Category: chemistry

Australians propose an indigenous periodic table

February 7, 2025 • 9:30 am

Recently I am getting more emails from various countries—all of whose senders wish to be anonymous—about indigenous people trying to combine their own “ways of knowing” with science or to represent them as an alternative to modern science (often mistakenly called “Western” science). The anonymity, of course, comes because criticism of indigenous people is about the worst blasphemy you can commit against “progressive” liberals, who regard indigenous people as historically and currently oppressed by “settlers”.

In this case, though, the indigenous knowledge isn’t purely indigenous, but an effort to piggyback on or to ape modern science. The article below, from the Royal Society of Chemistry News, involves Australians and Aboriginals together trying to develop an indigenous periodic table.

When you ask “a periodic table of what?”, it appears to be a periodic table of the elements. But the elements were identified by modern science, and of course placed in the modern periodic table by the work of non-indigenous chemists and physicists.  The proposed indigenous table, however, uses the very same elements, but wants to classify them in a different way: by how they are used, how they are connected to the land, and so on. This would also change the names of the elements.

Also, as the article points out, there are over 400 indigenous groups in Australia, each with a different language and presumbly a different culture, so we’d get dozens of periodic tables. If that’s the outcome, then what is the point of this exercise?

Click on the headline below to read the short article:

The craziness of this endeavor, which seems to have no point save to give indigenous people something resembles what the “Western” settler-colonialist scientists have, can best be seen in a few quotes.  “I have a dream today”, says one professor, who is not aboriginal but apparently an “ally”:

‘I have a dream of walking into a chemistry lecture theatre and seeing two periodic tables – the traditional one and a periodic table in the language of the Gadigal whose land we teach on,’ says Anthony Masters, a chemistry professor at the University of Sydney in Australia. The Gadigal are one of over 400 different Aboriginal communities in Australia and the Torres Straight Islands that have their own distinct set of languages, histories and traditions. Masters has pulled together a team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars to investigate what an Indigenous periodic table might look like. Together, the multidisciplinary team aims to organise the elements in a format that represents the relationships between them based on Indigenous knowledge.

Masters, apparently not even a member of the Gadigal, seemingly wants to do this as a scientific sop to the aboriginals “whose land we teach on.”  But if that’s the case, I’m sure the Gadigal would much prefer to be paid for the appropriated land, or given their land back.

So what is this table? Well, perhaps it doesn’t seem to involve elements, but compounds or minerals:

In reality, Aboriginal people developed their own knowledge of the chemical elements and their compounds. This includes uranium in its mineral form, which they called sickness rocks because they were aware that mishandling them could cause illness. Moreover, Aboriginal Australians have been using the iron oxide-based pigment ochre for at least 50,000 years. Historically, it had economic value, being traded between different tribes, but it also remains central to several cultural practices including body painting and decorating sacred objects. ‘Ochre is used as a pigment, and it can be formed into different colours – which is material science. It can be used as a disinfectant, as a sunscreen. A lot of these things are to do with its interaction with light,’ explains Masters who uses these examples to teach his undergraduate students about attributing knowledge to the Indigenous community.

But uranium doesn’t occur free in nature (often it’s found as “uraninite“, also known as “pitchblende”, UO2 but with other minerals), and ochre, according to Wikipedia, is “is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand.”  (One of the few elements that can be seen occurring in its pure form in nature is sulfur.) Are we to have a periodic table of compounds, then? If so, that will be a very large periodic table! The problem of distinguishing elements from compunds isn’t even mentioned, but it appears that they want to do this for elements (see below).

The article then says that the traditional and correct periodic table of the elements is largely useless to an indigenous person:

The idea to develop an Indigenous periodic table arose because Masters started looking into how language influences our understanding of chemical knowledge and how chemistry is taught at Australian universities. ‘How do you know that oxygen and sulfur have similar properties? You can’t tell from the names,’ says Masters. Regarding palladium, he points out there is little to no value in an Indigenous student learning about an element named after an asteroid, which in turn was named after a Greek goddess. And what about neon, which William Ramsay named after the Greek word for new, but it’s hardly new after 120 years. Instead, Masters wants Indigenous Australian students to grow up with a periodic table in their language, just as it exists in other languages around the world.

But you don’t discern chemical properties from the names but from the position in the scientific periodic table. And who cares what the element is called? Scientists or anybody who wants to learn chemistry, that’s who. But Masters & Co. want to change the names of the elements/compounds. If you make a periodic table in this way, if you even can, it will not help indigenous people learn modern chemistry; it will in fact impede them.

But it appears that this project is grinding exceedingly slowly, and I doubt it will happen at all, especially because it’s limited to just one group of aboriginals. The slowness may result from their need to construct the table by talking. Bolding below is mine:

Troy explains the team’s first step was to ask the Sydney Mob – which encompasses over 29 Indigenous communities based in the Sydney region – if an Australian First Nationsperiodic table was something they would be interested in. They were. And so began the delicate process of establishing what scientific understanding of the elements is inherent in Aboriginal Australian knowledge systems.

Being mindful of and engaging with Aboriginal culture is central to the project, and face-to-face consultations are the preferred medium of meeting in Indigenous communities. So, the team has started the process of yarning – an Indigenous practice of sharing knowledge through conversations – with elders from the Gadigal clan. ‘The idea of yarning is that you give people a chance to talk and then you consider what they talk about. And then you respectfully engage with what they’ve been talking about,’ explains Troy. This means the project is developing slowly as yarning can take a very long time, with no expectations or pressure on the Indigenous people to immediately embrace the project. They are still planning yarning workshops (at the time of publishing) to continue engagement with as many of the community as they can.

. . . There is no timeline for when the team might complete its first Indigenous periodic table, but the team has begun developing a methodology to move the project forward. Part of that includes creating a blueprint that other Aboriginal groups can adapt and use themselves to document the elements and the relationships between them. With over 400 languages in Australia, each element may have a different meaning. ‘It’s in that spirit that the Periodic table is an obvious example. There are different ways of looking at things. And for me, that’s one of the beauties of [chemistry],’ concludes Masters.

. . . The meetings and conversations, which have already been under way for two years, have confirmed the project is worthwhile.

Really? How so?

