Pharyngula

Cage match!

Posted by: Graculus | January 24, 2006 8:49 PM

They want to recast Hinduism as a monotheistic religion

Which is more accurate than saying it is polytheistic. If you read the Rg Veda, the philosophy progresses from naturalistic polytheism (gods for fire, sun, water...) to henotheism to monotheism (and much later, due to Adi Shankara, to monism).

Posted by: Gyan | January 24, 2006 8:57 PM

111.5 trillion years? That's on the order of the expected lifespan of the universe (assuming that protons decay). Love the ".5" in the number; four significant digits of accuracy. Guess the old guys weren't using slide rules.

Why isn't anyone talking about those turtles? It's turtles all the way down, you know.

Posted by: Bob Munck | January 24, 2006 9:53 PM

Yet more evidence that religion trivializes every field it touches. Science, history, ethics, it's all just another toilet to them.

Posted by: Samnell | January 24, 2006 11:22 PM

Nationalalists have been trying to legislate how history should be taught since the beginning of public education. Think of the battles since the sixties between minority studies and old-fashioned white guy triumphalism.

A curriculum written by pressure groups in the legislature makes the product of a good old academic committee look like an enlightened, literary masterpiece. I doesn't matter whether they go after history, biology, geology, or astronomy, politicised curricula suck.

Posted by: John McKay | January 25, 2006 12:07 AM

"...peddle racist notions about Aryan origins"

I do not think that word means what you think it means. "Aryan" in these articles refers to the group of people who historically conquered India, not to Hitler's bastardized version of the term.

From the article:
"...most established historical research contends that the cornerstone of Indian civilization - the practice of Hindu religion - was codified by people who came from outside India, specifically Aryan language speakers from the steppes of Central Asia."

Sorry to be nitpicky, unless of course you mean to attack the intertwining of the caste system with those Aryans, in which case ignore me.

Otherwise, P.Z., great job as usual. 111.5 trillion! Stark, raving mad.

Posted by: Matt | January 25, 2006 2:31 AM

The nationalists insist that Hinduism is an autochthonous religion, not something imposed by invaders.

My favorite quote from one of the linked articles is "That makes Hinduism billions of years older than the Big Bang." Yes indeed. Quite a few billions.

Posted by: bad Jim | January 25, 2006 3:50 AM

I openly confess ignorance about Hinduism. However, is it possible that these outrageous claims are being pursued by folks who are simply trying to run a test case against the Christian Fundies?(CF's) I'm pretty sure they must know that, without the kind of political power the CF's have, this is a non-starter. But if they establish some kind of precedent against the interjection of religeous dogma regarding origins of life, age of earth, mechanisms for change, etc, then they have made an end-run on the CF's.
To me, it just seems too ridiculous to be a legitimate proposal.

Posted by: rubberband | January 25, 2006 5:22 AM

A heck of a lot of people used to use spirals as good luck symbols. I myself had a sticker with a lauburu (Basque) on the back of my car until a collision obsolesced the piece of metal it was attached to. Clearly there was a limit to the amount of luck it provided.

Posted by: bad Jim | January 25, 2006 7:14 AM

One last, I don't have the URL for this any more, producing in full:

Om Sivamayam
The Hindu Family Magazine Affirming the Dharma and Recording the
Modern History of Nearly a Billion Members Of a Global Religion in Renaissance.
Hinduism Today
Kauai�s Hindu Monastery
Editorial Offices
107 Kaholalele Road
Kapaa, Hawaii 96746�USA
Phone: (808) 822-7032, ext 227 Fax: (808) 822-4351
WWW: http://www.hinduismtoday.com/
E-mail: ar@hindu.org

November 27, 2005

TO:

Ruth Green, President
California State Board of Education
Fax: (916) 319-0175
E-mail: RParker@cde.ca.gov
Thomas Adams, Director
Fax: (916) 319-0172

RE:
Hindu View on California History Social Science Adoption
Dear President Green, Director Adams and Board Members:

