In recent weeks, there has been considerable consternation among Indian scientists, educators and citizens alike, following an NCERT decision to drop evolution from the Std. X curriculum (see https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/BookletClass10.pdf, page 21), as part of what is claimed to be a rationalization exercise aimed at reducing the academic load on students (e.g. see https://indianexpress.com/article/education/in-an-open-letter-1800-scientists-educators-express-concern-about-dropping-topic-of-evolution-from-ncert-textbook-8567925/,https://www.outlookindia.com/national/restore-darwin-s-evolution-theory-scientists-educators-tell-ncert-news-280484,https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/ncert-removes-darwins-evolution-theory-from-science-textbook-open-letter-2363682-2023-04-23, https://thefederal.com/news/scientists-object-to-ncerts-decision-to-drop-evolution-theory-from-class-x-syllabus/, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/scientists-open-letter-after-ncert-drops-evolution-from-class-10-textbook-3968686, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/dont-delete-darwin-from-ncert-books-say-scientists/articleshow/99678576.cms?from=mdr). Over four thousand concerned scientists and others signed an open letter expressing deep anguish at the move and hoping for the decision to be reversed. The President of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru, has also written formally to the concerned minister on this issue. There have been articles expressing concern about the dropping of evolution from the Std. X curriculum in India by leading international scientific journals like Science (https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-india-protest-move-drop-darwinian-evolution-textbooks), and even television stations abroad have covered the growing controversy (https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/india-darwin/102280810).
While it is true that evolution is very briefly introduced in earlier classes (Std. VII), and will still – for the time being?. – remain part of the Std. XII curriculum, its removal from the Std. X curriculum is a matter of grave concern for at least four major reasons outlined below. We also note that what is often colloquially termed ‘Darwinism’ is really the ‘Theory of Evolution’, for which Darwin provided the first detailed scientific framework and also compiled ample evidence consistent with that framework. The ‘Theory of Evolution’ was later further developed and refined by innumerable scientists from across the world, combining Darwin’s original insights with later discoveries in Mendelian genetics and many other fields including ecology, behaviour, developmental biology, and mathematical and statistical genetics. It is not a branch of biology, but rather is a logical framework and perspective with which to make sense of the diverse facts we continue to learn about the living world (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7pJ9w5oswg).
The importance of evolution to understand life
Any science calling itself ‘biology’ must address how living things are “living” (rather than non-living), and also the diversity, relatedness and adaptedness of life forms. The first question is addressed by functional biology, often at a molecular or cellular level, the other three are addressed by evolution. The very existence of life in diverse forms, ecological interactions within and between groups, or the inter-relationships between living organisms and their immediate surroundings cannot be explained without invoking the ‘Theory of Evolution’. This means that one cannot understand any aspect of natural science without invoking the concepts of the ‘Theory of evolution’. Evolution is not a mere sub-discipline of biology; rather, it is an overarching perspective from which we make sense of all the factual information gleaned from research in diverse branches of biology. It is evolutionary theory that provides the logical framework for understanding biological diversity and dynamics, and elevates it beyond just being a collection of interesting facts about this or that species. As the great Nobel Prize winning immunologist Sir Peter Medawar said, “For a biologist, the alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all”! An equally profound statement, which is as relevant today as it was 75 years ago, was Theodosius Dobzhansky’s assertion that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”.
Centrality of evolutionary biology to our survival and healthy living
It is often thought that evolution does not have applied significance and is just of academic interest. That could not be further than the truth, as recently highlighted by the covid pandemic where evolutionary concepts were needed to develop effective models and plan vaccination and other public health strategies. Whether it be the origin and spread of multi-drug resistant bacteria, new zoonotic outbreaks and pandemics, epidemiology and public health, impact of loss of biodiversity, effects of environmental degradation and climate change, cancer, ageing, crop and domesticated animal improvement, use of DNA in forensics, genome wide association studies to identify genetic variants underlying complex diseases, assessing the potential risks of genetically modified organisms, understanding human diversity and pre-civilization migrations, or a diverse set of social pathologies (including sexual violence), an evolutionary perspective and the application of evolutionary theory are crucially important to how we understand and, therefore, tackle or manage these important societal challenges. Concepts from evolution are also used in diverse areas of computer science, like artificial intelligence and machine learning (for more detail on the centrality of evolution for both biology and for solving diverse societal challenges, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fut6NtPc7_0).
The importance of evolution in our intellectual history
The concept of evolution is something that all citizens should be aware of because it speaks directly to who we are, as humans, and our position within the living world. Following the Copernican and Newtonian intellectual revolutions in Europe, living organisms were the last bastion of “religious” or “supernatural” explanations in nature. The Darwinian intellectual revolution showed, that just as in the case for movement of celestial bodies after Newton, there was no need to invoke supernatural explanations to understand the living world, the diversity, relatedness and adaptedness of life forms, or of human origins (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xppn7ITteZw&pp=ygUeQW1pdGFiaCBKb3NoaSBFdm9sdXRpb24gUG9ldHJ5). Thus, evolution is also a central concept in our modern rational world-view, as opposed to a superstitious or mythological one, and as such a basic understanding of the tenets of Darwinian evolutionary theory is important to the cultivation of a scientific temper, something our Constitution exhorts us to strive towards. If the vast majority of students (those who do not go on to take biology in Std XI-XII) are to be deprived of any exposure to the concept so important to a scientific world-view, it is a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education.
