The ancient Indians knew about stem cells and conducted research in this area, but Newton and Einstein were wrong in their calculations - such theses sounded in the reports at the annual meeting of the Indian Scientific Congress. The country's leading scientists were quick to disown these claims, the BBC news service reported.
The Indian Science Congress Association has existed for over a hundred years, it includes more than 30 thousand scientists, and Nobel laureates speak at meetings. However, in recent years, a mythological and religious component has begun to emerge in the reports, which seriously worries the Association and causes condemnation and ridicule from other scientists.
In particular, this year, the head of an Indian institution cited a passage of an ancient text as proof that ancient Indians were researching stem cells.
“One mother gave birth to a hundred kauravas (heroes of the ancient Indian epic“Mahabharata”-“Gazeta. Ru”), because stem cells were used,” said the vice-chancellor of Andhra University, professor of inorganic chemistry Nageshwar Rao.
He also stated that the demon from the Hindu epic "Ramayana" had 24 different types of aircraft and a network of landing strips in Ceylon.
“Lord Vishnu used guided missiles known as the Vishnu chakra and pursued moving targets,” he added.
Another scientist, speaking at the conference, stated that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were wrong in their physical theories and that the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein should be renamed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Allegedly, Newton "did not understand the forces of gravitational repulsion", and Einstein's theories "are misleading."
Geologist Ashu Khosla distinguished himself by claiming that the god Brahma discovered dinosaurs and documented them in Indian scriptures.
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Khosla devoted his research work to this, which he presented at the Congress.
The organizers of the congress called such statements at the scientific event “deplorable”.
“We disagree with their views and want to distance ourselves from such statements,” stressed Premendu Mathur, Secretary General of the Association. "Such statements from responsible people cause concern."
It is not the first time in India that scientists have heard very strange statements.
So, in 2018, the Minister of Education of India Satyapal Singh proposed to remove the theory of evolution from the school curriculum.
Singh stated that he did not consider the theory of evolution to be scientifically reliable. “From the moment of his appearance on Earth, man has always been a man,” he said. - None of our ancestors said that they saw how a monkey turned into a man. The curriculum of schools and colleges needs to be changed. In addition, Singh noted, he knows 10-15 scientists from all over the world who also consider the theory of evolution to be scientifically incorrect. Singh himself is a chemist by training.
In response to the minister's statement, more than 2,000 Indian scientists signed a petition in which they called Singh's statements simplistic, misleading and "lacking any scientific basis."
He said a year earlier that airplanes were first mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana, and the first working airplane was created by the Indian Shivkar Babuji Talpade eight years before the Wright brothers.
In January 2017, the Rajasthan State Minister of Health announced the importance of understanding the scientific significance of the cow, which he said is the only animal in the world that breathes in and out oxygen.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a meeting with doctors and medical professionals at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the god of wisdom and well-being, Ganesha, who had an elephant's head and a human body, was evidence of the existence of cosmetic surgery in ancient India.
In the same year, lawmaker Ramesh Pohriyal Nishank declared that "science is a dwarf compared to astrology." He added that astrology is "the greatest science" and that India conducted nuclear tests over 100,000 years ago.
Alla Salkova