Just when one felt things couldn't get more rarefied in the sphere of political discourse, along rode our Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Satyapal Singh, saddled comfortably on the high horse of ignorance. And who, you may wonder, was the luckless victim of the Honorable Minister's ire? None other than Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution was "scientifically wrong and needs to be changed in our school and college curriculum". "Dear oh dear," as my 4th Grade teacher Mrs Hughes would say, "that child is swinging from the lower branches of our educational system." If you felt that was harsh, let me inform you that Mrs H, God rest her soul, was far more scathing when the Physics master, Maria Gnanam, made the fatal mistake of mispronouncing her name as "hugs." "Don't you be getting any ideas, Mister, even if your parents gave you a blinking girl's name. My name is pronounced Hews, not hugs."
Clearly, cultivating a scientific temper is a challenge not just in India but one which extends across the Atlantic to Wichita, Kansas, where a fresh controversy over curriculum arose in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning have proclaimed that the "theory of gravity" is flawed, and have propounded a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
Here is Rev. Gabriel Burdett performing a harmonious jugalbandhi in concert with Mr Singh. "Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," claimed the Reverend, who holds degrees in Education, Scripture and Physics from Oral Roberts University. Don't ask, maybe the capitation system is rampant in America as well.
"Gravity-which is taught to our children as a law-is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power." Of course, Rev, and I suspectNiravModi is joining AkshayaPatra as head chef for bisibelehuliyanna.
According to Shri Gabriel, it's not just gravity, there's a bunch of other phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, (wings, silly) and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.MH 370? Who knows, it's a black hole until the black box turns up.
The ECFR has joined hands with other Christian conservative action groups toinsist that public-school curriculums give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. To be fair, they are not adopting the intransigent approach of the RanveerSena and asking for the theory of gravity to be banned. They just want students to be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision." Let's be fair and keep it net-neutral, guys, Amazon or Netflix, you decide.
"We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said. You think?
So what if Stephen Hawking has other ideas, the Reverend has Scripture on his side. "In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall-just that they will fall.What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants." Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Steve.
Closer to home, Dr Singh has generously given the credit for his Sixth Sense to his grandparents, who whether by omission or commission, have shown him the light. "Nowhere have my ancestors mentioned that they saw an ape turning into a man." In other villages, there was the Wolf boy, Kipling had Mowgli but in rural Baghpat, UP, the Minister's constituency, the monkeys remained resolutely in the trees even when a big mall was built in Lucknow and Amitabh Bachchan came for the inauguration. There is no question about it, it's like QED, dude because as Dr Singh triumphantly claims, even if dada-dadi had a memory lapsethe gaps in UP's famed oral tradition would have been filled by literature or a kavisammelan.
"Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oralhave(sic) said they saw an ape turning into a man," he said, adding "No books we have read or the tales told to us by our grandparents had such a mention."Oral Roberts, eat your heart out.
