouldn't be surprising.

WhatsName• 3 years ago

Cutting and defunding education seems such a prevalent global trend, I find it hard to believe there is no hidden agenda.

At least here it seems to happen with the clear political agenda. Who needs evolution and democracy anyways other than those inconvenient to the indian government.

hayst4ck• 3 years ago

It's a question of where your core axioms come from.

The core axiom from which a person builds a belief system can be that contradictions are wrong or that authority (the bible/priest/parent) is right.

This is why conservatives frequently fail to respond to pointing out their contradictions. Their core axiom is one of authority, contradictions have little bearing on their analysis of what is true or not. New information cannot invalidate their already known truth, so what they already "know" twists and molds the new information, rather than their current understanding adapting to the new information.

This makes (real) education directly at odds with conservatism. Inquiry is an anathema to dogma. Conservatism is happy to teach things that are useful which is why you'll hear conservatives extol the virtues of technical education, but doesn't want to teach methods of inquiry or analysis or questioning ones self and ones assumptions, which is why you'll hear conservatism denigrate liberal arts or frequently secular education.

One confusing factor for American conservatives is that the American tradition that is being conserved is a somewhat liberal tradition. So conservatives attach themselves to many (correct) liberal values, but fail to see that they believe those values as the result of their tradition (meaning as a result of authority), and not as the result of a process of rational inquiry.

Put more succinctly: an educated population is a threat to authority and therefore conservatism.

fluoridation• 3 years ago

I'm not sure veneration of authority is a central aspect of conservatism. As I understand it, conservatism is about returning to a previous state of affairs that is perceived as favorable compared to the present, or about maintaining the status quo. It seems to me that two people who were raised in different contexts could be considered conservative with respect to their own contexts, while at the same time one being an authoritarian and the other being a libertarian.

mensetmanusman2• 3 years ago

This isn't a useful analysis because you are describing general human challenges beyond political bents.

Also India has a completely different alignment compared to US-Left/Right and they still struggle from similar issues.

spaceman_20206• 3 years ago

A lot of developing countries are in a phase of working out their future paths. Most of them inherited colonial institutions and power structures and are finally hitting a point where all the old guard has died or become irrelevant.

There’s a period of negotiation - figuring out what parts of your colonial history you want to keep, what to change. So many things we assume as “normal” invariably have roots in colonial past. Current systems of Democracy, strict courts of law, scientific education, while great, were introduced by earlier colonial rulers.

Most countries will now spend a few decades fumbling around in internal negotiations to figure out whether they really need 14 years of scientific schooling, democracy, etc.

omginternets2• 3 years ago

Why do you suppose that educational institutions are on the chopping block? That would seem like precisely the part of one’s colonial history to keep.

I understand that it has become common to attribute a number of injustices to heritage from the colonial period, but why education in particular? Why that more than fashion, say, or the institutions of law?

schoubey2• 3 years ago

"chapters on democracy and diversity; political parties; and challenges to democracy have been scrapped" this is even more dangerous.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

It's only affecting 10th grade CBSE (NCERT), not ICSE or state board* exams, let alone competitive board exams like the JEE (Engineering) or NEET (Medicine).

It's still being taught in the NCERT books as well, but now in 12th grade instead of 10th grade.

The scarier thing should be the rewriting of the history section of CBSE.

* board is Indian English for curriculum

Also, on the hierarchy of Indian board exams:

Top - ICSE

Medium - some State Boards

Low - CBSE, some state boards

Board exams are orthogonal to college entrance exams in India.

For example, IIT and Engineering admissions are gated by the JEE, so students oftentimes bunk 10th-12th grade to study the JEE and try to get a D average in the Board exam (because there's only so much you can study).

Board exams do have value though for most average colleges though and some top tier non-Eng ones (eg. If I wanted to study Law at St Stephen's College, University of Delhi or Business at Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi - both programs that feed into the political and business elite of India).

The Indian system is confusing and weird and there is some reform within it to become much more similar to the American system, but that's a work in progress.

joshuaissac4• 3 years ago

board is Indian English for curriculum

This sense of the word 'board' as in 'examination board' also exists in British English. The US also has the 'College Board' which sets some national exams.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

Yep. But we call 'em "AP tests", "PSATs", or "SATs". The word "Exam" isn't commonly used in American English.

Arnavion3• 3 years ago

It's still being taught in the NCERT books as well, but now in 12th grade instead of 10th grade.

You're not required to take Chemistry and Biology after the 10th grade, so technically you could miss out on the periodic table and evolution still.

That said, I'm pretty sure I only learned the periodic table in 11th grade Chemistry class myself (15 years ago), so I guess it must've moved down to 10th grade at some point after that?

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

They're removing streams from the Indian education system. The NEP is making the Indian system much more American and will push for electives and classes instead.

So hypothetically, if I was targeting Medical, I could still take some classes in Commerce at the 10-12 level.

