However, we cannot wash our hands off simply by criticizing the banishment of evolution from school curriculum in India and Bangladesh. The BJP has done what it is expected to do. Its only mission is to destroy or pollute the great heritage of knowledge and culture mankind created in the world and also in India. Had it done something else we would be surprised. The ruling clique in students today do not learn evolution from Darwin’s books. They learn it from the works and researches that have proceeded up to today since the days of Darwin. Despite Darwin’s name attached to this theory, it relates to many new things. It has grown by correcting the mistakes and revising the limitations of the theory in terms of facts, arguments and analysis over the years. It upholds a newer body of knowledge. And that is the usual characteristic feature of any scientific theory. Some people try to confuse us on this question. There is propaganda as if we ask the students to learn the theory of evolution from the books of Charles Darwin. No, not at all.
This is where science differs from religion. It is a fundamental difference. You have to locate the difference between science and religion initially at this point.
For a religion, the older its text, the greater its sacredness; and the more its appeal to the devotees. There can be no mistake there, and even if you point one out, it can’t be rectified. No new fact, argument or idea may be included thereto. No revision, addition and updating is allowed there. It demands unstinted acceptance of and surrender to every word and every canon in the text. On the contrary, the case of science is just the reverse. The textual value of the writing of a scientist, however great—be it Newton, Lavoisier, Darwin, Pavolov, Einstein, Chandrashekhar, Abdus Salam and so forth, is only temporary and continuously dated. For any scientific theory, the more current its text, the greater its acceptability and importance, the higher its knowledge value.
Here it may be worthwhile to characterize the religious fundamentalists. The average religious people are no longer worried much about the purity of their faiths and opposition to science. They don’t spend much time on religious conducts. They their faiths to a venerable status in present day society. They consider it a sacred duty to fan up emotion in men in the name of Vedas, Geeta, Bible and Koran. As a part of this job on the one hand they claim to have found the origin of all scientific achievements in their respective sacred texts; and on the other, they oppose every such scientific theory that may adversely affect their belief systems. The Darwinian theory of evolution is such a sensitive arena. Since it cannot be managed within the religious canons, they are thoroughly against it.
These campaigners and traders of religion extoll the old texts to such a height that make us see that their knowledge does not grow but wanes. They are proud of the old scriptures. Scientific knowledge however continuously grows, undergoes revision, renews its body of information and understanding and improves its logical arsenals. We don’t study Newtonian mechanics from Newton’s Principia but from modern textbooks where the latest information has been incorporated. Similarly we don’t study Darwin’s theory from Darwin’s books but from current literature. That’s the modalities of science. incomplete. Doubt, question and checking are the sole motive force behind the search for scientific truths. Falsifiability is an essential criterion of a scientific theory. A researcher in any special field of knowledge first looks up how far work has been done and then starts working on projects for advancement of knowledge in the area. This is true of natural as well as social sciences. While doing this one does not consider the geography of the sources. When Darwin laid his hands on the study of the organic world, he gathered information not only from England but the whole of Europe, America and even from India, China, etc. When the Arab scholars had advanced knowledge in the Middle Age, they also had roamed into many corners of Asia and Europe beyond the Islamized territory, including India. Students of our country today should know these facts.
Secondly, we have to clarify one thing to the students and the guardians. Although the high regime has removed Darwinism from the school curriculum, in most of the competitive examinations and entrance examinations to various institutes and universities it will appear. There is every likelihood of some questions coming which are related to the theory of evolution (eg. what is fossil and what does it help us to know about?). Those who have the merit and capacity to go abroad for higher education, may have to face such questions at the beginning. What will they say? Our bosses didn’t allow us to learn Darwinism in school? Will they make themselves ridiculous? So whether it is in the curriculum or not, they have to learn it anyhow. I think, even if the guardians fail to appreciate the knowledge value, they will understand the problem from the wards’ career point of view.
Thirdly, the popular science platforms may take the initiative to prepare alternative textbooks on biology, in line with the school curriculum (as it should be), in various languages, take these books to the students and guardians and sell them at cheaper prices. They may appeal to the guardians and teachers to encourage the students to read these at home. We must also publish popular books on evolutionary biology, translate and publish essays from outside sources and thereby popularize the issue of evolution. The left student, teacher and cultural organizations may also conduct similar programmes separately as well as in combination with one another.
Fourthly, let us prepare some easily comprehensible PowerPoint illustrations everywhere for the subject. Those may be circulated through Youtube channels (already some such commendable attempts have come to my notice). We should have the broader mental bent to introduce good programmes of other platforms through our own. Such a united concerted effort will soon put the BJP-RSS agenda on biology and Darwin into an insurmountable difficulty and ultimately frustrate their entire projects. Likeminded people of Bangladesh may also launch similar programmes against the propaganda of the religious fanatics of their country. They will be defeated. And in no time.
If we may plan and proceed in this way, discharge our duties, freed of confusion and hesitation, there will be a time in the near future when not a single student will remain uninformed of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Let us start and lay our hands on the job. We have many things to do at the moment.
The author is a science writer. He is the General Secretary for Centre for Studies in Science and Society [CESTUSS], Kolkata. cestuss.2011@gmail.com