Finally, it becomes clear that the goal is indeed to make an indigenous periodic table of elements, not compounds. And the purpose is given below as well: an indigenous periodic table (which does not now exist) is needed because a simple indigenous representation of the scientific periodic table might “erase Indigenous knowledge”:

So far, the team notes that the Gadigal spoken to in initial meetings like how the traditional periodic table combines nomenclature from Latin and Greek, as well as Arabic and Anglo-Saxon, but this is subject to change as more community members are consulted. ‘Some of the elements are named after people. Some are named after their qualities. But it is quite inconsistent,’ says Troy. They are therefore looking for a consistent style in the Gadigal language that might work and considering the relationship between the elements in the understanding of local knowledge holders. One idea is to group together elements that are part of daily life, elements that hold a special place in ceremony and elements that are avoided.

. . . It’s important to understand that the team doesn’t intend for an Indigenous periodic table to be a direct translation of the traditional periodic table because that could end up erasing rather than celebrating Indigenous knowledge. And it might not necessarily look like a table. Rather they’re aiming to represent the elements in a chart that also reflects Indigenous understanding concerning how an element connects to the lands, water and skies on which the First Nations people live. ‘We have to translate the concept culturally,’ says Tory, using a First Nations approach. Strategies the team is investigating include, but are not limited to, using Indigenous language to express a unique characteristic of an element or using Indigenous language to express the etymology of the English term. However, the most important factor is that the choice is made by the Indigenous community to suit their cultural and ideological foundations.

So they are apparently going to take the elements known from modern chemistry, many of which are not encountered by indigenous peoples in a pure state (hydrogen, neon, etc.) and group them together in ways that are supposed to be useful to the local people.  But since they don’t know the pure elements, how can they do this? I cannot see how.

More important, why are they doing this? It appears to me to be a performative act to ape modern science but in a far less useful way: “See, we can order the elements according to our own culture.”  That is fine if they want to try, but that ordering, even if it were possible, will not be useful in teaching chemistry to aboriginal people. The periodic table is useful because it tells you something about the atomic structure of an element, which in turn tells you something about how it behaves chemically. What other kind of ordering makes sense?

Finally, given that indigenous people from various parts of Australia, and of the world, encounter different compounds that are used or recognized differently, even if one could make an indigenous periodic table of elements (which seems to me impossible), there would be dozens or hundreds of them, each representing the concepts of a different culture.  There will not be a “correct” periodic table and so, in the end, we will have many orderings that represent sociology or anthropology and not science.

And that means that Anthony Masters’s dream is only a pipe dream, and his Indigenous Periodic Table does not belong in a chemistry lecture theater.

h/t: Ginger K.

The Nobel Prizes for Chemistry and for Physics

October 9, 2024 • 9:00 am

Well, I missed a day, but the other two Nobel Prizes in science—Chemistry and Physics—were awarded.

The Chemistry Prize, well deserved since I know about the work, went to three people: David Baker (University of Washington), Demis Hassabis (“a British computer scientist and artificial intelligence researcher”), and John M. Jumper (“an American senior research scientist at DeepMind Technologies”) for both designing proteins and predicting their three-dimensional structure simply from the sequence of amino acids—an endeavor that had largely defied previous attempts. Now you can feed the AA sequence into a computer and, lo, get the structure. And the 3D structure is immensely important in understanding protein function and figuring out how to modify proteins (and hence DNA) to act in different ways. From the Nobel Press release:

They cracked the code for proteins’ amazing structures

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about pro­teins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemi­cal reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.

“One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.

Reader Simon found two tweets from the AlaphFold program showing how the protein structures come out when the amino acid sequence is fed in:

And a petulant tweet by Oded Rechavi (I think it’s an unfair comparison):

And this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Hopfield (emeritus professor at Princeton) and Geoffrey Hinton (emeritus professor at Toronto) who together developed models for neural networks of the kind used in the recent set of papers on decoding the fly brain.  From the press release:

They trained artificial neural networks using physics

This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often mean machine learning using artificial neural networks. This technology was originally inspired by the structure of the brain. In an artificial neural network, the brain’s neurons are represented by nodes that have different values. These nodes influence each other through con­nections that can be likened to synapses and which can be made stronger or weaker. The network is trained, for example by developing stronger connections between nodes with simultaneously high values. This year’s laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward.

John Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. We can imagine the nodes as pixels. The Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

Geoffrey Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” says Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Both prizes show the power of AI, but it isn’t AI that decided to tackle both the chemistry and physics problems; rather, it was AI that was a tool used to solve important scientific questions.

And we have a (sort-of) winner. Though nobody guessed the Physics winners, reader Luke correctly guessed two of the three Chemistry winners (he gave only two names, Jumper and Hasabis, but I’ll let the absence of a third winner slide), and so wins an autographed book.  I ask Luke to get in touch with me to obtain his prize.

Intersectional feminism and chemistry: the fracas continues

October 8, 2024 • 11:00 am

Over a year ago I read this article in the Journal of Chemical Education and found it ideologically biased and deeply problematic.

Here’s the article’s abstract:

This article presents an argument on the importance of teaching science with a feminist framework and defines it by acknowledging that all knowledge is historically situated and is influenced by social power and politics. This article presents a pedagogical model for implementing a special topic class on science and feminism for chemistry students at East Carolina University, a rural serving university in North Carolina. We provide the context of developing this class, a curricular model that is presently used (including reading lists, assignments, and student learning outcomes), and qualitative data analysis from online student surveys. The student survey data analysis shows curiosity about the applicability of feminism in science and the development of critical race and gender consciousness and their interaction with science. We present this work as an example of a transformative pedagogical model to dismantle White supremacy in Chemistry.

I read the paper and then wrote the post below about it. I wasn’t keen on the paper, to say the least. You can read my critique for yourself—though you may be tired of the ideological camel sticking its nose into the tent of science. I’ll quote my review very briefly.

Click to read my post (there’s another post that mentions this paper critically, as one of many science-and-ideology tirades, in a WSJ op-ed by Lawrence Krauss).

Below, indented quotes from my piece. Quotes from the Reyes et al paper are doubly indented:

The abstract gives an idea of the purpose of the course: to indoctrinate students in the authors’ brand of feminism, CRT, and other aspects of woke ideology.  It wants to rid chemistry of White Supremacy, for the unquestioned assumption is that chemistry education is riddled with white supremacy. If you read the authors seriously, you’d think that all chemistry teachers put on white robes and burned crosses after school. . .