Bekknqv8• 3 years ago

The periodic table is actually already present in 9th grade textbooks.

vkdelta• 3 years ago

Above ranking does not make sense at all. Is CBSE is so low ranked, why is prevalent board in Indian and schools abroad which favors CBSE?

ICSE is more all round syllabus which makes sense but does not make it difficult or higher ranked than CBSE.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

I'm just speaking from a content perspective. I'm American born and raised, but often used Indian STEM textbooks to prep for STEM related AP exams as well as competition exams like USAPHo, AIMEs, etc in High School.

In my experience for STEM, JEE >>>> ICSE >> CBSE

All programs will accept the CBSE (it's exclusionary not to), but the CBSE curricula does lag.

Either way, for admissions here in the US, IB/AP+SAT would be preferred over ICSE or CBSE, and the kind of person targeting American undergraduate from India can afford to study IB+AP.

screye2• 3 years ago

The scarier thing should be the rewriting of the history section of CBSE.

That is the one I am looking forward to. Indian history today is freedom struggle - mughal empire - freedom struggle - mughal empire - gandhi - nehru - akbar. Is all.

Indian history is long overdue for a huge revamp. We need more balanced views of the independence movement. We need greater exposure to non-Delhi kingdoms that shaped the major parts of the country. We need history of the period between 1947 - 2000.

World history needs to be taught from a non-western lens too. India needs to learn about the East & Africa, just as much as the west. This is especially valid because Indians have closer historic ties to South East Asia and diaspora in places like Guyana, the Caribbean and Africa. With the advent of population genomics, we must include findings about Sub-continental pre-history that are more scientific than the idle musings of some 18th century white guy.

PS: good summary of the Indian educational system. As you correctly pointed out, western intuitions about education do not transfer well to the Indian system.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

I'm not sure NCERT will ever be able to teach about ethnic diversity within India correctly - it's too politically loaded. For example, I'm Pahari. According to NCERT, we're a Hindi speaking ethnic group, though our Pahari languages are completely indecipherable to Hindi speakers (Eg. Sadh khol lal nukke heghe. Chaiyda tenu?) and we are classified as a different language group from Hindi. Similar reductiveness is applied to the "Hindi Heartland" by removing the ethnolinguistic diversity of Central India (eg. Bihar historically wasn't Hindi speaking until the 1970s because of Hindi oriented literacy programs).

If it's bad enough for highly represented regions of India, imagine less well represented areas like the North East, the Ghats, etc.

The big issue is NCERT and most grade school Indian historical education takes a very "Delhi" centric view of Gupta-Small Kingdoms-Delhi Sultanate-Mughals-British-Independence, but this chronological ordering is true for only a subset of India. South Indian kingdoms (itself a problematic term), Indigenous movements, the entire ethnographic history of the Northeast and the Northwest, etc all get ignored. That said, this is a bipartisan problem - doesn't matter if it's INC, BJP, whatever who's in power.

Also, there is a dearth of qualified teachers for the CBSE curriculum.

AmIDev2• 3 years ago

When I was in school(2002-2012), the Maharashtra state board history education was Maharashtra centric, not delhi centric. Most of the history lessons revolved around the maratha empire, their enemies. Few years were dedicated to freedom struggle, world wars and ancient history.

Even then though, there was very little about even other kingdoms who ruled present day Maharashtra, so there is clear need of diversity in history education.

james-redwood• 3 years ago

Reading the source that Nature cites, it seems like the content has been made temporarily unexaminable ‘in light of COVID’, rather than the section actually getting cut from the textbook. https://ncert.nic.in/rationalised-content.php Could any Indian with a new physical textbook perhaps confirm? It’s a rather concerning policy.

The headline also seems awfully clickbaity. What the policy seems to have done is shifted basic evolution down to younger grades and moved the more advanced concepts to more senior grades. However, this shifts more advanced concepts up to grades in which science as a subject is not compulsory. Regressive as this is, this isn’t what the headline suggests.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

Here's the new textbook - https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?jesc1=0-13

It still teaches Mendelian genetics (chpt 8), but then entire book seems severely dumbed down compared to older NCERT textbooks I've read before when bored on India trips.

It might be because now you can't graduate high school in the 10th grade anymore in India - now you can only graduate at the 12th grade or transfer to a vocational college for 11th and 12th.

screye2• 3 years ago

This makes no sense to me. This highly unlikely to be a political move. Science education is not political in India. Evolution, abortion, chemistry are not debated at all.

This is more likely for the reasons to be innocuous.

In explaining its changes, NCERT states on its website that it considered whether content overlapped with similar content covered elsewhere, the difficulty of the content, and whether the content was irrelevant. It also aims to provide opportunities for experiential learning and creativity.
NCERT announced the cuts last year, saying that they would ease pressures on students studying online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amitabh Joshi, an evolutionary biologist at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru, India, says that science teachers and researchers expected that the content would be reinstated once students returned to classrooms. Instead, the NCERT shocked everyone by printing textbooks for the new academic year with a statement that the changes will remain for the next two academic years, in line with India’s revised education policy approved by government in July 2020.

