514
TIL that India cut the Pythagorean theorem—Edit: its similarity proof—, periodic table, and evolution from mandatory education in June 2023 Edit: before adding it back a week later (www.dw.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/til@lemmy.world
104 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin's theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/evolution-periodic-table-to-stay-part-of-class-9-10-syllabus/articleshow/101058188.cms

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 43 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Short answer, yes.

In 2018, Indian minister for higher education Satyapal Singh baffled the scientific community by demanding that the theory of evolution be removed from school curriculum becaue "no one ever saw an ape turning into a human being." Other political leaders from the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party came to his defense on social media.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago*

    That statement alone speaks to his fundamental misunderstanding of what evolution is. Stupid people not knowing a subject, understanding their entirely flawed guess is wrong (I agree with them there) yet not realizing WHY they're wrong, then barring it because how ridiculous what they think it is sounds. Dunning something something Kruger something. I'm 100% for teaching kids that gorillas just dont turn into humans and actually teach them what evolution means.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Clearly that man needed to be taught more about evolution when he was in school.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    The thing is, evolution makes sense, so long as you aren’t going to outright reject the idea that humans aren’t a different category of thing from the rest of Animalia. It gets weird when you get deep enough to see that we share an ancestor with plants and bacteria and even archaea, but we have enough evidence that by the time you’re being asked to understand that fact you can see that line and understand how photosynthetic microbes slowly built new systems while other microbes ate the remains of them before slowly bit by bit developing new traits to differentiate and fill niches.

    They don’t want to think of themselves as such, because it’s a form of humility to understand that you evolved from a worm that just happened to have a particularly effective means of transmitting signals along the course of its body. They want to think their gods made them to rule nature.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent