Scientists in India protest move to drop Darwinian evolution from textbooks | Science

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.

The Breakthrough Science Society, a nonprofit group, launched the open letter on 20 April after learning that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous government organization that sets curricula and publishes textbooks for India’s 256 million primary and secondary students, had made the move as part of a “content rationalization” process. NCERT first removed discussion of Darwinian evolution from the textbooks at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to streamline online classes, the society says. (Last year, NCERT issued a document that said it wanted to avoid content that was “irrelevant” in the “present context.”)

NCERT officials declined to answer questions about the decision to make the removal permanent. They referred ScienceInsider to India’s Ministry of Education, which had not provided comment as this story went to press.

“The country’s scientific community is seriously dismayed to see that the theory of biological evolution … has been dropped,” the Breakthrough Science Society said in a statement. “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,” Joshi says. “It speaks directly to who we are, as humans, and our position within the living world.”

Despite the growing protest, there is “not much hope” that NCERT “will suddenly admit the mistake and revisit the decision,” says Aniket Sule, an astronomer and science advocate at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. Biologist Satyajit Rath, former president of the All India Peoples Science Network, is also pessimistic. “Will [the protest] make any difference? Given the recent trajectories of such decisions of the government of India, probably not, at least over the short term. Sustained progressive efforts will be required to influence the long-term outcomes.”

Joshi, however, hopes the pressure will prompt other government officials to step in. He says other organizations, including the Indian Academy of Sciences, have expressed their concerns to senior government officials.

NCERT’s move comes amid what some see as the growing influence of pseudoscience in India. Researchers and politicians linked to conservative Hindu organizations have voiced doubts about evolution and promoted unsupported claims that ancient Indians built spacecraft and conducted stem cell research. And some observers fear India’s move could embolden evolution deniers in adjoining nations, including Pakistan. There, notes physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani science advocate, biology textbooks are already prefaced with notes warning readers that they will “encounter the theory of evolution—but you are advised not to believe it because it is unscientific, lacks proof, and goes against Islam.”

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.

The Breakthrough Science Society, a nonprofit group, launched the open letter on 20 April after learning that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous government organization that sets curricula and publishes textbooks for India’s 256 million primary and secondary students, had made the move as part of a “content rationalization” process. NCERT first removed discussion of Darwinian evolution from the textbooks at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to streamline online classes, the society says. (Last year, NCERT issued a document that said it wanted to avoid content that was “irrelevant” in the “present context.”)

NCERT officials declined to answer questions about the decision to make the removal permanent. They referred ScienceInsider to India’s Ministry of Education, which had not provided comment as this story went to press.

“The country’s scientific community is seriously dismayed to see that the theory of biological evolution … has been dropped,” the Breakthrough Science Society said in a statement. “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,” Joshi says. “It speaks directly to who we are, as humans, and our position within the living world.”

Despite the growing protest, there is “not much hope” that NCERT “will suddenly admit the mistake and revisit the decision,” says Aniket Sule, an astronomer and science advocate at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. Biologist Satyajit Rath, former president of the All India Peoples Science Network, is also pessimistic. “Will [the protest] make any difference? Given the recent trajectories of such decisions of the government of India, probably not, at least over the short term. Sustained progressive efforts will be required to influence the long-term outcomes.”

Joshi, however, hopes the pressure will prompt other government officials to step in. He says other organizations, including the Indian Academy of Sciences, have expressed their concerns to senior government officials.

NCERT’s move comes amid what some see as the growing influence of pseudoscience in India. Researchers and politicians linked to conservative Hindu organizations have voiced doubts about evolution and promoted unsupported claims that ancient Indians built spacecraft and conducted stem cell research. And some observers fear India’s move could embolden evolution deniers in adjoining nations, including Pakistan. There, notes physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani science advocate, biology textbooks are already prefaced with notes warning readers that they will “encounter the theory of evolution—but you are advised not to believe it because it is unscientific, lacks proof, and goes against Islam.”