The importance of evolution to cultivating the ‘scientific temper’
As is clear from the point above, evolutionary thinking is immensely important for developing a scientific temperament. Evolution provides scientific thinking in the form of knowledge-driven and evidence-based explanations of our very existence, our diseases and other life-style maladies, our relationship with other human societies, and with our living and non-living environment. It helps us to understand our position in the biosphere, our relationship with other human groups and other species, and the importance of diversity in humans and all other life forms. It helps us to understand the unity underlying our ethnic and other diversity, diseases, ways to conserve biodiversity and also helps us to design strategies to keep out planet liveable. And, above all, it is one of the pillars of a rational view of the living world, as opposed to a mythological, superstitious or religious one.
Concluding Remarks
As we have briefly seen above, evolution is a foundational concept for both the study of biology and for cultivating a rational view of humans and their interrelationships with one another, and with the living and non-living environment. It is also important for how we choose, as a society, to address diverse challenges in public health and societal well-being, especially in rapidly altering times characterized by environmental degradation and climate change.
As of now, what we know is that evolution has been removed from the Std X curriculum. We do not know the reason why. It is still there in Std XII curriculum. So, the concern is not so much that “evolution is removed” from curricula, inasmuch as students taking biology in Std XI-XII will get exposure to evolutionary biology. The concern specifically is that, other than basics of how the human body functions, evolution is perhaps the most important part of biology that all educated citizens should be aware of and, therefore, it should remain in the Std X curriculum which all students study before they choose different specializations in Std XI. In the absence of rational and scientific understanding of life, as children grow up they would become more likely to succumb to superstitions and irrational explanations and practices. How will they explain why the mighty dinosaurs, which they all are fond of, are no longer around? How will they explain similarities between human and other mammals to an extent that we can take a pig organ and transplant it into a human? How will they innovate any new products without the understanding of common chemical basis of life across all organisms, from tiny bacteria to large banyan trees to humans to elephants to whales? As the vast majority of students do not take biology after class X, they will be deprived of any exposure to a concept so important to both biology and a scientific world-view. For the past 50 years, India is reaping the benefits of globalisation by providing S&T services to the whole world, especially IT services. With the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning, this is in danger unless we reinvent our education, which is what NEP2020 is attempting. However, no student will be able to master high levels of creativity and innovation to develop AI-driven modules without a deeper understanding of the fundamental concept of natural selection. Concepts of evolution are today finding a role in areas from computer science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, to economics and manufacturing.
At this point we do not know if this removal education from Std X is part of a broader government policy or not. There is trepidation that it might be so, given that in 2018, there was a statement by the then Minister-of-State for Human Resource Development that evolution was discredited and should not be taught, prompting a strong response from the academic community (see http://confluence.ias.ac.in/joint-statement-by-the-three-science-academies-of-india/, http://confluence.ias.ac.in/defying-both-logic-and-biology/). On the other hand, it may well be that this move is just a reflection of a general view among many in Indian biology that evolution is somehow unimportant, compared to molecular biology (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fut6NtPc7_0), or perhaps just sheer intellectual laziness or incompetence by the concerned committee members. There have been some suggestions by defenders of the NCERT policy that the concerns expressed are politically motivated, that basic ideas of evolution are “too heavy” for Std. X teachers and students, and that Darwinian evolutionary theory has long been superseded by the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution which is too technical to be taught in Std. X (see https://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/ndtv-special-ndtv-24×7/the-darwin-debate-theory-of-omission-evolution-of-a-controversy-696075). These arguments are disingenuous and appear to be meant to deflect and obfuscate the issue. All the points we have made above are technical points in the science and academics domain; we would have made the same points if any other government had removed evolution from the Std. X curriculum. The basic concepts of the ‘Theory of Evolution’ can easily be introduced to Std. X students, or indeed the general public (see for example, this public lecture explaining very nuanced and up-to-date aspects of natural selection, without any technicalities or mathematical details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDPtRvj7wYc). Moreover, the conceptual core of evolutionary theory has not really changed much since Darwin: some details have been added and more recently discovered phenomena have been incorporated (see https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/3688/).
What is also distressing is that none of the internationally known Indian evolutionary biologists were consulted on this matter. India has a small but very strong evolutionary biology community and Indian research was the only non-western research to make it into a compendium of 65 major conceptual breakthroughs in evolutionary ecology since Darwin, according to a recent book (https://dst.gov.in/indian-study-finds-place-among-major-breakthroughs-ecology-and-evolution-counted-origin-species). Indian scientists have contributed a lot to evolutionary biology in the last 30-35 years, and are among world-leaders in areas of social evolution, behavioural ecology in plants, evolution of competitive ability, evolution of population stability, sexual selection and sexual conflict, and core concepts in evolution and our understanding of its history (https://dst.gov.in/indian-biologists-put-forward-novel-refinements-fundamental-conceptual-principles-evolutionary). There is also a professional society, the Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists (https://home.evolutionindia.org/), that could have been consulted but was not.
Especially given the recent covid pandemic underscoring the importance of evolutionary theory to solving real-life problems, we find it inexplicable why NCERT would want to drop topics on evolution from Std X, even if the aim was to ‘reduce the academic load’: in that case, some chapters with factual detail could have been dropped instead of the chapter dealing with the logical foundations of the discipline of biology. We note also that this move is against the spirit of the NEP of 2020 in that the policy emphasized the importance of concepts and rational thinking over mere absorption of factual material. We would like to believe that this is a genuine, though huge, mistake by the concerned committee, and we are hopeful that the responses from the Academic community will help initiate a rethink and possible reversal of this decision.
L. S. Shashidhara is a developmental geneticist and evolutionary biologist and is presently Director of the TIFR-National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru
Amitabh Joshi is an evolutionary biologist and population ecologist and is presently Chair of the Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru.
Both authors are also founding members, fellows and executive committee members of the Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists (https://home.evolutionindia.org/). The views expressed in this piece are personal.