Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satyapal Singh, who was the chief guest at a National Science Day function on Wednesday, stonewalled questions on Darwinian evolution.
In his lecture he said science was essential to the progress of society and that ancient Indian culture imbibed a culture of scientific investigation and didn’t have the conflict between science and religion like in Europe. “There was no struggle between science and religion in India and our tradition teaches us to live according to biological and natural laws,” he said in his inaugural address.
National Science Day has been celebrated since 1996 to commemorate the discovery of the Raman Effect, which deals with the scattering of light and had won Sir C.V. Raman the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
As previously reported, Ajay Sood, president, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), had told The Hindu that Mr. Singh’s presence was also an opportunity to “have a wider discussion on evolutionary theory and its importance.” The INSA and the Indian Academy of Sciences had organised the event in Delhi.
Mr. Singh, however, skipped the lecture on evolution. He also didn’t acknowledge repeated questions from journalists on the sidelines, on whether he continued to subscribe to views that biological evolution was false and that the ideas of Charles Darwin needed to be excised from textbooks.
The talk Mr. Singh skipped was given by Amitabh Joshi, of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, who spoke on the history of evolutionary biology, the role of Darwin and the evidence, over the years, for evolutionary principles and why it was a fundamentally important idea to understand changes in the physiological and development strategies of all organisms.
Mr. Joshi also said that in spite of several contemporary Indian biologists being at the forefront of global research in evolutionary biology, India didn’t yet have a dedicated institute specifically for evolutionary studies. “Today proper training in updated ideas of evolutionary theory is critically needed at the college as well as postgraduate levels of instruction,” he added.
In January, Satyapal Singh had said that Darwin’s theory (of evolution in humans) was scientifically wrong. “It needs to change in school and college curriculum. No one has seen an ape turn into a man. Since man was seen on Earth he has always been a man,” he had said on the sidelines of a conference in Maharashtra.
His remarks sparked considerable concern among the scientist fraternity with the INSA formally protesting his remarks. Some scientists even floated a petition condemning his statement and saying that it “harmed India's reputation.”