Sounds more like students have continued lagging behind after coming back from Covid, than anything malicious. I have literally never heard of national politicians in India being anti-science.

I might be wrong, but I would genuinely like to see 1st source statements from the board indicating that these changes are religiously motivated.

neilk3• 3 years ago

I have no idea exactly how much this particular curriculum change is influenced by religion. But your assertion that science is depoliticized in India is very wrong.

In 2018, the education minister declared Darwin was wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/indian-educati...

This is just one of many such troubling incidents, including apparent indifference to the murder of pro-rationalism academics.

Anecdotally, if you have people from India in your life, this is inescapable. Constant barrage of forwards on WhatsApp of Hindu supremacy, which necessarily have to flip history upside down. The story goes that Hindus had nuclear energy 10,000 years ago, but filthy foreigners corrupted Mother India.

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

Slightly pedantic, but Satya Pal Singh wasn't Minister of Education.

That said, the rest is true.

rhaway847732• 3 years ago

The story goes that Hindus had nuclear energy 10,000 years ago, but filthy foreigners corrupted Mother India.

I’ve never understood this kind of messaging. You see it in all sorts of supremacists.

But how is it a credit to you and your ancestors that they had the ability to create nuclear power or fly, etc and then they just lost it!

That’s a sign of deep shame. The particular group of people you’re claiming are superior are so incompetent they weren’t even able to keep knowledge they already had.

Seems like the group of people you think are so superior have been getting dumber with every generation and you therefore are the dumbest of your lineage.

What’s there to be proud of about that?

anticodon• 3 years ago

but filthy foreigners corrupted Mother India.

Isn't this part actually true, because Britain pillaged India for centuries?

brobdingnagians• 3 years ago

In the West, any attempt to debate science is declared to be anti-science, which eventually suffocates science. Conformity to the party line is the ticket to funding (from the political establishment) and acclaim. Are there anti-science people? Sure, but far fewer than the knee jerk reactionists say there are. And someone who goes around calling everyone anti-science without logical basis is antithetical to scientific debate and advancement.

Let us remember where a lot of "scientific" funding comes from, the politicians and Uncle Sam; which inherently tends to corrupt the "science" to become political.

captn3m0• 3 years ago

By the 2021-2022 academic year, Darwin’s theory was quietly removed from the examination syllabus for the students of Class 9 and Class 10. By 2022-2023, the topic of evolution was completely purged from school textbooks, teachers and education experts told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/14/mughals-rss-evoluti...

BrandoElFollito• 3 years ago

India is not alone. We have a well-known rapper in France who recently explained how the Egyptian pyramides were something something electricity generators and that Egyptians had electricity thousand of years ago.

This was relayed on TikTok and other platforms to the point where some gov't official had to say that this is bullshit.

spacKingChamath• 3 years ago

Why would they risk saying its religious motivated at this point. Make the changes small, let the effects trickle in over a decade.

sriram_malhar2• 3 years ago

Ah, you are not reading the situation right. The fascist elements have hijacked the term "science". Nowadays, it is science if you say that cowling protects against atomic radiation ([1]) or you say that ancient India had interplanetary travel ([2]) .. note that the latter was at an official track at the Indian Science Congress on science in ancient India. If the vedas said something, that is science. If the white man brought out a periodic table, either ban it, or say 'our ancient texts already knew about it'. That's the state of India right now.

You will never see any statements by the board. They are comprised of people who are either scared shitless of speaking out, or who are really religious fundamentalists at core.

[1] https://www.outlookindia.com/national/cow-dung-protects-from...

[2] https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/i...

DANmode• 3 years ago

Having seen Avenue 5, and also having just performed a four second web search, I feel mildly confident in saying this is interesting, because poo is indeed great radiation shielding.

dmix2• 3 years ago

1 is just a regional judge reaffirming existing cow conservation law with some woo woo in his decision, 2 is a non-scientist giving a lecture at a science institute which caused controversy among the actual scientists.

Neither of them really have anything to do with the science/government control other than India’s long standing obsession with cows.

RajT88• 3 years ago

It is wild to me that one of the next great world powers is shooting itself in the foot like this with regards to science education.

Surely that runs counter to their goals, right?

alephnerd15• 3 years ago

My hunch is it's probably NEP related.

They are trying to do away with School Leaving Certificates at Grade 10, which means you can spread out curriculum across 12 years.

Bhilai• 3 years ago

I have literally never heard of national politicians in India being anti-science.

