Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 15
The Panjab University Campus Students’ Council (PUCSC) hosted a panel discussion on pseudoscience at the Physics Department’s auditorium on Tuesday.
The students’ council organised the discussion in view of the claims, “Kauravas were test-tube babies and Ravana had 24 types of aircraft and Sri Lanka had airports during Ramayana times”, made during the recently concluded Indian Science Congress at Jalandhar.
A speaker, Meera Nanda, former visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, said whenever Indian Science Congress took place, scandals came out. But now these things had become a routine.
“The heart of the matter is that myth is interpreted as science,” said Nanda, and added that some people did not differentiate between Dashavatara and Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. “If any parallel is drawn, it can only be with Christian creationism,” she said.
Rajesh Kochhar, honorary professor at the Department of Mathematics, PU, said, “It was PM Narendra Modi who once quoted Ganesha to be an example of plastic surgery while inaugurating a hospital.”
He added, “If Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has to be wrong, it shouldn’t come up from a place called Phagwara. It should come from a reputed place.” He was referring to a scientist’s comment at Indian Science Congress who said Newton and Einstein were wrong.