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India’s caste system limits diversity in science

nature.com

1–10 of 68 posts

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#2
Forget about diversity.

When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent available.

Excluding women, castes, races, ethnicities seems like a poor choice for any society that wants to advance as a whole.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#5

Forget about diversity. When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent available. Excluding women, castes, races, ethnicities seems like a poor choice for any society that wants to advance as a whole.

Every mind has value, we must agree.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#6

What I found surprising is that the genetic distance between Indian castes is rather large, comparable to the distance of a northern European to eg a greek person: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/

That because of about 1500 years of strict endogamy. It's only in very recent times that inter-caste marriages have become more common.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#7

What I found surprising is that the genetic distance between Indian castes is rather large, comparable to the distance of a northern European to eg a greek person: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/

A lot of research into the genetic history of the Indian subcontinent seems to be from the late 90s and early 2000s.

Is there a reason it has stopped? We have gotten a lot better at genetic anthropology since then but for some reason there is very little new research on the genetic history of the Indian subcontinent.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#8
There may be pockets in India where caste still impacts your life (mostly poor, uneducated and backward villages), but in major cities where people are educated and modern, caste is not significant. More on that here: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-n...

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#9
Pervasive in Tech as well. Well known in FAANG companies that upper castes promote other upper castes and squash anyone under them from a lower caste. Also actively hushed, see Google canceling a talk on their campus about this very issue after upper castes complained.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/big-techs-big-pro...

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