Not anti-science per se but Indian politicians are quite famous for pseudo-scientific nonsensical statements like Mr Modi claiming that advanced surgery existed thousands of years ago when doctors sewed an Elephant's head to a God's body[1] and then claiming presence of test tube babies in ancient times[3]

On the other hand, Union Health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan claimed that Vedas had knowledge beyond Theory of Relativity[3]

BJP, the ruling party has tried to indoctrinate a bunch of nonsense like Wright brothers did not invent the airplane, it was infact ancient Indians[4].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-m... [2]: https://theprint.in/science/vedic-plastic-surgery-to-test-tu... [3]: https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/science-minister-harsh-v... [4]: https://theprint.in/india/governance/in-engineering-courses-...

rajup2• 3 years ago

Not anti-science per se but Indian politicians are quite famous for pseudo-scientific nonsensical statements like Mr Modi claiming that advanced surgery existed thousands of years ago when doctors sewed an Elephant's head to a God's body

There is evidence for plastic surgery being known in Ancient India through works of Sushruta/Charaka. Leaving apart the sewing of an elephant’s head on a human body, which was probably added for religious/mythological effect I don’t quite see what’s nonsensical here?

distant_hat• 3 years ago

India actually has a well-funded ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy) and its influence has massively grown over the past decade. It is as anti-science as you get.

jonathankoren• 3 years ago

This is the same country that tried to derail the building of a shipping channel because it would have destroyed a bridge built by a monkey army, also known as limestone shoal.

https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1663025,0...

seatac76• 3 years ago

I agrée, I also did not have that impression from what I could tell. This is really bad.

All talk about demographic dividends and such are moot when such stupidity is ushered in and allowed to prevail. They may be squandering a real opportunity here.

jeswin• 3 years ago

As with a lot of India news appearing here of late, take this with a pound of salt. Like you were saying, this makes no sense as a political move. Hinduism (and by extension Hindutva, the problematic political form) has no bone to pick with Darwin and evolution. Actually the opposite is true - it's likely to be promoted because evolution is a point of contention in Abrahamic religions. The Indian far-right promotes a lot of fabrications; this isn't one of them though.

The two academics quoted in the article come from JNU, which is known for its left/far-left leaning. Looking through their social media, I see retweets of: US stealing Syria's oil, opposition to bombing Syria and aiding Ukraine, etc. What does it say about the author of the story, if she can't see through biases? It's kinda disappointing that balanced opinions are becoming rare in news media.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Hinduism (and by extension Hindutva, the problematic political form) has no bone to pick with Darwin and evolution

This is irrelevant to Hindutva qua politics.

lannisterstark3• 3 years ago

"Science education is not political in India"

You've not seen the back cover of textbooks that says X or Y is only possible because of the generosity of the "Insert current Chief Minister of State?"

ganeshkrishnan• 3 years ago

Historically it has never been. Even in day to day life neither science nor evolution or periodic table has been debated. While it could be very innocuous, the new BJP government is also a bit on the "our history, our culture" side.

I am hoping this is just the NCERT just removing modules that students just rote learn.

davchana2• 3 years ago

like to see 1st source statements from the board indicating that these changes are religiously motivated.

Nobody responsible or involved with this process is gonna give a written statement that they did to please the evergrowing hindutva or modi bhakti or whatsapp university.

rinka_singh• 3 years ago

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/class-10-syllabus-change-now... and of course https://twitter.com/ncert/status/1664321985709744128

Fake news. These topics are covered in the relevant (Science) stream in class 12 now. This is simply rationalization of the subjects to reduce burden on the students.

On a related note, I see quite a bit of fake news posted here...

mdev• 3 years ago

This is not what the title makes it to seem, most of India believes science and education leads to success in life and for the country. If anything businesses will now make more money by teaching periodic tables and evolution in "coaching classes"

givemeethekeys3• 3 years ago

I'm calling shenanigans.

There are many education systems in India. There's a central one, but each state has its own.

Indians at every economic level (except maybe the very top) value STEM education above everything else.

I wish we'd learn to dial back the hysteria. I wish people weren't so damn trigger happy.

spaceman_20206• 3 years ago

They don’t value STEM education. They value they jobs and prestige STEM education can get them.

Remove the ability to get well paying engineering/medicine jobs from the equation and they’ll treat STEM education with the same disdain they have for commerce, or worse, humanities.

There is very little real appreciation of education. Only its byproducts, namely, jobs.

givemeethekeys3• 3 years ago

They don’t value STEM education. They value they jobs and prestige STEM education can get them.

Second sentence disagrees with the first sentence.

paulddraper• 3 years ago

Distinction without a difference.

SAS_SBS5• 3 years ago

Completely agree with this statement. I work in HFT and have Indians asking me all the time: "what should I do to get a quant job or a low latency C++ job?". 99.9% of these folks have zero interest in Math (good luck being a quant) or have zero interest/passion in low level systems programming (good luck developing low latency systems). All they care about is the prestige and high pay in the HFT industry, and that if they can have a exam-like route to crack the interviews, they'll go forth and cram the hell out of things. No thanks, we don't want folks like that.

CamperBob2• 3 years ago

I wish people weren't so damn trigger happy.

