Caste and Science: Hot Air and Cold Fusion

[Guest guest]

Caste and Science: Hot Air and Cold Fusion

N.S. Rajaram

 

In an article titled "Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste

Populations", eighteen authors, mainly from Utah in the US and

Vishakapatnam in India, led by Michael Bamshad of the Department of

Pediatrics from the University of Utah make the claim that there were

several waves of immigration into India, the last of which (from

Europe) was responsible for the caste system. In their words:

 

"In the most recent of these waves (of immigration), Indo-European-

speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest

and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed

with or displaced Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently, they

may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves in

castes of higher rank."

In his press statements, Bamshad has gone much further claiming: "We

are able to demonstrate unequivocally that the upper castes are more

similar to Europeans than lower castes..." This finding, they claim,

is based on genetics.

 

To a scientifically informed person knowledgeable about the field, it

is apparent even at first glance that it is the Aryan invasion theory

all over again along with its associated Aryan-Dravidian conflicts.

This is now presented as the product of 'genetics research',

protected from scrutiny by opaque jargon-filled language. Genetics of

course cannot tell if some people living thousands of years ago were

Aryan speaking or 'Dravidic-speakers'. What Bamshad & Co are

presenting is simply their presumption that they are trying to pass

off as 'scientific findings' using some samples-all from near

Vishakapatnam-and some numerical measures that they claim indicates

the nearness of Indian population groups to the people of Europe.

Their specific claim is that the upper caste Hindus are genetically

closer to Europeans whereas the lower and middle castes are Asiatics.

 

All this of course is part of the Marxist claim- that 'class'

became 'caste' in India, imposed by the Aryan invaders. And now all

this is 'proved' by the magic of science! So at one stroke, this Utah

pediatrician and his Dravidian colleagues, aided by samples from

Vishakapatnam, have shown that both the Colonial-imposed Aryan

invasion-part of the "White Man's Burden" but now adopted by Indian

Marxists-and the Class-to-Caste transition propounded by Indian

Marxists (and Dravidian politicians) are supported by genetics!

 

But the sheen was off the claim almost immediately after it was made.

The same week, Bryan Sykes, a professor of genetics at Oxford

University, made exactly the opposite claim: The British White

population carries African and Asian genes. (The same must hold for

other European populations.) But unlike the Utah researchers, he made

no claims about their relationship to upper and lower class

Britishers and their ancestry. So what does all this mean? It means

that over tens of thousands of years, human populations have moved

over large areas, and it is impossible to reduce it to simplistic

models favoured by invasionists (successors to the "White Man's

Burden") and Marxists. Further, it is misleading to use terms

like "European" and "West Eurasian" to people so long ago, when they

may not yet have moved into Europe or Eurasia from their original

home in Africa-or even possibly India as Indian records indicate. (So

Europeans could be carrying Indian traces rather than vice versa.)

 

There is also a fundamental scientific fallacy in the Utah study.

Caste and language-like religion-is a man-made classification, not a

law of nature. It is absurd to assign laws of nature to them,

although Marxists believe that their classification is also a

scientific law of history. Actually, Sir Julian Huxley warned against

it long ago: "In 1848 the young German scholar Friedrich Max Muller

(1823-1900) settled in Oxford. ...About 1853, he introduced into

English usage the unlucky term Aryan as applied to a large group of

languages. ...Moreover, Max Muller threw another apple of discord. He

introduced a proposition that is demonstrably false. He spoke not

only of a definite Aryan language and its descendants, but also of a

corresponding 'Aryan race'. The idea was rapidly taken up both in

Germany and in England."

 

Now, thanks to Bamshad & Co, this discredited notion as well as the

Marxist Class-to-Caste Law has become scientific! If their theory

(based on a sample from Vishakapatnam) has any validity at all, then

Brahmins and Kshatriyas all over India must have some common physical

features indicating their European ancestry. But they do not. For

example, Brahmins and Kshatriyas in Kerala look like Keralites, those

from Assam look like Assamese and those from Kashmir look like

Kashmiris. This diversity goes to show that the Indian population is

ancient, having lived in the same region long enough to have adopted

to the environment by natural selection. What they have in common are

certain cultural traits modified by regional factors like language,

dress and food. These are acquired characteristics that have nothing

to do with genetics.

