“Resist attempts to replace science with mythology”

“Resist attempts to replace science with mythology”

Attempts to take away science from the people and to replace science with mythology should be resisted, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, MP, said here on Thursday.

“Today this country is changing science into mythology and mythology into science,” Ms. Kanimozhi said while speaking on ‘Poetry of Science’ at the Global Science Festival Kerala (GKSF), which is on at the Bio 360 Life Sciences Park at Thonnakkal. It is important that people who believe in scientific temperament and social justice speak up against such tendencies, she said.

“Article 51(A) says every citizen must ensure and spread scientific temper in this country. Unfortunately, this country is moving as far away as possible from the scientific temper. Today, this country is going back to the textbooks and removing the theory of evolution from it,” she said.

The removal of science will take away gender justice, laws, social justice, and our very identities, Ms. Kanimozhi said. “When they take away science, they take away life from us, they take away values from us, they take away from us the right to live the way we want to live,” she said.

The Indian tradition greatly valued the spirit of questioning everything. “Science is the way nature speaks to us, the way nature communicates with us. The beauty of science is that it’s not stagnant,” she said.

Social media, Ms. Kanimozhi said, can be a “double-edged weapon” in that it is being used to spread wrong science and false information. Present-day lifestyles have become something that destroys nature, whereas in the past people lived in harmony with nature, she said.

Later, interacting with the audience and responding to questions, she said it was “very sad” that the film Annapoorani was withdrawn from the Netflix platform following protests by right-wing groups. “This is a problem which comes when people decide what should be said, what should be eaten, what is the right food, what is good cinema, when there is zero freedom of expression,” she said.