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A comment on India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks. Parent comment

Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by sriram_malhar on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @01:18PM (#36140892)
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...

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by onlyrealcuzzo on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @01:41PM (#36141175)
This goes against the narrative that the US is the worst at everything, and the US is the only country that his bigots and ignorant folks.
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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by meepmorp on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @02:15PM (#36141699)
What does any of this have to do with the US?
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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by AtlasBarfed on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @02:34PM (#36142036)
The United States routinely has states, especially in the South, trying to get rid of evolution from textbooks, that fault line is usually the battleground between religious zealots that desire to inculcate their biblical worldviews into the formal education system.

Of course there are also contests to control history, sex education, politics, etc, because those are far more political.

The periodic table though, hoo boy, that's a new one.

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by meepmorp on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @03:15PM (#36142694)
Yes, there are plenty of people in the US who are proudly and aggressively ignorant for ideological reasons, but what does that have to do with a discussion of what's going on India?
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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by DANmode on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @02:29PM (#36141952)
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.
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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by dmix on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @02:30PM (#36141976)
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.

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by sriram_malhar on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @09:54PM (#36146765)
> 1 is a regional judge.

Ok, how about this?

Ayush is a govt portal for govt funded products based on ancient Indian pharmacology. Here is the 'research' on panchagavya (click to find out what it is, and weep) https://ayushportal.nic.in/panchagavya.html

Or, how about this: cow urine is sold on amazon

https://www.amazon.in/s?k=cow+urine&crid=277U5YZ3T98T8&spref...

This is not an isolated person who's lost his marbles. It is a massive country, where a small but highly vocal and powerful minority has completely lost it, and they are the ones who vote.

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As for the second, it was not a lecture at a science institute. It was the 102nd Indian Science Congress, an event that is supposed to be prestigious. Indian Nobel winners, Field medalists, prominent space scientists were there amongst the august crowd. And there was an entire track imposed on that event by the govt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Indian_Science_Congress_a...

I am not going to give a link to that paper; you need to do some homework. That is of course, if you care about what is happening. Hope you will not be like the others who say, 'but Modi is building roads and airports, so everything is getting better'. I weep for my country.

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by RajT88 on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @03:43PM (#36143157)
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?

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by SpaceManNabs on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @03:49PM (#36143248)
> Surely that runs counter to their goals, right?

Goals are what voters are apathetic to let happen.

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by jolux on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @04:56PM (#36144225)
Generally the goal of an authoritarian government is keeping the leader in power long enough to rob the country blind and then die peacefully. Where they have goals outside of that they do not tend to prioritize education — educated people often have more of the resources they need to challenge power.
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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by kamaal on Thursday June 01, 2023 @01:01AM (#36147722)
>>Surely that runs counter to their goals, right?

Power is always in comparison to something. You are powerful compared to somebody. So as long as they have enough to exercise control over minorities of India and feel nice about it they are powerful enough.

The whole idea of western style power over the whole world is not something they imagine as power. Or at least proactively work towards.

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Re:India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textb... by notmypenguin on Thursday June 01, 2023 @08:15AM (#36150084)
I think you’ve nailed the tragedy of the 21st in a nutshell: call oreilly lol… which animal do you want on your cover?

Humanity goes extinct due to an inability to switch off the tribalism us-vs-them mechanism.

Petty nationalism steals humanity’s future for 10 points, Alex

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