. . . .At the outset they get off on the wrong foot: by asserting that sex is not binary (all bolding is mine):

When scientifically established facts, such as the nonbinary nature of both sex and gender are seen by students of science as a belief, one might ask: Are we being true to scientific knowledge? We use this student comment as a reflection of the subjectivity of how the pedagogical decisions are made in teaching “true science” vs what existing scientific knowledge tells us. This has resulted in the propagation of scientific miseducation for generations.

. . . .Besides the reading assignments, there are essays in which students are expected to parrot back the woke pabulum they’ve been fed:

The final assignment was a full paper with an intervention plan that might be implemented in their own institution/department which will enable students to create a STEM identity which acknowledges and respects their personal identity. For 2021 and 2022 classes, the intervention topics that students wrote about were as follows: the importance of all-gender bathrooms in STEM buildings, the importance of teaching how race, gender, sexuality, etc. are created and pathologized by STEM as a medical college course, how to increase accessibility of STEM as a discipline without erasing the lived experiences of URM students, and how the American STEM identity can incorporate the immigrant student/scholar experience.

At this point I wondered if this course had anything to do with science beyond using the “field” (excuse me) as an example of racism and white supremacy. I don’t think so. It’s ideological propaganda, pure and simple, and even worse than the forms dished out in “studies” courses. ‘

They also confused the Tuskegee airmen, a band of brave black pilots in WWII, with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a misguided and racist study of syphilis that’s an exemplar of how not to do medical studies on ethnic groups. This kind of confusion bespeaks a deep ignorance by Reyes et al, for nearly everyone knows the difference, and they could have looked it up. (There were NINE authors!)]

Here’s my conclusion:

The Upshot: This is without doubt the most annoying, misguided, and misplaced paper on science education I’ve read in the last five years. The American Chemical Society should be ashamed of itself.

Now two authors from Florida International University have written a short but trenchant critique of the first article, replete with references. Click below to read it, or you can find the pdf here .

Here are the three errors that, the authors say, dominate the paper. I’ll put them in bold and also indent some Landrum and Lichter quotes that support their critique:

In this commentary, we provide criticism of this work based on the following three points:

(1) the authors claim this course can “dismantle White Supremacy in Chemistry” yet fail to provide valid evidence for “White Supremacy.”

Nowhere within the text is the phrase “White supremacy in Chemistry” again found, nor is the term White supremacy again mentioned. The authors cannot be unaware of how the term White supremacy is often received. (3,28,29) This term is historically pejorative having arisen etymologically from the 19th century racist screeds of John H. Van Evrie and subsequently becoming identified with Jim Crowism and the racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan. (30) To suggest a connection exists between such historical racism and the contemporary nature of the discipline of chemistry and chemists is disingenuous. (28−30) The authors eschew discussion of “White supremacy” and instead fixate on the lesser known neologism “dysconscious racism”, apparently expecting readers to uncritically overlook this equivocation. It is our opinion that the choice in interchanging “dysconscious racism” and “white supremacy” within this paper, without demonstrable and valid evidence of either, is poor scholarship and delegitamizes the claimed course objective.

(2) the paucity of content directly related to chemistry and the evangelical presentation of a sociological and politically charged perspective producing a course more identifiable as political indoctrination than chemistry education.

Most of the topics of Reyes et al.’s course, 8 are listed in Table 2 of ref (1), have little to do with chemistry and more to do with medical or STEM-related historical events dealing with racial and gender inequality. Content appears to have been selected to advocate the authors’ sociopolitical preconceptions, and there is a noted absence of balance. We identified two topics as having connection to the history of (bio)chemistry: “HeLa cells” and “DNA and Rosalind Franklin”. The 6 other topics seem completely unrelated to chemistry: “Perfecting the C-section”? “Social Darwinism”? “Tuskegee Airmen”? It seems, referring to the latter, the authors have mistakenly written Tuskegee Airmen when referring to the Tuskegee Syphilis study. These are different historical events, and both are unrelated to chemistry or chemists. . . .

(3) the evaluation of the course which is both flawed and statistically meaningless.

The sample size is pathetically small, some evaluations were omitted without giving a reason, and there are no statistical tests (Reyes admit this in their rebuttal below)

Reyes et al. (1) evaluated their course using an online qualitative, four-question free response survey. A subset of 6 of 8 responses collected were included in the Supporting Information; no explanation is given to explain the exclusion of the 2 unreported responses. Of these 8 students, only four students had completed the course. A separate group of four students who had not taken the course also submitted responses.
The authors appear to suggest the latter group’s responses might represent a valid control group.

 

The authors report comparison of the responses of 3 students who had not taken the course to those of 3 students who had completed the course. It is unclear why the authors did not include and compare two responses, one from each group. The longer-length responses given by those who completed the course is claimed by the authors to be a measure of student mastery of the course objectives. This conclusion amounts to conjecture and speculation.

Finally, Reyes and one co-author (why not the rest?) wrote a response to the critique above; you can see it by clicking on the link below, or find the pdf  here.

It’s tiring to have to deal with the two authors’ (non)reply, but I’ll summarize how they respond to the accusations. Their quotes are indented; mine are flush left.

White Supremacy

Scores of research articles published in peer-reviewed and well reputed journals have documented white supremacy in Chemistry and other STEM departments in US Universities and linked the above-mentioned negative outcomes to white supremacist practices. (19−30) As such, we are not the first one to claim white supremacy in STEM/Chemistry based on just one or two personal experiences, but we grounded the pedagogy for this class in well researched observations. (31) Given the presence of white supremacy in STEM, (19−30) it is wrong to not provide ALL students an opportunity to engage with these ideas in an honest conversation as it robs them from crucial professional development training on working with a diverse work force. Our class is one example of such an effort, and although one class does not ensure systemic changes, it does try to create a more unified society in Chemistry/STEM. In fact, like us, other scholars have also suggested teaching history and consequences of bias in STEM as a strategy to dismantle white supremacy and other forms of systemic discriminations in STEM. (30−32)

I suggest looking at references 19-30 to see if they really do document “white supremacy in STEM”. Of the first nine references I looked at, only two even mention “white supremacy”.  That is, of course, different from racism.  And a lack of opportunity for minority chemistry students is not necessarily due to white supremacy.

Paucity of chemistry content.  The authors argue that this is irrelevant because this was a special topics course in chemistry that didn’t affect whether a student could or could not graduate with a chemistry major. Instead, they say, “with the changing demographic of STEM/Chemistry higher education disciplines and the continued observation that students of color feel alienated in STEM/Chemistry fields, this class intended to provide all students with training on how to engage with identity and its influence on one’s ability to learn. Students chose this class from the list of all available classes, further reinforcing the idea that there was student interest in learning about intersectional feminism and its connection to STEM/Chemistry.”  In other words, this wasn’t really a chemistry course, but an ideology course (though they loudly decry that there was an ideology involved, yet cite bell hooks, who is not a chemist but an ideologue).

