From: Arvind Kumar
The Pseudoscientist Doth Protest Too Much
The fact that an advocate of Lysenkoism and other dubious theories is considered an 'eminent' scientist in India speaks volumes about the sad state of science.
Arvind Kumar Pseudoscience and unnatural beliefs are prevalent among the members of the Indian scientific establishment, and since many of them have decided to seek their fifteen minutes in the limelight by signing a political statement and participating in the circus of returning awards given to them by governments friendly to them, it is only fair that their beliefs are subject to public scrutiny. In their statement, the signatories cite Article 51 A (h) of the Indian Constitution which calls for developing the scientific temper and it is now time to apply the same standard to them.
Among the signatories of this statement is PM Bhargava, the first person to have headed the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. Bhargava harbors some curious beliefs based on Lysenkoism, and in his own words in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "In evolution, it probably has been primarily a question of competition between species which will not mate one with another, rather than between individual members of the same species, or between the races to which they might belong."
The source of this idea is none other than the discredited Soviet era Communist, Trofim Lysenko, who was responsible for the persecution of many geneticists in the Soviet Union. Under him, the Stalinists denounced biology as bourgeoisie, reactionary and capitalistic, and sought to reformulate it under the framework of dialectical materialism.
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