These Utah researchers should perhaps next apply their methodology to

Christians. They can then discover Catholic genes and Protestant

genes. And among Protestants they may further find Anglican genes,

Lutheran genes, Methodist genes, Baptist genes-all the way down to

Mormon genes in the Mormon capital of Salt Lake City, Utah. Their

methodology is the kind of numerology that can be used to prove

anything anywhere. In plain English, their science is just so much

hot air.

 

Academic prestige: image and reality

 

At the heart of this approach is a belief that academic prestige can

overcome unsound scholarship. The goal of some of these academics,

especially in the West, is not so much to make or present true

scientific discoveries, but use the prestige that goes with their

position to bluff and bulldoze Indians, in the hope no one will dare

question them. This was also the thinking behind a recent propaganda

campaign launched by a couple of 'Indologists' that tried to bluff

their way with assertions like "no horse at Harappa, and any evidence

to the contrary must be faked". To some extent, their faith in the

servility of the Indian intelligentsia is justified: Indian

journalists in particular rarely question any statement by a Western

scholar. They believe that anything coming from the West must be

true, and it is not for any Indian to question it.

 

As a former US academic I have the unhappy duty to shatter this

illusion: the University of Utah and many others in the US are by no

means distinguished for research excellence. Some may recall that

more than ten years ago a couple of electro-chemists from the

University of Utah (Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman) claimed that

they had created 'Cold Fusion' in a bottle. This amounted to the

claim that they could create and control an unlimited energy source

like a hydrogen bomb in a bottle, which would eventually solve the

world's energy problems. It has not turned out that way. California

is having daily blackouts. The work reported by Michael Bamshad and

his colleagues-also from the University of Utah of Cold Fusion fame-

falls in the same category.

 

The message of all this is that any claim should be subjected to

critical scrutiny and not accepted simply because it happens to come

from a person and/or institution that enjoys prestige. To take an

example from the other extreme, the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujam

was working as a clerk in the Madras Port Trust when he made some of

the greatest discoveries in modern mathematics. And Albert Einstein

was himself a "clerk, third class" at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern

when he discovered the Special Theory of Relativity. Yielding to

prestige is the response of an illiterate.

Institutional problems

What is happening in academia for such extravagant claims that fail

to stand scientific scrutiny to be becoming increasingly more

frequent? One might almost say, the less substantial the research,

the more extravagant the claim made for it. It is a complex issue,

but may be summarized as deriving from polarization of academic life

in the US. There is a severe shortage of technically qualified

people. As a result, US is forced to import scientists and engineers

in large numbers. Soon, teachers will be in short supply. This shows

that American universities, especially research universities, are

just not graduating enough scientists and engineers-or even science

teachers. The feeling is widespread in America-among the public as

well as in official circles-that universities are neglecting the

educational needs of the country in the name of research. This has

reduced the flow of money into universities, forcing them

increasingly to seek funding from outside for their research: all

they have to sell is their 'research', not their usefulness to

society or meeting its educational needs. The demand for such funds

is always greater than the supply. As a result, these researchers

have also to be salesmen. This has resulted in an explosion of

journals and other publications, recently supplemented by electronic

journals (websites). To be heard in this cacophony of claims and

demands, one is forced to make more and more extravagant claims.

Quality becomes secondary and quantity becomes all-important. This is

called "publish or perish", it is not entirely new, but now it has

assumed unmanageable proportions. In such an environment, survival

takes precedence over concern for quality or even truth. So almost

anything is published as long as it adds to the researcher's bio-

data. This is what is behind publications like the one authored by

Bamshad & Co.

 

 

In the final analysis, what we are witnessing is a struggle for

survival by a disenfranchised academic priesthood that will resort to

any means to ensure its survival. And this includes hot air and Cold

Fusion.