The vacuous nature of the claim that this course was successful.  Here’s the response, though note that the class “is not offered at present”:

We agree that the survey data presented in the original article is not statistically significant (and because of that reason we did not make any overarching generalization or provide any statistical analysis). However, the open-response (qualitative data) nature of this survey allowed us to gather rich data which could be analyzed for thematic analysis using standard protocols (coding, thematic analysis) as described in the original article. (1) Due to institutional changes and restrictions nationally, (33−35) this class is not offered at present which makes it impossible to gather further data. We suggest any interested reader to consult a review that compiles the potential application of critical race theory (CRT) in physics which might be useful in designing similar classes in STEM.

This is word salad; and yes, they do make generalizations. Here’s one from the first paper:

 Analysis of the survey from students who took this class appreciated that the historical situatedness of knowledge and knowledge production and could explain the benefits that those can provide to one’s professional success as well as the society at large. This being the overarching learning objective for this class, the authors argue that students gained the ability to analyze information presented to them and express those using both scientific and feminist language.

But please, read for yourself (take these articles, please!).  It’s a paradigm of how authors can infuse science with ideology and then, when called out on it, wriggle and waffle in trying to deny the accusations.

The ideological capture of chemistry: Chemophobia and social justice

July 30, 2024 • 11:30 am

As I’m doing a lot of preparation for my trip to South Africa, I have neither the time nor the will to dissect the article below, a piece that appeared in The Journal of Chemical Education. As is so often the case with these articles that try to use science education to create what they call “Social Justice”, it’s poorly written, illustrated with childish and uninformative figures, and—worse—so poorly argued that I can’t even see its main point. It has something to do with teaching chemistry in a more “inclusive” way, but gives no serious methodology for doing so beyond talking about social justice in chemistry class. In the end, it’s simply a performative act that says, “Hey, there’s real structural racism in chemistry, and we two chemists are on the side of the minoritized. ” Click below to read, or download the pdf here.

Below there’s also a critique of this article by Jordan Beck; a critique published in Heterodox STEM.

Just a few excepts from the article above to give a sense of its inanity, and AI-style boilerplate:

Sexism, racism, queerphobia, and ableism (among many other forms of discrimination) continue to permeate society and culture. Existing as a multiply marginalized individual exacerbates these inequities. Intersectionality as a concept was described in the academic literature by Crenshaw in 1989, explaining how individuals could experience specific, compounded discrimination, not simply additive.

These societal inequities are reflected and reproduced in chemistry. Stereotypes about who can and cannot succeed in chemistry persist, in combination with inequality of participation and research funding success statistics, leading to homogeneity in groups communicating and conducting scientific research. Important work has highlighted the contributions of racially minoritized chemists in curricula, which is a key aspect of teaching chemistry both in schools and in postcompulsory education.  Chemistry-specific inequities also include privileging only certain, narrow forms of “expert” scientific knowledge, e.g., prioritizing academic language which advantages the dominant cultural groups of chemistry students, graduates, and academics–an “untranslatable code” for those outside. This leads to individuals who do not see themselves as “properly” scientific or think that genuine fears of chemistry and/or chemicals will be dismissed, developing chemophobic attitudes. Therefore, when trying to challenge chemophobia, we have to consider these structural factors to avoid reinforcing existing views of being excluded, patronized, or dismissed. This social justice lens builds on previous models of chemophobia to explicitly identify these structures, highlighting additional challenges faced by marginalized group

These sense of this, insofar as it has any sense, is that the emphasis on merit in chemistry, and the use of language that conveys chemical concepts, is bigoted and creates “chemophobia.”

There’s more:

However, very little literature on chemophobia specifically considers structural factors, e.g., systemic racism, sexism, or unequal access to education, and where research identifies that certain marginalized subgroups in a population are more likely to endorse chemophobic attitudes, this is rarely interrogated or explained.

Maybe there isn’t that much literature on systemic racism in chemistry because there’s not that much systemic racism (i.e. formally codified discrimination) in chemistry.

And here’s how to fix chemophobia (there’s a long list given as well, but you can read it for yourself). The upshot: we need more DEI!

However, a small but growing number of papers integrate social justice considerations, including Goeden and colleagues, who describe a community-based inquiry that improved critical thinking in allied health biochemistry.  Livezey and Gerdon both describe teaching practices that integrate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) practices and explicitly link chemistry with social justice; these authors found that the social justice focus of the teaching promoted student engagement from those who were already involved in STEMM courses and those who, in their own words, “honestly did not like science”, and improved learners’ understanding of chemistry and wider scientific issues through course content that was relevant to their experiences and interests.

Again, the authors are using chemistry to advance their notion of social justice, which includes effacing the dubious “systemic racism” of the field.  I think it would be better just to bring more minorities into chemistry by widening the net, furthering equal opportunity, and teaching chemistry—real chemistry—in an interesting way.

Like me, Jordan Beck is weary of papers like this. Click to read, and I’ll give one excerpt below. There is no branch of science immune from this kind of performative virtue signaling:

From Beck:

Thus, I really struggle when articles like this chemophobia paper come through because when these topics come up, journals seem to lose any pretense of rigor and relevance—anything goes under the DEI flag. Such papers also promote ideas that I consider to be detrimental to the science.  The chemophobia article is only a commentary, but it still bothers me.

The remainder of this post consists of select passages from the commentary with my commentary in response.  All quotes are from the commentary.

The Palmer and Sarju paper starts with a figure that I’ve put below along with Beck’s analysis.

The figure, which constitutes an insult to the intelligence of not just academics, but anyone. It adds nothing beyond what’s said in the paper’s text:

Beck’s take:

It is difficult to summarize exactly what the figure is meant to convey, but it seems like the idea is that we need some sort of rainbow lens to disrupt the uniformity of the people in the sciences.  It is better, in this view, to label each scientist with a particular label so that we can understand how “differential access to education” is leading to “cognitive overload”. I maintain the notion, which for one reason or another now seems to be outdated or taboo, that I really don’t care about the sexual orientation of the authors of a journal article that I am reading. In fact, if you can believe it, I didn’t even think about trying to determine the gender or sexual orientation of the authors of the article that I just reviewed. The top picture, where all the scientists are the same, has some merit.  They can be judged simply by what they contribute.

