‘Closed minds a worrisome prospect’
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Minds closed to reasoning and debate is a problem, said Vidyanand Nanjundiah, a faculty member of the Centre for Human Genetics, Bengaluru, here on Wednesday.
“The worrisome prospect is not questioning evolution. People should question evolution, they should question everything. The worrisome prospect is closed minds, unwilling to reason and argue. That is a problem,” Nanjundiah said.
A former professor with the Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Nanjundiah was in the city to lecture on the theme of evolution. The event was organised by the Breakthrough Science Society as part of the nationwide Darwin Week observance from February 12 to 18.
Nanjundiah’s remarks came in response to questions from the audience after a lecture on ‘From one to many: the evolution of multicellular organisms’ at the Kerala State Science and Technology Museum. Recently, Minister of State for HRD Satyapal Singh had landed in a controversy after rejecting Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
The seminar ‘From one to many: the evolution of multicellular organisms’ dealt with the multicellular development in organisms belonging to three different subgroups. He also delivered a public lecture in the evening on ‘The evolution of living matter.’
“Natural selection continues to be the powerful underlying explanation for evolution. But, along with that, we need to bring in other factors,” Nanjundiah said in a public lecture in the evening stressing on the physical and chemical principles involved.
He also shared examples from recent studies which, he said, propel one to look deeper into the properties of living matter to understand evolution.