India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks -- experts are baffled

[usonian]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01770-y
In India, children under 16 returning to school this month at the start of the school year will no longer be taught about evolution, the periodic table of elements, or sources of energy.

The news that evolution would be cut from the curriculum for students aged 15–16 was widely reported last month, when thousands of people signed a petition in protest. But official guidance has revealed that a chapter on the periodic table will be cut, too, along with other foundational topics such as sources of energy and environmental sustainability. Younger learners will no longer be taught certain pollution- and climate-related topics, and there are cuts to biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics subjects for older school students.

Mythili Ramchand, a science-teacher trainer at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India, says that “everything related to water, air pollution, resource management has been removed. “I don’t see how conservation of water, and air [pollution], is not relevant for us. It’s all the more so currently,” she adds. A chapter on different sources of energy — from fossil fuels to renewables — has also been removed. “That’s a bit strange, quite honestly, given the relevance in today’s world,” says Osborne. ...

Aditya Mukherjee, a historian at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Dehli, says that changes to the curriculum are being driven by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a mass-membership volunteer organization that has close ties to India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party. The RSS feels that Hinduism is under threat from India’s other religions and cultures.

“There is a movement away from rational thinking, against the enlightenment and Western ideas” in India, adds Sucheta Mahajan, a historian at Jawaharlal Nehru University who collaborates with Mukherjee on studies of RSS influence on school texts. Evolution conflicts with creation stories, adds Mukherjee. History is the main target, but “science is one of the victims”, she adds.

Lots more at the Nature URL above.

[The Magistrate]

1. Welcome To The Wonderful World Of Hindu Fundamentalism, Sir

The wildest dreams of our 'young earth' fundamentalists are as molehills to its mountains....

[malaise]

9. THIS

This is what follows the surge in ignorance

An Indian official has been suspended from his job for wasting hundreds of thousands of gallons of water after ordering a reservoir drained in a bid to find his cellphone.

[hunter]

15. Anti-intellectual anti-science religions will be the death of our world civilization.

They do not deserve our "tolerance."

[Ocelot II]

2. India has produced some excellent engineers and other scientists.

Not any more?

Religious idiocy is not limited to evangelical Christianity.

[malaise]

10. Religious idiocy is linked to most religions

That is all

[Hortensis]

14. :) Truth. Demonizing science and religion has never defeated either,

and never will.

[hunter]

16. I don't "demonize" all religion...

... only the anti-intellectual religions.

If you believe in gods or other sorts of creators then they must have given us brains expecting we'd use them.

If you don't believe in gods or creators it's still your obligation, by any standard of ethical humanity, to use whatever brains you've got.

Bloody hell yes, there are religions and ideologies I will not tolerate.

[Hortensis]

18. i'm with you most of the way but don't feel I have

a right to not "tolerate" genuine religious beliefs or ideologies in themselves. For me that needs an explanation that hurting others with them is where continued tolerance needs to be enabled by protections of others.

"Our rights end where another man's nose begins." But until then!

Not sure obliging people to use whatever brains we had would fit that principle, but the use itself sounds good. Like to think we'd have a better world for it... For sure it'd be different.

[anciano]

3. "There is a movement away from rational thinking" ......

Spot on! That one phrase speaks volumes, not only for the situation there, but for here as well.

[Biophilic]

4. Good grief, the whole f'ing world is going crazy.

And this was done under the supervision of "experts"?

[underpants]

5. Well yoga is allowed in Al Abama schools after a 30 year ban

Alabama Will Now Allow Yoga In Its Public Schools (But Students Can't Say 'Namaste')


https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999020140/its-now-legal-to-practice-yoga-in-alabamas-public-schools


Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a bill to allow public schools to offer yoga, ending a ban that stood for nearly 30 years. Christian conservatives who back the ban said yoga would open the door for people to be converted to Hinduism.

The new law allows yoga to be offered as an elective for grades K-12. While it erases a ban that, over the years, some schools had not realized existed, it also imposes restrictions on how yoga should be taught. Students won't be allowed to say, "Namaste," for instance. Meditation is not allowed.

"Chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited," the bill states. It also requires English names be used for all poses and exercises. And before any students try a tree pose, they'll need a parent's permission slip.

[Biophilic]

13. Everyone is so dang worried about everyone else's.

It’s really creepy and getting more and more dangerous. Who’s going to be the first asshole to break in to a school in Alabama to save the poor little Christian children?

[Jilly_in_VA]

6. How in the hell

do they expect to have doctors in India if the kids don't learn the periodic table? I ask you.

[Archae]

7. As I've said before...

Wherever fundys pop up, they cause havoc.

And fundys *HATE* science.

[ismnotwasm]

8. Religion is always problematic it seems

Also, how do you get into the sciences without foundational knowledge? What do they want this kids to learn?

[NCjack]

11. Most likely, they will learn how to pray successfully for getting free stuff. (Steal the stuff

and pray for forgiveness.)

[hunter]

17. Anti-intellectualism is common in many human societies...

... especially here in the U.S.A., even among the irreligious.

I can't even tell you how many atheists I've met who've abandoned the religions of their youth but kept all the anti-intellectual baggage of those religions.

Every child is naturally born an artist and a scientist. Certain religions and ideologies survive by beating these inborn traits out of their own children.

The answer to your question is that there is much they don't want their children to learn. The greatest threat to their beliefs is the natural curiosity of children.

[sakabatou]

12. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some schools in the US that wanted to do this

Or at least, people in power.

[Fritz67]

19. So will they have a new periodic table?

One that will only have air, fire, earth, and water on it?

Sheesh...