Hinduism Today, which is the world�s foremost Hindu publication, has followed
the textbook issue for many years. In 1991, in an article dealing with
the California books, I wrote, �Aside from one of the six California textbooks,
Hinduism does not get very good treatment. It is presented as an outdated,
caste-ridden, priest-dominated 3,000-year accretion of beliefs and customs.
There is little mention of Hinduism�s sophisticate theological systems, exquisite
devotional practices or high-powered techniques of yoga to reach the spiritual
heights. Christianity is given far more space and its tenets presented in a
more appealing manner than any other religion. In addition there remains the
powerful undercurrents of ethnocentric thinking, that somehow American and
European history is more important than other history.� You will note the similarity
between that 14-year-old evaluation and what you are hearing in 2005.

As you can see from the letter from Prof. Michael Witzel of Harvard University,
there is a vast disconnect between ordinary Hindus concerned with what children
in California are taught about Hinduism and the non-Hindu scholars who
study our religion and Indian history. Of the some four dozen scholars who
co-signed his letter, just eight have Indian names, and an unknown number
of those eight are practicing Hindus. This letter highlights the problem Hindus
have faced for the last two hundred years: the scholastic community which
studies our religion is almost entirely non-Hindu, and often hostile to Hinduism.
We believe in the review of the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic sections
of these books you are largely, if not entirely, hearing from scholars who are of
the faith, and not secular outsiders.

Fortunately, you have Dr. Shiva Bajpai, who is well known to us, as a consultant.
You may be interested to know that in the original e-mail sent to Dr. Witzel
bringing the California text issue to his attention, Dr. Bajpai was referred to as
�very religious.� It was not meant as a compliment, but is an indication of hos-
tility toward Hindu religion. We understand the Board is going to bring in another
consultant on the Hindu issues. We specifically recommend that this person
be a practicing Hindu, and not an outsider to our faith. This will give Hinduism
representational parity with the other religions.

The California Framework

The texts under evaluation, of course, reflect the California Framework for
World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations, and that Framework has
problematic aspects. There are some very questionable lines of advice, such
as �Buddhism, a great civilizing force...� Well, that�s like saying the Protestant
reformation was a great civilizing force for Europe, something Protestants
would agree with and Catholics wouldn�t. The major lapse, however, is that
for Judaism, the theological aspects are detailed: Old Testament, stories of
creation, Noah, Psalms, Proverbs, etc., and for Christianity, stories from the
New Testament so �the students will learn about those teachings of Jesus that
advocate compassion, justice and love for others.� For Hinduism, there is only
one text mentioned, the Bhagavad Gita, with no mentioned of the Vedas and
Upanishads which are the highest scriptural authority for the religion. These
great works� which most certainly also advocate compassion, justice and love
for others�remain unknown to the students.

The Framework allows for inclusion of our scriptures, for it states right in the
chapter introduction to include �the literature produced by their finest poets,
narrators and writers.� Later in the content standards, 6.5, �Sanskrit literature�
is mentioned, but again, nothing specific. Since it is not spelled out, the
textbook writers make no effort to include our primary scriptures and hence
broader theology. The result is the students learn Christian, Jewish and, to
some extent, Buddhist theology and little of Hindu theology. A better focus on
our revealed scriptures will ameliorate this shortcoming.

The Aryan Invasion

Then there is the one aspect of Indian history that has gotten a lot of attention
in this textbook process: the Aryan Invasion. In most respects, the textbooks
and even the Framework are out of date. In the recent book, The Indo-Aryan
Controversy, edited by Edwin Bryant and Lauie Patton, Dr. Witzel himself in his
chapter refers to, �The old-nineteenth-century idea of a massive invasion of
outsiders... Presently we do not know how large this particular influx of ... outsiders
was. It can have been relatively small...� Likely none of the scholars who
signed Dr. Witzel�s letter hold that there was a violent conquest of Indus Valley
by Aryan warriors, yet this concept still shows up in the text books.
Dr. Witzel is very much involved in the Aryan Invasion issue. What he argues,
with considerable expertise and largely on linguistic evidence, is that speakers
of an Indo-European language entered India sometime around 1500 bce,
and these people were the authors of the Vedas. By some means, their Indo-
European language displaced whatever language was spoken in Indus Valley.
This influx of a language is quite a different phenomenon from an actual conquest.