Translation: "I wish no one owned a history book."

fractalb• 3 years ago

They actually cut the syllabus for students below class X. It's not a ban or anything. And it's only NCERT's (central board of education) syllabus. Each state has its own education board and syllabus. The headline is not honest.

ImPostingOnHN2• 3 years ago

if each state can just ignore the NCERT curriculum, and if the NCERT curriculum itself is educationally insufficient (not teaching evolution or the periodic table in a school curriculum makes that curriculum a failure), then what is the point of the NCERT curriculum?

SJetKaran• 3 years ago

So, India has different systems of curriculum, at national level CBSE/NCERT and ICSE, and many states have their own. Each school individually is affiliated to one of the curriculums.

occamschainsaw• 3 years ago

It is the common central/federal baseline. It is accepted as a high school credential everywhere in India (other boards are accepted in general too, but NCERT has to be accepted).

This insufficiency with weird omission for evolution and periodic table seems to be due to covid after effects or general incompetence rather than malice.

I studied in 3 different boards at different points of schooling and the rule of thumb was state board, NCERT/CBSE and ICSE in increasing order of “rigor”. The last two years of high school are spent in preparing for competitive entrance exams anyways, whose syllabus usually is a superset of the school syllabus in your chosen field (engineering, medicine, sciences etc.)

donatj• 3 years ago

They're not learning about on the periodic table prior to age 16? You've got to be joking, That's like early elementary school stuff.

vondur• 3 years ago

Why would you cut the periodic table from curriculum? I'm a chem major and have never heard of such a thing before.

Jeff_Brown• 3 years ago

The closest I see the article coming to explaining the changes are in this passage:

"... considered whether content overlapped with similar content covered elsewhere, the difficulty of the content, and whether the content was irrelevant ... It also aims to provide opportunities for experiential learning and creativity."

i.e. to reduce redundancy, make room for something else in the curriculum, or to improve grade point averages.

Another possibility not mentioned would be to provide ideological cover. Delete some things unrelated to ideology, and you have some degree of plausible deniability re. accusations of dogma.

But I find the earlier rationales more plausible. Particularly if they come from people who do not themselves understand the importance of the concepts they are cutting.

witchesindublin4• 3 years ago

It does not actually say that it is taken out of the curriculum. It says that it is taken out from textbooks in a certain year. That means nothing in the context of Indian education considering how accessible a periodic table is.

keithxm23• 3 years ago

Title is clickbait

spaceman_20206• 3 years ago

India has been getting high on its own supply for a few years now. The narrative is that all knowledge originated in ancient Indian texts and was stolen by the west. Even the ISRO chief made a comment in this vein a few days back.

Cultures that keep looking at imagined past glories, imo, are destined to become static and falter.

local_crmdgeon2• 3 years ago

Cultures that keep looking at imagined past glories, imo, are destined to become static and falter.

If education was just chanting this half the day the world would be better off.

I had a Hindu nationalist recently berate me about how the "US had lost the Space Race, ISRO was the clear winner."

I mentioned the US landed on the Moon first, and he said "would rather have not landed on the Moon than live in a country with a large number of Black people" (put less pleasantly).

Weird guy! Weird political movement!

jcranmer2• 3 years ago

I had a Hindu nationalist recently berate me about how the "US had lost the Space Race, ISRO was the clear winner."

... did they give any examples of ISRO space accomplishments that predate US or Soviet accomplishment?

SAS_SBS5• 3 years ago

Indian here. Your exchange doesn't surprise me one bit. The Hindu nationalists are some of the most delusional, ultra-nationalistic, racist morons out there.

Many of them think India is going to be the next superpower and economic miracle out there. There's a large number of them working in big tech, and they'll say how fantastic India is, now that there are very high-paying tech jobs available there (almost all of them in American companies) and this gives them fantastic standards of living because they can easily afford maids and cooks aka cheap labor they can exploit. I scratch my head and wonder, if India is so good WTF are they still doing here, while also working on their Green Card petitions?

postalrat• 3 years ago

What countries don't look back at their past glories?

FreshStart• 3 years ago

Germany, the US in more lefty towns, eastern Europe were the colonial past half devoured the culture. Conquered and defeated empires.

rhaway847732• 3 years ago

You left out “imagined”.

prakashk• 3 years ago

I hope you aren't using the "everybody does it" argument to normalize, or worse, justify this stupidity.

That every country has its share of people who engage in such backward-looking, glorifying-the-past behavior does not make it right.

spaceman_20206• 3 years ago

They all do. But too much of it and it makes you forget that there’s a future left to build.

India’s obsession with the past has coincided with a period of anaemic real growth and widespread joblessness and unemployment.

77pt773• 3 years ago

All languages derive from Sanskrit is another trope.

An indo-european language no less.

It's beyond pathetic.

lannisterstark3• 3 years ago

You misspelled Tamil! /s

or was it Telugu. I forget lol.

snapcaster• 3 years ago

Yeah such a backwards culture. They should have the common sense to be born in my country which invented Freedom and Democracy and is a shining beacon for the entire world!

psychoslave• 3 years ago

The narrative is that all knowledge originated in ancient Indian texts and was stolen by the west.

