‘Wholesale assault on scientific temper’: Science networks launch national campaign

NEW DELHI: Scientists from various science organisations are collaborating to launch a National Campaign on Scientific Temper from November 7, 2023 to February 28, 2024.

The organisers said the campaign – launched on the birth anniversaries of CV Raman and Marie Curie – aims to tackle the “wholesale assault on scientific temper, critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning” propagated by people in “higher administrative positions in the country”.

They said “preconceived beliefs and scriptures” are getting more importance in decision-making and that school books are being “rewritten with distorted and pseudoscientific facts”. The scientist also said that “rationality and reason are gradually getting dumped” and “communal hatred and lodging atrocious attacks on Dalits, minorities and weaker sections of the community are becoming a regular feature”.

In a joint statement, All India People’s Science Network (AIPSN) and Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS), both umbrella organisations of various science networks, said that science festivals, seminars, presentations, exhibitions, poster competitions and science book exhibitions will be held throughout the campaign to improve scientific temper of the society.

‘Rationality and scientific temper’

“We are now witnessing an ever-increasing clash of ideas. On the one hand there are those who want to keep the society under the yoke of …anti-science, myths and superstitions, and on the other side are those who want to build a future based on rationality and scientific temper. In the recent past we had never experienced anti-science and irrational ideas being propagated with impunity by the people placed at higher administrative positions in the country,” a joint statement by AIPSN and BGVS said.

Scientists have called for a national campaign against the "assualt on scientific temper"

Scientists also called out the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for “refusing to collect data” and “falsifying official data”. It also said that leading scientists and experts are not being consulted for policymaking as in the past.

“Scientific temper is also being undermined when the government refuses to collect data or denies or falsifies official data. Which it has done repeatedly in the past nine years. Without collection of data, and its critical examination ineffectual policies could be formulated. It not only devalues evidence-based reasoning but also subverts evaluation of policies and conclusions. Leading scientists and technologists have expressed concern that for the first time since Independence, they are nowadays not consulted for policy making, which is often done without evidence-based expert opinion as witnessed during demonetization and the Covid-19 pandemic,” the statement added.