Frankly, I’m losing my willingness to take apart papers like this because they’re all the same. I can suggest only two things to the authors. First, if you want more diversity in chemistry, work on giving children more opportunity to encounter chemistry, not DEI-ize the way chemistry is taught. Second, learn to write, as your prose is turgid and, surprisingly, laden with jargon that obscures the meaning of your text.

More on the ideological coopting (and erosion) of science

November 4, 2023 • 12:30 pm

This time it’s a chemistry course at Rice University. Here’s the poster. (The “the study of Black-Life Matter” tells you that this is purely ideological.)

The description.

AFROCHEMISTRY: The Study of Black-Life Matter (CHEM 125) is debuting this Spring ’24. In this interdisciplinary course, students will explore the intersection of racial justice and chemistry. We will approach chemistry using a historical and contemporary African American lens in order to analyze science and its impact. In addition, we will be using chemical concepts to better understand Black life in the US. As we consider not only what science is being discovered, but also ask why, how and by whom, etc., this course will empower students to consider approaches to STEM that enhance community impact. CHEM 125 is open to students from all disciplines, regardless of STEM or African American studies background (and counts towards AAAS minor). Preview the course Wednesday Nov. 8, from 7-8pm at the MCC. Reach out to Dr. Brooke Johnson [email redacted] if you have questions.

Is it even possible now to keep ideology away from science, and to refrain for coopting science to advance your own personal “progressive” principles? Although students get credit for this in the AAAS minor at Rice (African and African-American studies), could one could get science credit as well? I hope not. Regardless, it pollutes science by conflating it with “progressive” activism.

Here’s how the course violates academic principles by urging specific political action:

. . . . . this course will empower students to consider approaches to STEM that enhance community impact.

Now what, do you suppose, does that mean?

And what does it mean to “use chemical concepts to better understand Black life in the U.S.”?

On Brooke Johnson’s faculty page, which describes her as a “preceptor” in the DEI office, it says this:

Dr. Brooke Johnson joined the DEI team as a Preceptor after obtaining her Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University (‘23). Rice alum (‘17) and former Rice track athlete, Dr. Johnson is passionate about the intersection of science and social justice and using her unique experiences to teach, support and inspire diverse students.

I thought about making a satirical version of the poster touting either “Latinochemistry” (actually, “Latinxchemistry”) or “Judeochemistry”, but it’s not necessary. The announcement above doesn’t need satire.

h/t: Anna

Educational psychologist calls for turning chemistry into politics—in a chemistry journal

July 21, 2023 • 9:30 am

By now we’ve all read a gazillion papers like the one below: an indictment of a field of science for structural racism and a call for equity.  This one, though, is slightly different in two ways. First, it’s by an educational psychologist. Terrell Morton is described as an Assistant Professor of Identity and Justice in STEM Education and a specialist in educational Psychology at the College of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. (He did get his “B.S. in Chemistry from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a M.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Miami, and a Ph.D. in Education concentration Learning Sciences and Psychological Studies from UNC Chapel-Hill.”)

So he does have some slight expertise in chemistry, but it’s not on view in this short article (below) published in Nature Chemistry. Although the aim seems to be to improve chemistry, this bring us to its second novel aspect: there’s nothing in the article about improving chemistry itself. Rather, it’s all about the unashamed infusion of Critical Race Theory, in its full incarnation, into chemistry as a way to achieve equity. To some extent (see below), that will involve changes in chemistry education to effect that kind of equity. But why was the paper published in a chemistry journal? The only explanation is that the journal’s editors wanted to show off their virtue: “We’re antiracist, too!” But in fact a paper like this could be written for virtually every area of human endeavor in which there is not equity by race and gender—not just science, but academia as a whole. Indeed, not just academia as a whole, but nearly all fields of business and commerce.  The article could serve as a boilerplate for any academic field: all you do is substitute another area of endeavor for “chemistry”.

I should add that, like most papers of this ilk, Morton equates inequity in chemistry (a deficit of minority students or professors compared to the proportions of minorities in the population) with ongoing structural racism in the field. Of course there are racists in chemistry, as in every field, but I deny that they’re ubiquitous, nor do I accept that chemistry is full of rules and practices designed to keep minorities out of the field.

Otherwise, I’ve read similar papers many times in chemistry, physics, math, and especially biology. Every paper makes the “inequity = structural racism” mistake (these are scientists!) and also assert the undemonstrated claim that science would be much improved with ethnic equity. None of them examine whether equal opportunity for all groups would lead to equity in representation, and in fact we know that that’s not true for women in STEM: the more equality women have, the fewer choose STEM careers. (That’s presumably because of a difference in priorities.)

Click to read (and weep); the pdf is here. Both are free.

It begins, as usual, with the ritualistic invocation of George Floyd, and immediately says that the way to achieve social justice is to infuse Critical Race Theory (CRT) into chemistry:

 In this Comment, I provide a brief overview of CRT and discuss how it can be used as a lens to critically examine the culture and practices of postsecondary chemistry education (learning, research and engagement) in the USA and beyond, as well as identify tangible strategies for redressing and mitigating structural racism in chemistry.

Studies on the experiences of Black students outline the stereotypes and biases they face within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) spaces. Chemistry students describe their postsecondary environments as spaces where they must alter their presentation of themselves to be seen as someone capable of succeeding — including abandoning aspects of their home and cultural identities, having to go above and beyond to demonstrate their intellectual capabilities.

Black students disclose feeling both invisible and hypervisible within science classrooms: they are often overlooked by their instructors or peers when it comes to classroom engagement — unless the conversations feature race or ethnicity, in which they become hypervisible. They also reported feeling hypervisible when it comes to performance indicators, as if they have to represent their entire race or ethnic group, proving that their people are capable of success. Students who maintain multiple targeted identities experience unique challenges — Black women report experiences that are different from those of Black men or white women.

(Note the intersectionality described in the last statement, an essential part of CRT.)

Morton then uses as evidence for that structural racism the observed deficiency of proportional representation of black individuals in chemistry in the U.S. and other Western countries (“inequities”), combined with self-reports of racism from various studies. As I said, it would be foolish to say that no racism exists among chemists, but neither can we take inequities and complaints about racist behavior as evidence of structural racism in the field. And where are the reports of the strides that chemistry departments (along with many other science departments) have made in trying to recruit minority students and professors? They aren’t mentioned. If there were pervasive structural racism, departments wouldn’t be falling over each other to secure talented minority students and faculty.