There is plenty of objective material to feed discourses about admirable achievements that Indian people offered to mankind. I mean, think Pāṇini or Ramanujan to cite only two people whose work are well known in HN community. But obviously they are numerous example in many western scholar fields and beyond like yoga or Kamasutra.

It makes all the more ridiculous any attempt to exaggerate about glorious past: those who do prove themselves not living up the depth and fine grained nuances of their actual heritage.

MagicMoonlight• 3 years ago

And yet they literally shit in the street. It’s one of the funniest contradictions in human history.

SpaceManNabs2• 3 years ago

Kinda wild to see comments on here saying that India's slide into religious fascism isn't a big deal.

"We/Indians don't politicize science"

"There are many education authorities"

I think this is only affecting a particular grade, but we already have seen the slow rollout of other efforts.

You can't normalize politicians saying stuff like "our ancient civilization had nuclear energy".

edit: surprised that I wasn't immediately downvoted. A year ago, talking about this was instant downvotes, on any platform. I guess enough people have noticed this behavior.

SAS_SBS5• 3 years ago

Most Indians are in fact happy about that slide, given that 80%+ of the country are Hindus. What a shame!

mavelikara• 3 years ago

It is presumptuous to suggest that every Hindu is happy with the slide to Hindutva.

ephemeralkey• 3 years ago

There is a silent secular majority in the country that wants absolutely nothing to do with this drivel (i.e., the slide referred to in the parent and what some politicians say as referred to in the GP post).

We have always had crackpots (sometimes crackpots in positions of power/influence) who spout nonsense on all flavors of political ideology. Unfortunately, media (traditional and social media) amplifies the nonsense.

toddm• 3 years ago

India is the new Texas.

standardUser• 3 years ago

I found it really beneficial to be exposed to these concepts at a very young age, giving me a lot of exposure over many years and helping inform my overall view of science and the world as I grew up. I had a particularly keen interest in evolution starting with a visit to the Museum of Natural History in NYC at age 6! My mother bought my friend and I pamphlets on evolution (my mother had to clear it with his parents before giving it to him) and it became on ongoing fascination for me for many years.

I know little-to-nothing about elementary education in India, but I always appreciated the broad-based approach to education I experienced in the US, with various concept introduced very early, and then re-introduced periodically over the years. If anything, I would support throwing more knowledge at young students, knowing that they'll only absorb a fraction of it. Though I suppose that approach is anathema to standardized testing.

vinay_ys• 3 years ago

I don't think this is political or some other non-educational agenda driven. No politician in India has ever thought of education curriculum as part of their vote bank political thinking nor will they take the effort needed go interfere in the academic processes that result in these textbooks.

Anyway, it really doesn't matter if some of these topics are removed from these specific textbooks because most science students who are aspiring to go for engineering or medical undergrad college will study those topics as part of preparations for college entrance exams. Stuff like evolution, environmental pollution and periodic tables will be studied by even those who are applying for Indian civil service exams.

Also, there is no danger of creationism taking hold in India just because evolution is not taught in high school. Also, religious beliefs in India are very diverse and rich and highly complicated that nobody who is inclined to learn sciences will confuse religious beliefs and mythological stories with practical sciences.

Edit: btw, all textbooks are available for free download here: https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php You can evaluate for yourself and make your own mind. I for one envy students of today with all the rich multimedia material at their fingertips especially to learn formal and natural sciences.

Bekknqv8• 3 years ago

Teachers will still be teaching (and this is probably what NCERT expects) these basic topics, because teaching the topics that remain won't be easy without them.

My sibling was in grade 10 when COVID hit, some topics that had been removed from the final exam were still taught (although in a somewhat brief manner, considering this was online schooling).

Indian politicians say a lot of dumb and pseudo-scientific garbage, but a few subpar comments here are wildly quoting those to act as if they're rewriting all of science in India. They've purely made omissions, no additions/revisions.

And evolution is still a chapter in grade 12 biology books- https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?lebo1=6-13

You can also find the periodic table in grade 9 science textbooks (page 6)- https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?kech1=3-6

Bekknqv8• 3 years ago

EDIT: Made a very silly mistake (in my defence, it was late at night). The FULL periodic table is there in grade 11, not 9. Grade 9 only introduces you to the first 18 elements on the table.

p0w3n3d• 3 years ago

Bloodywood - Gaddar

dexzod2• 3 years ago

I scanned the whole article but could not find any mention of the reason behind this move. I mean evolution may be violating some Hindu teaching but what is the problem with periodic table of elements?

Bekknqv8• 3 years ago

They're trying to reduce the burden on students.

Don't exactly know if evolution violates some Hindu teachings, but a statement was released last month stating that evolution was removed from the grade 10 book because it's present in the grade 12 book-

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/darwins...

Similarly, I'm guessing the periodic table was removed from the grade 10 book because it's already present in the grade 9 book.

