India Cuts Periodic Table and Evolution From School Textbooks - Slashdot
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/05/31/1525242/india-cuts-periodic-table-and-evolution-from-school-textbooks
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India Cuts Periodic Table and Evolution From School Textbooks
India Cuts Periodic Table and Evolution From School Textbooks (nature.com) 123
Posted by msmash
on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @11:25AM from the concerning-matters dept.In India, children under 16 returning to school this month at the start of the school year will no longer be taught about evolution, the periodic table of elements, or sources of energy. Nature: The news that evolution would be cut from the curriculum for students aged 15-16 was widely reported last month, when thousands of people signed a petition in protest. But official guidance has revealed that a chapter on the periodic table will be cut, too, along with other foundational topics such as sources of energy and environmental sustainability. Younger learners will no longer be taught certain pollution- and climate-related topics, and there are cuts to biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics subjects for older school students. Overall, the changes affect some 134 million 11-18-year-olds in India's schools. The extent of what has changed became clearer last month when 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. Researchers, including those who study science education, are shocked. "Anybody who's trying to teach biology without dealing with evolution is not teaching biology as we currently understand it," says Jonathan Osborne, a science-education researcher at Stanford University in California. "It's that fundamental to biology." The periodic table explains how life's building blocks combine to generate substances with vastly different properties, he adds, and "is one of the great intellectual achievements of chemists."
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Why do auth-right and anti intellectualism always go together?
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This is how cults work. They also try to isolate you from the outside world by labelling people from other countries as "bad" in one for mor another.
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I can't wait for the Quran to be added to the curriculum of American schools,
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It's much more likely that the "Southern Baptist" interpretation of the Bible will be the theocratic basis of the upcoming American dictatorship.
On paper the words will be different but fundamentally it's pretty much the same with the added benefit of having a built-in boogeyman in the "Al-Qaeda" interpretation of the Quran.
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Yes, brah, totally! The Xtians are invading the schools and businesses and churches and making people pray everywhere and get rid of their blue hair and alphabet people are being oppressed everywhere! It's almost as bad as when the Xtians threw people to the lions during the Roman era. Dude, brah! I'm afraid for the future with these Xtians running everything now!
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The Al-Qaeda "interpretation" of the Quran is simply obeying the clearly written commands in it. Expand the Umma across the whole word, spreading Islam by the sword if people don't accept willingly. Give people of the book (Christians and Jews) the limited right to practice their faith but make them pay the Jizya tax, and live under Islamic law. Non-Abrahamic peoples get to either convert, or a sword to the neck. Haya (modesty in dress and manner, covering the body) must be maintained by women at all times.
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You obviously have no clue what you're talking about and most definitely have not read the Quran. The Quran is way more progressive than the New Testament.
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Hopefully they don't add any of the magic based books to the American curriculum.
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Sometimes you can study documents in school without being pressured to believe in them. Ie, learning some of Das Capital doesn't turn someone into a communist, but it does let you know about communism from someone other than preachers and political partisans. Similarly, knowing what's in the Quran doesn't turn you into a muslim, but it does let you know what they believe. The danger in some people's minds is that the students might think that perhaps these people aren't actually monsters.
Even catholic sch
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by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @12:18PM (#63564505)
If you want to run an authoritarian government, you are probably in it for your own personal reasons, with little general concern about the people who you are leading.
To achieve this, you need a population of doers, but not thinkers. Thinkers will question your commands, they will also evaluate their own stances and biases to try to keep them honest as well. They will often see threw the authoritarian ruler and note that much of its commands are stupid and misinformed, with the only goal of keeping them in power.
The doer, respect the authoritarian ruler, as they are telling them what to do, and how to see the world. A seemingly stupid idea, is actually some ingenious big picture problem solving that is just above the average guys comprehension. Which gives the authoritarian the power and respect they think they deserve, as well an army of cannon fodder to protect their position of power.The best way to appease the masses of doers, is to make sure they have jobs and are doing things. High polluting industry jobs are easy to start up, they make cheap product that will sell, and give you an economic advantage over other countries that try to be more careful about the envrionment.
Evolution makes people think about their progeny, and if their offspring can survive the environment.
Chemistry explains how things work, and why pollution is bad, at a more detailed level.
Also they bring up a history where the scientists had to show that their ideas conflicted with ideologies of the time, and forced change.-
This was started in the US when those in power started serious de-funding education. During the time of the Sputnik scare, education funding went way up. Problem is, people started learning more, and more logically. Suddenly holding people back because they were the wrong color or gender seemed odd and arbitrary. People demanded equality, and gosh darn it, some people didn't get jobs or promotions they felt entitled to.
Maybe with less education people won't know as much or demand as much. So, in the ea -
Also, "and there are cuts to biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics subjects for older school students". Kind of feels like an across the board cut in education. Nothing for more advanced students maybe. Maybe this is yet another ignorant "reading, writing 'rithmetic" style of dumbing down (ie, teach only the basics).
Now how does this fit with India's economy? It's doing well in the IT industry, it's doing well with call centers. And this needs certain skills - mathematics, fluency in Eng
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Both political extremes reject science. Right now, the right wing is demanding religious conformity and various forms of priestly reverence. To quote Science magazine about Critical Theory: "Further, it considers it a cultural artifact of white, Western, masculinist cultures, which makes it a “way of knowing” that is inherently problematic"
The result is the infamous Cape Town University forum where one of the presenters demanded "western science must be replaced by African science", and demanded that electricity instead be provided by witch doctors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The only student who objected to the idea was told that he must apologize for violating their sacred space of the meeting. With such events in mind, let's not claim that only the right wing rejects intellect, especially scientific reasoning.
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The main difference is that one side is using science as a means to reject science. They replace parts they don't like and invent new parts by declaring select feelings to be facts, then label their opponents as bad people.
That behavior has infected even the actual scientific community as we saw with COVID, not to mention journos and all kinds of "intellectuals" (IYIs) that dominate the online discussion.
To be fair the right wing did the same when they came up with their "Young Earth" theory, but the curren
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Because educated people are less likely to vote for the authoritarians. This is true for the authoritarians on the left and the right.
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Is DEI the new term to anger the rubes? Is woke starting to lose it's momentum? Is CRT still a thing to be angry about?
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If I still had to use a CRT monitor I'd certainly be ticked off.
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Nope, the BJP is still riding hatred of Muslims to electoral victory. The inclusion I've heard Indians advocating for seems to not extend beyond "please don't burn down any more mosques".
I would be interested to know how the politicians are speaking of the Partition of India now. Are they taking ownership of it and saying yes, expelling Muslims to Pakistan was a good idea, and we should continue? (I would give them credit for at least being internally consistent, which is more than I can say for Republican
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It all gets blamed on the British Empire. No Hindu ever did anything wrong then or since, according to Modi and the BJP.
In practice, of course, Muhammed Ali Jinnah had the most to do with it: he was determined not to share a post-Empire Indian state with Hindus (or anyone not Muslim).
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They should replace it with studies in magic.
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They should replace it with studies in magic.
Well, they did used to be known for flying carpets, snake charming and ropes you could throw up in the air...have float and climb up and disappear.
I've not heard of such feats in years...maybe they need to revisit some of these old industries indeed!!
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Please, please, the term is "vedic science".
I'm joking. They are not.
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If you mean Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: no, that got cut, too.
" In non-science content, chapters on democracy and diversity; political parties; and challenges to democracy have been scrapped. "
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