The Indian congress of pseudo-science
- By Sumantra Maitra
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, January 19, 2015
|
|
|
Union Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Harsh Vardhan during the 102nd Indian Science Congress exhibition being held at Bandra-Kurla Complex on January 3, 2015 in Mumbai, India. |
When India elected a new government under Narendra Modi, there was a sense of jubilation. After a decade and half of policy paralysis in India where science and innovation came down to zero, industries were closed down due to protests and environmental politics, GDP nosedived from a peak of 8.6 to around 3 percent, and overall nothing worthwhile happened, other than partisan bickering, Modi was a breath of fresh air. Modi looked like a man of mission; the ruling BJP poised to carry Indian potential to a modern scientific future, a land of innovation and technology, a global leader.
All came crashing down symbolically in the recently concluded Indian Science Congress. An old, probably senile air training pilot, Captain Bodas, jointly with a teacher of Sanksrit, presented a paper, discussing Indian aviation in the Vedic ages. The result was so hilarious it was almost surreal. The paper was not made public, the contents were not verified, no double blind peer review conducted, and the paper was not even presented for further verification or corroboration by other institutes, or even to the media.
After a glorious year of Indian space research, this one act managed to shake and damage the credibility of Indian science like never before.
Here are some of the ludicrous "claims" presented in the conference. Thousands of years back, during Mahabharata and the Vedas, India had 40 engine planes, which were interplanetary. It could go in any direction, stop mid-momentum, and turn sides. Apparently the Indians discovered special suits to wear during these fights as well. We also made electric batteries and radar thousands of years ago. There is no evidence of where these batteries are currently. Apparently cow urine can also be used for a variety of purposes, including magic paste, strong material for planes, and bacteria which can turn human excreta into pure gold. Not only this, the paper took a dig at modern aviation, by saying Indians, even by modern standards, took to air eight years before the Wright brothers.
These delusional lectures cannot easily be discarded as a raving rant of a man with clear mental issues. The individual who presented the paper is linked to the religious right of the ruling BJP party, and was given a chance to speak at the nudge of the right-wingers. To top it off, the science minister of the republic, Harsh Vardhan, in complete nonchalance and keeping a straight face, said a few days back that Indians developed the Pythagoras theorem, and magnanimously "gave" it to the Greeks, without taking any credit for it. The final nail was by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who mentioned, ironically without any external influence of hallucinatory drugs, that Ganesh, the Indian elephant deity, was the first example of intra-species surgery, and there is evidence of cloning in Mahabharata.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)