IMO they probably should've kept a page or two about evolution though, because after grade 10, students are free to pick their own courses (which doesn't have to be biology), but this is probably debatable. I'm all for reducing the burden though.

This Nature article is pretty poorly written (by Nature's standards) and lowkey sounds like the drivel I'd expect from Indian media.

duskwuff3• 3 years ago

Similarly, I'm guessing the periodic table was removed from the grade 10 book because it's already present in the grade 9 book.

That still doesn't make sense. The periodic table doesn't stop being relevant in 10th grade just because it was introduced in 9th grade.

dexzod2• 3 years ago

Oh wow, this is not the only thing axed from curriculum. This article goes in some more detail: https://thewire.in/education/h-for-hindu-rashtra-is-a-ration...

qwytw4• 3 years ago

IMO they probably should've kept a page or two about evolution though

How do you even teach biology or natural sciences without dedicated a significant amount if time for evolution (not just a page or two... lol..). Are these subject not taught at all in Indian school? Before 11/12 grade (assuming the students picks them)? What do they focus on instead?

bluepod4• 3 years ago

I’m not too familiar with Indian education systems. Does anyone have an idea if and how this would affect future JEE exams? I’m specifically referring to the removal of the periodic table for students under 16 years old.

Also, maybe I missed it, but what’s the point of _removing_ the chapters instead of just not _teaching_ them?

Bekknqv8• 3 years ago

The periodic table is actually already present in the 9th grade textbook.

As it stands, they haven't changed the JEE syllabus, so you do have to learn it either way.

Probably just to save paper and make lighter books? Not sure. Back in my day, they'd just ask us to ignore chapters that weren't in the syllabus.

ilrwbwrkhv• 3 years ago

Now just imagine the next generation of Java developers who will come out of the country.

mensetmanusman2• 3 years ago

Speaking of the periodic table. I learned during Covid that my fourth grader could memorize the entire thing when I practiced the song with her :)

malikNF• 3 years ago

Back home we had a bit of a vulgar song for the periodic table, as kids who were forced to memorize this, the song was much more entertaining and memorable.

debacle• 3 years ago

What a deceptive headline. They cut these things from general science courses (what Americans would consider K-8), but they are still part of "high school" biology.

waterheater• 3 years ago

Indians predominantly subscribe to the Hindu belief system, which is quite foreign from the Western ideologies imposed on them by the British.

Consider the concepts of atman (essentially, meaning Self) and avatars (essentially, deities coming down to earth to take on human form). Darwinian evolution acts as a simplified, analogous representation of the grander evolution of Self as told in Hindu mythology. According to Hinduism, atman evolves by inhabiting more complete forms of physical vessel, passing from fish to amphibian to cow to human to Buddha.

Additionally, Hindu belief systems admit the existence of reincarnative process, which Western belief systems, including our most fundamental prevailing scientific axiom, do not. Darwinian evolution and an overarching reincarnative process cannot coexist because the former requires that the physical world is the totality of reality while the latter requires that the physical world is a small but important portion of reality. Humans are either the descendants of monkeys via a completely-observable evolutionary process, or forces beyond those which are Seen shape our development.

Western arrogance dismisses these ideas as invalid at face value. A Westerner should honestly seek to understand the Hindu belief system and suss out where it is accurate and inaccurate without resorting to pathos argumentation.

JumpCrisscross3• 3 years ago

Darwinian evolution and an overarching reincarnative process cannot coexist because the former requires that the physical world is the totality of reality

What? No it doesn't. In fact, evolution comports rather nicely with reincarnation–there is a finite number of souls reincarnating through ever-evolving bodies, working together across time to press life as a whole forward.

Humans are either the descendants of monkeys via a completely-observable evolutionary process

Humans are not descendants of monkeys. That is not, and has never been science. Humans and monkey share a common ancestor, as do all mammals.

qwytw4• 3 years ago

without resorting to pathos argumentation

Unless there is observable evidence for these claims it might be the complete inverse of that?

from the Western ideologies imposed on them by the British.

So all the people who actually have embraced scientific thought (logical reasoning in general) only did so because the British forced? Seems like a great bunch.. these British, just don't tell this to the French or Germans.

wly_cdgr• 3 years ago

Prepping the serfs for war with China

getcrunk• 3 years ago

Ding ding ding. India has always been very education and tech forward. Hopefully this is a not the beginning of a trend, but the increased nationalism and authoritarianism (crypto, vpn ban) would fit very well with a dumbed down populace.

killjoywashere• 3 years ago

The only way I can see this making rational sense is if the senior leaders in the government are in possession of secret, solid evidence that population growth is about to become lethal in the extreme, and this is a radical move by the government to precipitate their own depopulation through mass starvation.