However, even this revised theory has problems. Dr. Witzel explains one problem
himself in the same book��The obvious continuity of local cultures in
South Asia, as prominently seen in archeology, is another matter.� He then
states that a clear-cut �Aryan� archeological site �has not yet been discovered.�
In other words, despite the compelling linguistic evidence, there is no
physical proof of an influx of outsiders with the culture described in the Rig
Veda.

The second problem with the invasion scenario is genetic. In 2003 in the
American Journal of Human Genetics, a professional publication, 18 geneticists
led by Dr. Toomas Kivisld of the Estonian Biocenter, reported their research on
the genetics of India. They specifically investigated whether there was evidence
of gene flow from central Asia into India. Their conclusion: �The Indian tribal
and caste populations ... have received limited gene flow from external regions
since the Holocene (8,000 years before the present to 1.2 million years before
the present). In other words, they found no genetic evidence of an invasion
3,500 years ago.

In a lecture in 1999, �The Aryan Question Revisted,� Romila Thapar, whom
Dr. Witzel refers to as �India�s most famous historian,� concluded, �The Aryan
question is a very complex question, and I hope you are all absolutely staggered
by the complexity and reeling under all the complexities that I have
pointed out to you. So please, do not take one version as �the� version.�

So why does this Aryan Invasion scenario matter to Hindus? Does it matter
to Jews that the Exodus really happen? Does it matter to Christians that
Jesus really lived? It does matter, obviously, and one book was rejected by
the Board, we understand, for the reason that a historian was cited as questioning
whether the Exodus ever happened. The Jews objected to doubting
a central event in their history, one that is important to their theology. Hindus
already have two histories of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which
traditionally are dated back thousands of years. If an Aryan Invasion occurred,
or even if Sanskrit came from outside India, then these two histories have to
be relegated entirely to myth. We are not suggesting these traditional histories
supplant sound scientific study, but it is useful to understand how most ordinary
Hindus in India look at our history. We do not want our traditional history
to be dismissed as myth at the recommendation of Dr. Witzel and his supporting
group of scholars. If that is to happen, then the same group can be polled
for their opinion on the Exodus and the historicity of Jesus. I think you will find
they also hold both to be myths. If a representative of the group attends one of
your meetings, you should ask these quesions.

Our Plea and Recommendations

Finally, we object to the tone of Dr. Witzel�s letter, that categorizes anyone who
objects to these texts as a �danger to religious freedom.� Yes, in India, there
are political issues over India history, but we can assure you that the most
non-political Hindu parent in this country is shocked by the presentation of
Hinduism in these books. The children themselves are shocked. Edwin Bryant
warns of such a tone, �I have expressed concern at what I have termed a type
of Indological McCarthyism creeping into areas of Western, as well as certain
Indian, academic circles, whereby anyone reconsidering the status quo of
Indo-Aryan origins is instantly and a priori dubbed a nationalist, communal or
even worse, a Nazi.�

We realize the Board is only able to make relatively small changes to texts
which in some cases need complete overhaul. We also realize that at this time
you are not reconsidering the Framework, which is where real improvements
could be made. We don�t expect you to adjudicate a scholastic disagreement
involving the leading scholars of the world. At the same time, we do request
that our faith be treated fairly, with the same respect and comprehensiveness
of other faiths. And to the extent this can be done with small changes recommended
by the Hindu representatives, please, let it be done.

Yours in peace.
Hinduism Today
Sannyasin Arumugaswami
Managing Editor

Posted by: Arun | January 25, 2006 7:38 AM

But gosh. 111.5 trillion years? Imagine the compound interest!

How do you think someone like me could have afforded to eat at Milliways?

