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India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

nature.com

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Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#231

Post by [deleted] »

plsbenice34 wrote: post #70
29athrowaway wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it seem more subjective than it is. Scientific progress represents a "local maximum" of the best available explanation we can provide. If you have proof for a better explanation then that explanation becomes the accepted one.

Essentially every model is wrong and will be continually replaced with an improved one. Classical mechanics was incredibly convincing. Don't fall into the fallacy that our era is the first to have it all solved. It isn't subjectivity, it is the objective philosphy of science and definition of scientific method. There was a time when your messages would be applied to argue that Earth is the centre of the universe and…

[deleted]

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#232

Post by renewiltord »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #100
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t value STEM education. They value they jobs and prestige STEM education can get them. Remove the ability to get well paying engineering/medicine jobs from the equation and they’ll treat STEM education with the same disdain they have for commerce, or worse, humanities. There is very little real appreciation of education. Only its byproducts, namely, jobs.

> They don’t value STEM education. They value they jobs and prestige STEM education can get them. Second sentence disagrees with the first sentence.

I prompted GPT-4 on ChatGPT with the following

> I read an internet comment that said "They don’t value STEM education. They value they jobs and prestige STEM education can get them." The second sentence seems to contradict the first. Can you explain if it does?

And it gave quite a good explanation. If you'd like I can share the chat, but perhaps you'd like to give it a shot yourself?

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#233

Post by User23 »

29athrowaway wrote: post #230
User23 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demons and space marines can be simulated on a computer too. That’s not evidence for their existence. So no. Also, show me the code and I’ll show you that you’re simplifying so grossly it has no bearing on reality.

If you create a simulated environment that results in selection, mutation and crossover, and a measure of fitness, even if not implicit, and then add a few cells, let it run for millions of iterations and then end up with space marines, that would be more akin to what you claim "has no bearing on reality".

I can simulate a creationist environment in which anything in your simulated evolutionary environment also exists. Is that evidence for creationism? No of course not. Computer simulations aren’t evidence for anything.

So no.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#234

Post by blagie »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #54
mtoner23 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of science at this level is not taught as you say and they just teach them as fact. They teach kids about techtonic plates, dinosaurs, atoms and the planets as just facts about the universe. why separate out "evolution" as one topic that needs this rigorous standard to be taught to kids?

Evolutionary biology is particularly hard to teach from "first principles" anyway. Once you get beyond the basic natural selection definition (variation, differential fitness, heritability), there's a lot of deeply unintuitive implications that only apply situationally, or mechanisms that result from the details of complex biochemistry. It's difficult enough to teach at an undergrad level that evolutionary theory cla…

Evolutionary biology is particularly easy to teach from first principles. That's one of the things which makes exploring it, as a scientific process, fun.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#235

Post by blagie »

mtoner23 wrote: post #32
blagie wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Lots of science at this level is not taught as you say and they just teach them as fact. They teach kids about techtonic plates, dinosaurs, atoms and the planets as just facts about the universe. why separate out "evolution" as one topic that needs this rigorous standard to be taught to kids?

I actually don't. I take this on a case-by-case basis. I presented both the heliocentric and geocentric theories to my kid.

Good news: He figured out which one was right quickly enough...

Bad news: ....because someone spoiled it for him

It's easy enough to show experimentally.

Atoms, we're simply wrong about. Most of the things taught K-12 are based on obsolete models like the Bohr model. That one, I'm struggling with how to teach quite a lot.

Dinosaurs and tectonic plates aren't really all that fundamental, so I'd present them as facts. I might have some fun with young earth creationism, though, if I were feeling particularly inspired.

As for evolution:

1) The theory taught in school is wrong in enough ways which matter that I do single it out. There's also a mixture of facts, hypotheses, and errors.

2) The reasoning models underlie a lot of things, from evolutionary psychology to machine learning.

3) It's politicized, and in my local school district, used to tarnish the other political side in entirely inappropriate ways.

4) My school district spends less time on tectonic plates, dinosaurs, atoms, and planets combined than they do on any of (a) evolution (b) climate change (c) critical race theory (d) virtually anything other polarized.

5) They also do it before kids are ready to engage critically.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#236

Post by kazinator »

Right; we wouldn't want the next generation of one of the most populous nations, that is at a more imminent and grave risk from global warming than most others, to have a science background?

It's like some secret plot perpetrated by an external enemy who aims to eradicate the nation.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#237

Post by sriram_malhar »

dmix wrote: post #94
sriram_malhar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, you are not reading the situation right. The fascist elements have hijacked the term "science". Nowadays, it is science if you say that cowling protects against atomic radiation ([1]) or you say that ancient India had interplanetary travel ([2]) .. note that the latter was at an official track at the Indian Science Congress on science in ancient India. If the vedas said something, that is science. If the white ma…

1 is just a regional judge reaffirming existing cow conservation law with some woo woo in his decision, 2 is a non-scientist giving a lecture at a science institute which caused controversy among the actual scientists. Neither of them really have anything to do with the science/government control other than India’s long standing obsession with cows.