Now it is true that in STEM, many minorities recruited to elite universities tend to leave their STEM majors for ones that aren’t as rigorous, but that says nothing about structural racism. Rather, it speaks to the amply documented poorer qualifications and preparation (on average) of minorities recruited to STEM through forms of affirmative action. But from all this Morton concludes that chemistry is more or less a version of white-robed Klan members holding test tubes:

Research demonstrates, as seen from resources listed in the Supplementary Information, that chemistry (and science in general) has maintained a culture that typically favours white, cisgender, middle-to-high socioeconomic status, heterosexual, non-disabled men.

No it doesn’t. There may well be inequities in the direction indicated, but to say that the field is deliberately maintaining a culture that keeps out minorities, LGBTQ people, poor people, gay people, women, and disabled people is neither correct nor demonstrated. Again, the author is c0nflating inequities and structural bigotry/racism.

The author then defines CRT and goes into its aspects that he wants inserted in chemistry. As this is a short (four-page) paper, I’ll just give his definition, and the bits of CRT that he demands be put into chemistry.

CRT is a framework that identifies and challenges the presence and impact of structural racism and intersectional oppression embedded within policies, procedures, practices and sociocultural norms across various institutions, organizations, fields of study and communities. CRT has primarily been applied to Western societies such as the USA and UK. It positions racism and intersectional oppression (which arises for people who identify with more than one minoritized group; for example, gendered racism) as structural over interpersonal. This means that racism occurs through the subjective interpretations of presumably ‘neutral’ policies and procedures from well-intentioned people, and not just through acts of violence and hate committed by presumably lone and ‘irrational’ individuals.

This, of course, is debatable, especially the assertion of structural racism presumably enacted by well-meaning people with “unconscious bias” who make rules that are racist. The centrality of this theory in creating inequities is also under debate. We could stop right here, but the author continues to dissimulate:

. . . . however, CRT is not divisive, it is not designed to shame, demonize or encourage hate, and it does not inherently produce feelings of guilt or blame. Rather, CRT calls for a critical examination of the existing systems and structures and how they perpetuate a social stratification of people and their cultural values. It is also worth noting that CRT is not currently being taught in primary and secondary schools in the USA, and it is also rarely taught at the undergraduate (postsecondary) level.

It is certainly divisive, and it’s contestable whether the guilt and “original sin” instilled in white people is in there by design or accident.

Here are the aspects of CRT that, says Morton, should be acknowledged and adopted by chemistry departments (quotes are indented):

Racial realism.  This tenet purports that racism is endemic, permanent, systemic and integral to all social institutions3.

Racial realism applied to chemistry acknowledges that the field, and science generally, exists as a microcosm of the broader society and thereby perpetuates structural racism or gendered racism. . . .

Whiteness as property. Whiteness is sociopolitical capital maintained by white people that can be used to regulate access to and full engagement with resources, spaces and ideas3. This capital is a product of the social, cultural and legal establishment of the USA coinciding with the enslavement and dehumanization of people of African descent and the attempted extermination of Indigenous peopl3 — presenting ‘whiteness’ as the default standard.

Critique of liberalism (myth of meritocracy). The belief in individualism and the bootstrap mentality communicated through US laws and social norms is a false reality given racism and its de facto outcomes. [JAC: the author says this is a “myth” because minorities lack access to the resources to demonstrate their merit, including well known academics for writing letters of recommendation.]

Interest convergence. This tenet conveys that efforts towards racial progress only occur at the juncture where those in power benefit from investing in the interests of those racially minoritized.

Here’s how this power struggle is supposed to work in chemistry:

Applied to postsecondary chemistry, this tenet would imply that investments to make chemistry inclusive (such as inclusive teaching or diversity scholarships, fellowships and programmes) occur in ways that ensure institutions gain notoriety and maintain power.

Intersectionality. Structural oppression operates on those of multiple marginalized identities uniquely.

Counter-story.  The dominant narrative is recognized and challenged by elevating, embracing and empowering the stories and voices of marginalized people.

This is a bit complicated, but maintains that remedial practices or ways to bring underprepared minorities into the field are actually racist activities.

Existing equity and inclusion practices implemented within postsecondary chemistry often focus on the absence of Black people and on ways to include them. Practices adopted typically involve rehabilitation (such as tutoring, additional training, summer programmes), the development of coping mechanisms (for example, mentoring, teaching navigational skills), or training for faculty on inclusive teaching — these endeavours all stem from the perspective of the dominant group.

In contrast, rather than engaging in practices that ‘help minority students’, counter-stories position students as bold, capable individuals, and point to the flawed environment (the lake) as the space that needs change.

But how do you help the students given that the “flawed environment” will take decades to repair? I would favor tutoring and additional training, and if you don’t use them, you’re putting underprepared students at a disadvantage.

Now I’m certainly not maintaining that there are academics in chemistry who hold onto these practices because they’re bigots. I’m denying that these are pervasive and endemic racist practices in chemistry; indeed, in any STEM field. Yes, at one time there were. But times have changed.

And I deny that “counter stories” are racist. How can tutoring or additional training, which should be applied not just to minority students, but to all underprepared students, be a way to hinder minority students?

At any rate, after enumerating the aspects of CRT that need to be absorbed and enacted by chemistry faculties, Morton tells us how to do it—or rather, demands that we do it. One way, he says, is to hire a bunch of black scholars at the same to form a “critical mass.” Unfortunately, this race-based hiring is illegal:

Strategies to foster structural change include generating a critical mass of people who share similar ideologies regarding the liberation of Black people. [JAC: Note that there’s either an assumption here that all black people have the same “ideology”, or that you hire looking not just for uniform ethnicity but uniform ideology. Is that “diversity”?] This critical mass should reflect a diversity of Black social identities but also include non-Black scholars. This diversity must be established in chemistry departments and professional structures across all ranks (from junior faculty to senior faculty to administrators) — not just among those with the least power to effect structural change (junior faculty or professional staff).

This can be achieved through intentional recruitment and retention practices that build communities (mixed-rank cluster hires in which several scholars across ranks are hired at the same time in a department) and transform policies and practices around power (such as revising tenure and promotion) to account for structural racism and gendered racism. Hiring and promotion criteria should be adjusted to specifically value and reward scholarship, teaching and service activities (such as informal mentoring of Black students) that intentionally advance the needs of Black communities. Institutions should also put in place accountability structures to ensure that scholars do not in any way perpetuate discrimination or bias against Black people.