Posted by: BronzeDog | January 25, 2006 8:16 AM

So a Pal lasts longer than Luv. How true, alas...

Posted by: chris | January 25, 2006 8:45 AM

Actually, the news article cited by PZ Myers is remarkable in its ignorance. There are many Hindu cosmologies, but in the most prevalent ones, the universe cyclically is destroyed and recreated on a scale of about 4.3 billion years. It is very unlikely that there is any Hindu group that claims that civilization began on a scale of trillion years ago.

Here is one of the Hindu organizations of time:

Krati =34,000th of a second
Truti =300th of a second
2 Truti =1 Luv
2 Luv = 1 Kshana
30 Kshana =1 Vipal
60 Vipal = 1 Pal
60 Pal = 1 Ghadi (=24 Minutes)
2.5 Ghadi = 1 Hora (=1 Hour)
24 Hora = 1 Divas (1 Day)
7 Divas = 1 Saptah (1 Week)
4 Saptah = 1 Maas (1 Month)
2 Maas = 1 Ritu (1 Season)
6 Ritu = 1 Varsha (1 Year)
100 Varsha = 1 Satabda (1 Century)
10 Shatabda = 1 Saharabda
432 Saharabda = 1Yug(Kali Yuga))
10 Yuga = 1 Maha Yuga (4,320,000)
1000 Maha Yuga = 1 Kalpa
1 Kalpa = 4.32 Billion Years.

At the end of a Kalpa, there is a Pralaya (dissolution) of the world, and it starts afresh.
Therefore, claiming that someone claims that civilization is a trillion years old or older, is, IMO, a smear.

Posted by: Arun | January 25, 2006 8:56 AM

Arun, you're calling the Indian graduate student quoted in the article- who specifically says the trillion-year claim was found on the Vedic Foundation website but was later pulled- a liar. I doubt that. The "history" currently on that site is quite sufficiently absurd, in any case. Not a monopoly of Hindus of course- I've even seen Parsi-chauvinist literature claiming that Zarathushtra lived around 6000 B.C.E. Of course Parsi wackos have a great deal less power to bo harm than RSS fascists.

By the way, no serious scholar still believes the old-fashioned Max Mueller "Aryan Invasion" scenario- that's merely a favorite strawman of Hindutva nutjobs. But the Indo-Iranian language family quie clearly originated outside India (and Iran for that matter), and there are even still those who maintain, based on disputed claims of relatedness to other language families, that the same is true of the Dravidian languages which in that case conceivably arrived in a much earlier wave of migrations. In any case, don't sweat it- if you go back far enough we're all descended from immigrants from Africa. Propaganda of the "I'm autocthonous and you're not" variety is as ugly as it is pointless and intellectually disreputable. And I have no respect for anyone who insists on confusing legends- no matter whose- with history. There's a good reason why Bertrand Russell once suggested that the history of any country should always be taught by natives of other countries...

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 25, 2006 9:46 AM

Krati have a use. Not to get into any details, but my first sexual experience could have been most accurately measured in krati.

Posted by: NickM | January 25, 2006 10:07 AM

I can't say that I'm surprised that the wedge of intelligent design has opened a crack for other religions to get their two cents in--the National Center for Science Education's newsletter recently carried a review of a book about a Hindi version of intelligent design. I have been expecting just this. Take a deep breath, everyone, the fun has just begun! Why should we be surprised that other cultures would go through the same turmoil as science calls into question their religious beliefs, too? This is THE issue facing our species, in my opinion.

Yes, this is all very silly, but not more so than is Christian creationism. The author Vine Deloria, Jr., for whom I have much respect but who is not a scientist and should not be dissing evolution, has pushed his own Native American version of creationism that proposes "a third theory," that old "hey, everything you have been taught is wrong" crap. Think about it, the majority of the world believes in some kind of creationism, whether it be Buddhist or Jainist or Islamic or (gulp) Scientologist, or what-have-you. That's what we're up against.