But I seriously doubt that's the case and the mechanism of action seems weak.

kepler1• 3 years ago

Does anyone else get the feeling that the "great filter" to our continued global civilization advance is how you manage, after reaching a certain size, the millions of competing motivations and concerns that branch out and cause confusion when there are no longer just a few clear problems to solve?

amriksohata• 3 years ago

There is a lot of pressure by Churches especially in the South of India not to teach evolution. And from other religions.

kazinator• 3 years ago

Right; we wouldn't want the next generation of one of the most populous nations, that is at a more imminent and grave risk from global warming than most others, to have a science background?

It's like some secret plot perpetrated by an external enemy who aims to eradicate the nation.

vivegi2• 3 years ago

This news seems misleading. A charitable reading of the article would assign it a category of "clickbait". The periodic table and evolution are still part of high school curriculum.

Here are the links to the class XI textbook for Chemistry (the so called rationalized text books for 2023-24).

Chemistry Part I, Unit 3, Classification of Elements and Periodicity in Properties. (Link to PDF) https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?kech1=3-6

  in pg 77, Mendeleev's original periodic table
  in pg 79, Long form of the periodic table (modern periodic table)

Here is the link for class XII textbook for Biology.

Biology, Chapter 6, Evolution. (link to PDF) https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?lebo1=6-13

  6.1 Origin of Life
  6.2 Evolution of Life Forms - A Theory
  6.3 What are the Evidences for Evolution?
  6.4 What is Adaptive Radiation?
  6.5 Biological Evolution
  6.6 Mechanism of Evolution
  6.7 Hardy - Weinberg Principle
  6.8 A Brief Account of Evolution
  6.9 Origin and Evolution of Man

The Nature article's summary below the headline states

Nature has learnt that the periodic table, as well as evolution, won’t be taught to under-16s as they start the new school year.

Yeah, duh! It is taught in Class XI and XII in Chemistry and Biology, just not in Class IX or X as it used to be done previously. Weaving this as some major conspiracy is dishonest and ridiculous.

For the benefit of US readers: Class IX is freshman high school year, Class X is sophomore year, Class XI is junior year, Class XII is senior year.

msravi• 3 years ago

This is false: https://twitter.com/deepakshenoy/status/1664098996242006017?...

shreyshnaccount2• 3 years ago

India is a country of contradictions. My mom was a bio teacher, and obviously believes in the concept of evolution. But she's also spiritual and religious, and believes in creationist theories. She is somehow able to juxtapose both into creating a meaningful "story".

Id encourage non-Indians to read up about India to have the cultural context we grow up in

https://profcohen.net/reli113/uploads/texts/ramanujan.pdf

shreyshnaccount2• 3 years ago

That being said there's definitely some insane extreme ideologies here but definitely not as common as some media would portray. Also the NCERT sucks

intel_brain• 3 years ago

Good. Lot of crap needs to removed from 11 and 12 classes too. CBSE / NCERT is bloated.

baerrie• 3 years ago

Understanding that atoms are the foundation of matter and evolutionary adaptation are fundamental to life goes directly against any religion that purports alternate explanations. There is nothing innocuous about this, it is a theocratic censure.

boruto• 3 years ago

They are teaching chemical elements, atoms and all. It is just that periodic table is moved from class 10 to 11.

There is also reasearch that periodic table is difficult to teach in secondary schools.

https://www.ejmste.com/article/reflections-on-teaching-perio...

rideofvalkyrie• 3 years ago

Don't let facts stand in your way to senseless propaganda. The textbooks are all available online.

Periodic table: https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?kech1=3-6

Evolution: https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?lebo1=6-13

http://www.indiatodayne.in/national/story/ncert-syllabus-row...

TLDR: Nature and most other western publications failed to do basic fact check, neither periodic table or evolution are 'cut' from textbooks. They're just moved to a different grade.

funnybusiness22• 3 years ago

Unfortunately, its likely much worse than merely failing to do fact checking.

India has been handicapped by a highly insufficient educational system set up by the British (and later run by its puppets) for a very long time, that was meant to produce robots/slaves/peons, not independent thinkers.

They are finally having discussions about how to redesign the education system, to empower its people to become future leaders, innovators. Given that India has a very young population, if they do this redesign right, it will pay off handsomely in the future.

Of course, there are many parties who do not want to see that happen. So what do they do? They disrupt the public discourse taking place around this in the country by spreading disinformation via publications such as nature.com, that get scientists in India riled up against the education related gov't bodies, instead of collaboratively working with them.

For a good overview of how idealogical subversion of this kind is carried out I would recommend watching interviews of Yuri Bezmenov on youtube.

funnybusiness22• 3 years ago

Are these changes to school textbooks politically/religiously motivated? Debatable.

Do these changes de-emphasize science education or merely reorganize it? Also debatable.

Are these debates fairly represented by this nature.com article in a balanced way? NOT AT ALL.

The bigger story here is the decline in credibility suffered by nature.com due to its publication of such an unbalanced article.

nature.com used to be one of the gold standard for scientific publications. When they publish garbage like this, more people start to lean "anti-science".

India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

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