This may improve racial justice, but is that the purpose of chemistry? And will this practice improve chemistry? No, it’s not designed to. The implicit assumption is that the discipline itself will be improved with equity, but that’s not been demonstrated. Ergo, Morton’s goal is not to improve the field, but to create equity, which may or may not improve the field.

And although CRT is said by Morton not to create guilt, he recommends that non-minority chemists reflect on their complicity in this white supremacy. We are urged to pay special attention to the work of Black scholars.  To the extent that they’re ignored because of bigotry, I agree. But to the extent that they’re not, and differential attention may result from differences in achievement or representation, I find this paternalistic:

Mitigating racism and gendered racism. Inequities in the field of chemistry can also be mitigated as the field collectively validates the systemic presence and continuous influence of racism and gendered racism on scientific inquiry and education. Each person should evaluate their position and actions towards social justice — with respect to their identity, privilege, exposure, awareness and commitment. High-quality research and literature that outline the lived experiences of Black people across the globe exists; I have shared some of those resources in the Supplementary Information. Access that scholarship and read. Attend meetings, professional lectures, and conference presentations by Black scholars. Watch documentaries and other forms of media that discuss Black experiences from their vantage points. Each person can leverage their power and privilege to fight for racial and gendered racial justice through the various constructs and spaces that they can control or influence, directly and indirectly (pictured).

We are also supposed to infuse chemistry classes and syllabi with CRT principles. I would argue again that this is paternalistic; a form of intellectual affirmative action:

Collins and Olesik outline how chemistry department chairs can act, through: disaggregating data to paint a more accurate picture of the current racial inequalities; listening to Black students; systematically assessing course syllabi; reviewing teaching practices; and engaging with chemistry education researchers, in particular Scholars of Colour. These recommendations can be extended to universities and/or other organizations.

Similarly, faculty members are responsible for ensuring that inclusion and social justice principles are integrated into their courses or lab spaces. This means featuring work from Black scientists and discussing problems and solutions that specifically attend to Black experiences.

With all this, how much time would be left to teach chemistry as opposed to Social Justice? Shouldn’t CRT, if it is to be taught at all, be taught in classes about race relations or sociology?

We must also use class time to educate students about racists of the past:

Additionally, learning that many scientists supported racist, sexist and other oppressive ideologies about people and their capabilities— eugenicists Francis Galton and Ronald Fisher being two of the most notorious examples — would encourage students to critically assess the relationship between a person, their scientific contributions and their ethics. This would foster critical thinking skills as well as opportunities for learners to envision scientific innovation that speaks directly to their cultural and community needs.

Unfortunately, neither Galton nor Fisher were chemists. They were biologists. (And many argue that they weren’t racists.) At any rate, you don’t drag them into a chemistry course to make a CRT point.

Further, the curriculum must change to cater to black students, for we must assume that they have a different “learning style” and thus have to learn chemistry in new ways. Do we have evidence for this?

A variety of different communication styles and teaching strategies also exist that should be incorporated into science education to allow students to bridge their cultural worlds and scientific knowledge. Examples are the use of project-based learning — a practice where teaching occurs through solving real-world problems that are based in different cultural communities — or creative types of assessments, such as asking students to write an Afrofuturistic children’s science book over taking a standard cumulative multiple-choice exam.

Afrofuturistic children’s science books? Is writing one of those going to teach chemistry?

And here’s the kicker, one that reminds me of the “other ways of knowing” gambit as practiced in New Zealand. Get a load of this:

This should be part of a wider change to revisit what counts as knowledge and how it can be displayed, obtained or gained. This can be achieved by departing from a Eurocentric model to one that embraces all perspectives as valid and appropriate. Engaging in this process would also require making amends for the generations of systemic and epistemic oppression against Black people.

What on earth is the “Eurocentric model?” Is Morton talking about “modern science in general”? And no, all perspectives are not “valid and appropriate”. It is here where the teaching of chemistry is actually degraded by the author’s suggestions.

Oh, and let’s not forget the author’s suggestion that we treat marginalized people who have been traumatized the same way we treat people exposed to dangers in the chemistry lab (acids, explosions, and so on):

The same suggestions for mitigating racism and gendered racism in the classroom apply to the research and teaching lab environments. Kimble-Hill describes an interesting approach: risks associated with marginalized social identities — for example, isolation, anxiety, discrimination, harassment and even assault — represent safety threats that can be assessed and addressed in a similar way to other hazards present in a chemical lab. As with chemical risks, proactive approaches in research and teaching labs would therefore work to eliminate risks related to identity threats, establish learning norms that build on students’ cultural identities, communicate trust and confidence in their ability to take intellectual risk and to make discoveries, and provide them with the right support to explore their ideas and feel validated within their research.

I’ve already spent too much time on this paper, but it’s an extreme example of how Social Justice ideology is worming its way into science classes, to the extent of suggesting that we adopt “other ways of knowing” and abandoning the “Eurocentric model”. The paper is designed not to improve the teaching of chemistry but to improve equity, and doesn’t belong in a chemistry journal. But of course how could Nature Chemistry refuse it? As one colleague wrote, “I wonder what would happen if chemists started writing papers about the need to use the scientific method in education, and published them in top educational journals.”

I will quote two other colleagues’ reactions to this paper. The first one is terse:

“They are relentless. They just won’t stop till there is nothing left. And when we speak up about the invasion of ideology into science, some people say that we are exaggerating.”
The second is more analytical:

“To me, the core of the issue is this statement:

‘[Black students] also reported feeling hypervisible when it comes to performance indicators, as if they have to represent their entire race or ethnic group, proving that their people are capable of success.’

The solution to this problem is simple: judge everyone by the same standard. The reason that some minorities feel as if they have to prove their ability is that, in many cases, members of the minority group are often given a “boost” in qualifications. Justice Thomas made this point in the recent case, and Thomas Sowell stated that his qualifications were questioned more after Bakke than before it. In fact, many people are now asking whether Justice Thomas received a boost from affirmative action in his admission to Yale Law, despite his finishing in the top 2% of his undergraduate class at Holy Cross.

The problem can’t be solved by piling on more affirmative action, but rather by judging everyone on their own merits, as many have argued persuasively. We can (and should) help the problem by broadening recruiting and improving the preparation level of underrepresented groups, but everyone has to be judged by the same standards, or those who benefit will feel the need to prove that they didn’t need the judgement boost.