Here's a very informative article, which I boneheadedly tried to tell PZ about in December (sans link, and accidentally using my mother-in-law's e-mail--I was on vacation and in a latte euphoria over the Dover decision) that describes our human tendancies to anthropomorphize as the result of our faulty wiring. It lays out everything that I've suspected.

http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/596b/Schaffer/God-Accident.html

Posted by: Kristine | January 25, 2006 10:25 AM

"Let's teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders. It should be exciting and enlightening."

We want justice! We want THUNDERDOME!

Posted by: Paul Riddell | January 25, 2006 11:00 AM

Regarding possible Aryan incursions into India, bringin the Indo-European languages, Hinduism, etc., there are many reasons not to believe in that story:

The first is archaeological - there is no arch. evidence of any such incursion.

There are many things that are not documented arcaheologically which are accepted. For example, the entry of humans into the New World via the Bering Sea land bridge. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The second is textual. The Vedic corpus of texts remembers back to the time when (due to the precession of the earth) the Pleiades rose on the equator. Yet it preserves no memory of a migration. Compare and contrast with the Iranian Avesta, which recalls excursions in several lands before reaching Iran (including the Indus Valley). There are all kinds of traditions in the texts, including of the river Saraswati, which is no longer extant, but which matches the traces of a dried up river bed that flows from the Siwaliks down through Rajasthan to the Arabian Sea. This river started vanishing well before any theorized Aryan invasions.

Very interesting stuff, but I thought we knew that sacred religious texts are not scientific evidence.

Please note there is absolutely *NO* *historical data* to support the Aryan invasion theory. The main reason to believe in the theory is historical linguistics.

And that evidence is irrefutable. Sanskrit is not an autochthonous language of India. Sanksrit is an Indo-European language. It is most closely related to the ancient languages of Persia, but it is also unquestionably related to Latin, Greek, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Albanian, etc. And the evidence for the origins of Indo-European places it somewhere around the Russian steppes. There is no way Indo-European originated in India. Indo-European (i.e., Sanskrit) was a later (tho still very long ago) entry into India from the northwest. Period.

We know what languages were spoken in India before Indo-European. Dravidian languages, which are still what people speak in the southern half of India to this day, and Munda languages, spoken by pockets of scheduled tribes to this day.

I'm not qualified to discuss the origins of Hinduism -- to what degree it's Indo-European versus to what degree it was shaped by the indigenous Dravidians whom the Indo-Europeans encountered when they entered the subcontinent -- but that is a separate issue.

Posted by: george cauldron | January 25, 2006 11:58 AM

Years ago, the Canadian troupe, the Frantics, aired a sketch called "Theories of Creation" (mirror) (see here for original link). It's a bit dated, since it talks about the Moral Majority and the creationist is a YEC, but large parts of it are still relevant today.

Visiting lecturer Mohammed Ali Sudan: The ancient Egyptian theory of Creation states that Ra, the hermaphrodite sun god, made the Earth from a pile of dung. He created the first people by coughing them up and spitting them out.
...
Teacher: Is there any evidence that the Earth was made from a pile of dung and people were coughed up? Monty?
Monty: Edmonton?

Posted by: arensb | January 25, 2006 12:23 PM

Kumar, I treat Hinduism just as I do other religions- it has inspired art and other cutural artifacts worthy of the highest respect, but its myths if claimed to be "true" deserve no respect at all from the rational. In what specific ways do you think Hinduism gets rougher treatment than other religions, and by whom? In the absence of such specifics your generalized complaint is unimpressive. And I vigorously dispute your implied wish that it, or any other religion, should have its metaphysical claims pandered to or that anyone writing about it should somehow be at pains to avoid making it seem "repellent". I find religion repellent per se- it belongs to the mental infancy of the human species, which lamentably few have outgrown all these millenia. If it makes you feel any better, I find Christianity and Islam both significantly more repellent than Hinduism because of their histories of intolerance and persecution. I would hate to see the Hindutva types succeed in dragging Hinduism into that category.

