People's Democracy

OVER 300 academics and intellectuals from all over the country have expressed their strong objection to the way the UGC chairman has sought to defend astrology and equate it with a science. The signatories, belonging to different universities across the country, have joined the scientific community’s opposition to the move to introduce astrology in universities.

Questioning UGC chairman Hari Gautam’s definition of astrology as a science because it involves "probing, research, investigation and prediction," the statement issued by these academics said the UGC chairman has lost sight of the fundamental tenets of a science. The statement said the basic principle of a science is that it constitutes a body of knowledge which is not only testable but also open to interrogation and refutation, whereas astrology is not.

Terming the decision to introduce astrology in universities as a retrograde proposal, the statement said the view is all the more disturbing when it is expressed by someone as important as the chairman of the UGC.

If astrology is accepted as a science, there would be no scope left for any other science, for example seismology or medicine. For, astrology claims to predict everything from earthquakes to physical ailments.

The statement said it augurs ill for higher education in the country if there is at the helm of affairs in the UGC a person who is unable to distinguish between science and superstition or between science and ritual, one casts aspersions on social sciences while institutionalising the propagation of unreason.

The signatories to the statement included Prabhat Patnaik, Bhisham Sahni, Zoya Hasan, Malini Bhattacharya, Mushirul Hasan, Saswati Majumdar, Vivan Sundaram and Kalpana Sahni.