> 1 is a regional judge.

Ok, how about this?

Ayush is a govt portal for govt funded products based on ancient Indian pharmacology. Here is the 'research' on panchagavya (click to find out what it is, and weep) https://ayushportal.nic.in/panchagavya.html

Or, how about this: cow urine is sold on amazon

https://www.amazon.in/s?k=cow+urine&crid=277U5YZ3T98T8&spref...

This is not an isolated person who's lost his marbles. It is a massive country, where a small but highly vocal and powerful minority has completely lost it, and they are the ones who vote.

--------

As for the second, it was not a lecture at a science institute. It was the 102nd Indian Science Congress, an event that is supposed to be prestigious. Indian Nobel winners, Field medalists, prominent space scientists were there amongst the august crowd. And there was an entire track imposed on that event by the govt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Indian_Science_Congress_a...

I am not going to give a link to that paper; you need to do some homework. That is of course, if you care about what is happening. Hope you will not be like the others who say, 'but Modi is building roads and airports, so everything is getting better'. I weep for my country.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#238

Post by ta_vf7xjd34cc »

godelski wrote: post #219
anticodon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but filthy foreigners corrupted Mother India. Isn't this part actually true, because Britain pillaged India for centuries?

This is complicated. I mean, first you gotta ask what India even is. From a purely border perspective (this is the important context) it is no different than any other country[0] (play videos for other regions). Current borders only exist since 1950. The longest stable period of Indian borders (and largest) were actually under English occupation. Prior to this the largest empire was the Maurya Empire, which covered P…

> you gotta ask what India even is

One, or all, of the following:

* the subcontinent

* the civilization and peoples that made the subcontinent its home

* the borders and the political entity in control of those borders (past, present, future)

The British did not create the civilization or the religions they found when they landed here.

The didn't build the temples, or compose the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Itihasas, the Puranas, or the various dharma shastras.

And Indian people didn't emerge out of British vaginas.

The idea that India didn't exist before the British (a lot of people claim this) is nonsensical. The only claim one can make is that they became, for a time, Chakravartin.[1] They were not the first, and they won't be the last.

> They didn't even hold this for 100 years.

Powers (the State) and areas enclosed by the borders it claims and governs (the political boundaries; the country) are always ephemeral things. Be it 100 years or 1000 years, they will change.

For most people, this has only been relevant in so far as the impact it has on their daily lives. Does the State interfere in their religious, social, personal and economic affairs? To what extent? Does it protect them from insiders and outsiders who attempt to do the same? To what extent? These are the only questions that matter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakravarti_(Sanskrit_term)

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#239

Post by vivegi »

This news seems misleading. A charitable reading of the article would assign it a category of "clickbait". The periodic table and evolution are still part of high school curriculum.

Here are the links to the class XI textbook for Chemistry (the so called rationalized text books for 2023-24).

Chemistry Part I, Unit 3, Classification of Elements and Periodicity in Properties. (Link to PDF) https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?kech1=3-6

  in pg 77, Mendeleev's original periodic table
  in pg 79, Long form of the periodic table (modern periodic table)
Here is the link for class XII textbook for Biology.

Biology, Chapter 6, Evolution. (link to PDF) https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?lebo1=6-13

  6.1 Origin of Life
  6.2 Evolution of Life Forms - A Theory
  6.3 What are the Evidences for Evolution?
  6.4 What is Adaptive Radiation?
  6.5 Biological Evolution
  6.6 Mechanism of Evolution
  6.7 Hardy - Weinberg Principle
  6.8 A Brief Account of Evolution
  6.9 Origin and Evolution of Man
The Nature article's summary below the headline states

> Nature has learnt that the periodic table, as well as evolution, won’t be taught to under-16s as they start the new school year.

Yeah, duh! It is taught in Class XI and XII in Chemistry and Biology, just not in Class IX or X as it used to be done previously. Weaving this as some major conspiracy is dishonest and ridiculous.

For the benefit of US readers: Class IX is freshman high school year, Class X is sophomore year, Class XI is junior year, Class XII is senior year.

Re: India cuts periodic table and evolution from school textbooks

#240

Post by dllthomas »

alephnerd wrote: post #39
dragonwriter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear “exam” all the time in American English, though “test” is perhaps slightly more common. The “T” in LSAT, SAT, PSAT, etc. is “test”, but they are “AP exams” [0], “bar exams”, etc., and both “test prep” and “exam prep” are commom terms for the industry that esiats to take money from people hoping for better scores on any of them. [0] https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/ap-exams-overview

Interesting. For me at least, it's 70-30 test-exam. Would love to see if there is a regional dialectic difference or maybe some kind of a language shift in the past 15-20 years.

I'm not sure there's actually a huge difference between "perhaps slightly more common" and "70-30" when operating from vague impressions like this.
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