India Schools Drop Evolution: Academia Screams

The outcry is loud and aggressive over worries
that the creation movement is spreading to Asia

 

 

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

It was a decision that was echoed throughout the world: “India dropping core science topics from school textbooks,” including evolution.[1] What really happened?

Nature Magazine reported “the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) — the public body that develops the Indian school curriculum and textbooks — released textbooks for the new academic year that started in May.”[2] Typical are the comments of Stanford University science-education researcher Jonathan Osborne who opined: “Anybody who’s trying to teach biology without dealing with evolution is not teaching biology as we currently understand it … It’s that fundamental to biology.”[3] Other topics were also removed, such as the periodic table, but none caused more controversy then the removal of evolution from the textbooks:

Science educators are particularly concerned about the removal of evolution. A chapter on diversity in living organisms and one called ‘Why do we fall ill’ has been removed from the syllabus for class-9 students, who are typically 14–15 years old. Darwin’s contributions to evolution, how fossils form and human evolution have all been removed from the chapter on heredity and evolution for class-10 pupils. That chapter is now called just ‘Heredity.’”[4]

Ramifications of the Decision

This change is no small matter. India has 256 million primary and secondary students. In short, the claim was made by those opposing evolution’s removal that “Evolution… is essential to understanding human diversity and our place in the world.”[5] Not a word was mentioned in the protests about the many documented problems with the Darwinian worldview. Furthermore, the claim was made that

“The process of evolution by natural selection and the principles underlying the periodic table are both fundamental concepts that explain — and encourage students to wonder about — the world at large. Life, in all its magnificent permutations and combinations, is the product of evolutionary processes.”[6]

This is another example, among many as noted below, that supports Michael Ruse’s conclusion that evolution is a religion.[7]

Outrage in Academia

The outcry went beyond a few leading biologists: “More than 4,500 scientists, teachers and science communicators have signed an appeal organized by Breakthrough Science Society, a campaign group based in Kolkata, India, [organized to] reinstate the axed content on evolution.”[8] Other protests include:

Scientists in India are protesting a decision to remove discussion of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from textbooks used by millions of students in ninth and 10th grades. More than 4000 researchers and others have so far signed an open letter asking officials to restore the material. The removal makes “a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education,” says evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. Other researchers fear it signals a growing embrace of pseudoscience by Indian officials.[9]

Evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi, of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, expressed his opinion about how central evolution is to the secular worldview:

In India, class 10 is the last year in which science is taught to every student. Only students who elect to study biology in the final two years of education (before university) will learn about the topic. Joshi says that the curriculum revision process has lacked transparency. But in the case of evolution, “more religious groups in India are beginning to take anti-evolution stances.” Some members of the public also think that evolution lacks relevance outside academic institutions… some observers fear India’s move could embolden evolution deniers in adjoining nations, including Pakistan.[10]

Theories of Why Evolution Was Axed

Many reasons by both supporters and opponents of the policy were given for the removal of evolution from the curriculum, including the claim that “evolution conflicts with creation stories.” NCERT states on its website that it “considered both the difficulty of the content, and whether the content was irrelevant.[11]  Another conclusion expressed for the reasons that evolution was removed includes it was due to “what some see as the growing influence of pseudoscience in India. Researchers and politicians linked to conservative Hindu organizations have voiced doubts about evolution.”[12]

Analysis

In reviewing articles about India’s removal of teaching evolution from grades 9 and 10, all implied, or stated, that the evolutionary worldview was an absolute fact that explained the creation of humans and biological history. None mentioned the option of teaching it as only one theory of origins, or a theory in which both sides (pros and cons) will be examined. None mentioned that evolutionists themselves differ about evolution. It is obvious from my reading that evolution was being taught dogmatically, not objectively as all theories should be taught.

This decision and its aftermath illustrates how evolution has become the dominant worldview used to explain how we got here, our purpose in life, and whether there is an afterlife.

The country’s scientific community is seriously dismayed to see that the theory of biological evolution … has been dropped…. Students will remain seriously handicapped in their thought processes if deprived of exposure to this fundamental discovery of science.” One major concern, Joshi says, is that most Indian students will get no exposure to the concept of evolution if it is dropped from the ninth and 10th grade curriculum, because they do not go on to study biology in later grades. “Evolution is perhaps the most important part of biology that all educated citizens should be aware of….It speaks directly to who we are, as humans, and our position within the living world.[13]

The Discovery Institute in Seattle does not advocate dropping evolution teaching. It argues that more evolution needs to be taught, not less—as long as it is taught objectively, presenting both the strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, origins teaching should cover why we know that molecules-to-man evolution never occurred, and could never have occurred. Students also should be taught the enormous harm that evolution belief has caused in the world, including eugenics, racism, and the Holocaust.

References

[1] Editorial. India dropping core science topics from school textbooks. Nature 618:8; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01750-2, 30 May 2023.

[2] Lewis, Dyani. India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks — experts are baffled. Nature. News; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01770-y, 31 May 2023.

[3] Lewis, 2023.

[4] Lewis, 2023.

[5] Lewis, 2023.

[6] Editorial. India . . . , Nature, 2023, p. 8. Emphasis added.

[7] Ruse, Michael. Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2016.

[8] Lewis, 2023.

[9] Parvaiz, Athar. Scientists in India protest move to drop Darwinian evolution from textbooks. Decision marks troubling rejection of science, critics say. Science Insider; https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-india-protest-move-drop-darwinian-evolution-textbooks, 28 April 2023. .

[10] Lewis, 2023.

[11] Parvaiz, 2023.

[12] Parvaiz, 2023.

[13] Parvaiz, 2023.

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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,300 publications in 12 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.