Indian science curriculum axes not only evolution, but the periodic table, energy sources, and pollution

May 31, 2023 • 9:15 am

As I wrote in April, India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), decided to remove evolution—a great unifying theory of biology—from all science classes below “class 11”, , which means that only students who have decided to major in biology will learn about evolution. (Indian students begin specializing younger than do American students.)

. . . . evolution used to be part of science class in “Classes 9 and 10,” which in India are kids 13-15 years old.  After that they take exams and have to decide what subjects to specialize in: science (with or without biology), commerce, economics, the arts, and so on. Specialization begins early, before the age at which kids go to college in America.

In India now, only the students who decide to go the Biology route in Classes 11 and 12 will get any exposure to evolution at all! It’s been wiped out of the biology material taught to any kids who don’t choose to major in biology.

The deep-sixing of evolution was originally part of the whittling-down of the Indian school curriculum during the pandemic, but now it appears to be a permanent change, and not just in public schools, but also in many private ones, who follow the same standards set by the ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education).

But it’s gotten worse. NCERT has eliminated not only evolution from most secondary school science classes, but have also deep-sixed the periodic table (!), as well as sources of energy and material about air and water pollution. (One would think those topics would be relevant in a country as crowded as India.)

This is all reported in a new article from Nature (click on screenshot for a free read):

An excerpt:

In India, children under-16 returning to school at the start of the new school year this month, will no longer be taught about evolution, the periodic table of elements, or sources of energy.

The news that evolution would be cut from the curriculum for students aged 15–16 was widely reported last month, when thousands of people signed a petition in protest. But official guidance has revealed that a chapter on the periodic table will be cut, too, along with other foundational topics such as sources of energy and environmental sustainability. Younger learners will no longer be taught certain pollution- and climate-related topics, and there are cuts to biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics and physics subjects for older school students.

Overall, the changes affect some 134 million 11–18-year-olds in India’s schools. The extent of what has changed became clearer last month when the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) — the public body that develops the Indian school curriculum and textbooks — released textbooks for the new academic year starting in May.

Researchers, including those who study science education, are shocked.

Not only that, but NCERT didn’t get input from parents or teachers, or even respond to Nature‘s request for comment. Here’s what’s gone besides evolution:

Mythili Ramchand, a science-teacher trainer at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India, says that “everything related to water, air pollution, resource management has been removed. “I don’t see how conservation of water, and air [pollution], is not relevant for us. It’s all the more so currently,” she adds. A chapter on different sources of energy — from fossil fuels to renewables — has also been removed. “That’s a bit strange, quite honestly, given the relevance in today’s world,” says Osborne.

A chapter on the periodic table of elements has been removed from the syllabus for class-10 students, who are typically 15–16 years old. Whole chapters on sources of energy and the sustainable management of natural resources have also been removed.

They’ve also bowdlerized stuff on politics:

A small section on Michael Faraday’s contributions to the understanding of electricity and magnetism in the nineteenth century has also been stripped from the class-10 syllabus. In non-science content, chapters on democracy and diversity; political parties; and challenges to democracy have been scrapped. And a chapter on the industrial revolution has been removed for older students.

And here’s NCERT’s explanation, which doesn’t make sense at all.

In explaining its changes, NCERT states on its website that it considered whether content overlapped with similar content covered elsewhere, the difficulty of the content, and whether the content was irrelevant. It also aims to provide opportunities for experiential learning and creativity.

First, evolution is NOT covered elsewhere, nor is it that difficult in principle. You don’t even have to teach natural selection; you can just give people the evidence for evolution, which is hardly rocket science. And the periodic table? That’s hard? How else will students learn about the elements?  As I said, only students age 16 and above will even hear about evolution or the elements, and most students in India will not go on to college where they can also learn these things. Remember, only high-school-age (in the U.S.) students who decide to specialize in science will learn about evolution, the periodic table, and energy.

And these cuts may well be permanent:

NCERT announced the cuts last year, saying that they would ease pressures on students studying online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amitabh Joshi, an evolutionary biologist at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru, India, says that science teachers and researchers expected that the content would be reinstated once students returned to classrooms. Instead, the NCERT shocked everyone by printing textbooks for the new academic year with a statement that the changes will remain for the next two academic years, in line with India’s revised education policy approved by government in July 2020.

At first I thought the dropping of evolution reflected the Hindu-centric policies of Modi, somewhat of a theocrat, but an Indian biologist (see earlier post) told me this was unlikely, as Hindus aren’t particularly offended by evolution. The reasons must lie elsewhere, but they’re a mystery to all of us. However, Joshi does that the dumping of evolution reflect in part some religious beliefs:

Science educators are particularly concerned about the removal of evolution. A chapter on diversity in living organisms and one called ‘Why do we fall ill’ has been removed from the syllabus for class-9 students, who are typically 14–15 years old. Darwin’s contributions to evolution, how fossils form and human evolution have all been removed from the chapter on heredity and evolution for class-10 pupils. That chapter is now called just ‘Heredity’. Evolution, says Joshi, is essential to understanding human diversity and “our place in the world”.

In India, class 10 is the last year in which science is taught to every student. Only students who elect to study biology in the final two years of education (before university) will learn about the topic.

Joshi says that the curriculum revision process has lacked transparency. But in the case of evolution, “more religious groups in India are beginning to take anti-evolution stances”, he says. Some members of the public also think that evolution lacks relevance outside academic institutions.

And here’s one more suggestion: that some of these ideas are “Western”—truly the dumbest reason ever not to teach them. So what if Darwin was British?

“There is a movement away from rational thinking, against the enlightenment and Western ideas” in India, adds Sucheta Mahajan, a historian at Jawaharlal Nehru University who collaborates with Mukherjee on studies of RSS influence on school texts. Evolution conflicts with creation stories, adds Mukherjee. History is the main target, but “science is one of the victims”, she adds.

So here we have the world’s largest democracy dumbing down its curriculum, making some of the greatest ideas in science unavailable to its citizens.  This is unconscionable, but there’s little those outside of India can do about this.  The only thing I can think of is to is tell Richard Dawkins, who can at least embarrass the government by tweeting about this.  Otherwise, there are no petitions to sign, nobody to protest to.  And millions of Indian kids will be deprived of the greatest idea in biology.

From the Indian Express:

h/t: Matthew