I don't give a crap what Hindus as Hindus, Christians as Christians, etc "want". Such claims to dictate to others how one's tribe is to be viewed ought to be dismissed with complete contempt. I look to dispassionate scholarship for the facts; apologists of all stripes need not apply.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 25, 2006 12:34 PM

I was brought up as a Hindu in India, and during all of my school and college education there I have never seen a conflict between religion and science (at the very least being reported in the media). Science education was kept more or less clear of this kind of stuff. This was in spite of the general nature of Indians as being seen as overly religious. People who did claim things like "ancient Indians had nuclear weapons and flying machines" were never taken seriously by scientists there. To be sure, India has had an extremely rich history, and some of the early civilizations did take root there -- but people who confuse mythology with fact are nutjobs, whichever country they reside in (and every country has their share of those). I am frankly very surprised that people who consider the Vedas to be inerrant (much like the AIG crowd here) are getting this much attention at all...

P.S: Chris is correct in saying that the Swastika has been used as a religious symbol by Hindus for centuries; this has nothing to do with the fact that the Nazis conveniently used it as their own..

Posted by: AJ | January 25, 2006 1:29 PM

I'll simply say that I'm quite unmoved by Kumar's apologetics. American education (and culture in general) have a hell of lot of problems with blissful ignorance of the rest of the world, and this one, such as it is, doesn't rank very high on my list.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 25, 2006 1:59 PM

I do believe that the swastika, albeit sometimes appearing flipped around (also called the whirling log), appears in some Native American symbolism, in the Southwest particularly. I also think that it was originally a pagan Germanic earth symbol, and this what the Nazis stole in an attempt to appeal to some sort of Germanic pre-Christian emotionalism. One could actually call the swastika a universal native design, for it pops up so often (sometimes in Buddhist symbolism too) and has absolutely nothing to do with those %@&*#@ Nazis.

Posted by: Kristine | January 25, 2006 2:41 PM

Steve LaBonne:

Whatever the Vedic Foundation put up on its website, it did not ask the California textbook commission to say that the civilization began umpteen trillion years ago - I am calling that Indian graduate student a liar, most certainly.

By the way, no serious scholar still believes the old-fashioned Max Mueller "Aryan Invasion" scenario- that's merely a favorite strawman of Hindutva nutjobs.

Actually, the founder of Hindutva, Veer Savarkar, believed in the Aryan Invasion Theory, as did another (older) icon of Hindutva, Balagangadhara Tilak. It is a strawman erected by some Indologists that it is the old-fashioned "Aryan Invasion" theory that people are skeptical about, or that the people who are skeptical are all Hindutva nuts. As is likely, Indo-Iranian languages originated somewhere else, but there is still an issue of when exactly did they first enter India, about which there are legitimate grounds to be skeptical of the standard historical linguistics theory.

As to letting other countries teach one one's history, it was British historians, attempting to teach Indian nationalists that prior Muslim rule of India was much worse than anything the British did that gave rise to the Hindutva consciousness in the first place. So I reject your last point. E.g., read the introduction to "The History of India as told by its own Historians" by Elliot and Dowson, 1867. I cannot provide the quote to you here, but Romila Thapar mentions it,

http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-thapar030404.htm

H.M. Elliot and John Dowson in their multi-volume, History of India as Told by Her Own Historians, state that Muslim rule had to be depicted as oppressive and tyrannical in order to convince Hindus that they were better off under British rule.

I do not have much respect for the lady, but I include here because I have raised an accusation of lying, and so must prepare myself for counter-charges.

-Arun

Posted by: Arun | January 25, 2006 3:35 PM

In Bhaskara's (6th century AD) commentary on Aryabhatta's (4th century AD)work, we find the following:

"The time elapsed, in terms of years, since the commencement of the current kalpa is zero, three, seven, three, twelve, six, eight, nine, one (years written in figures) are 1,986,123,730".

So that answers one question above. Aryabhatta was no idiot, by the way,
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aryabhata_I.html

Aryabhata gives a systematic treatment of the position of the planets in space. He gave the circumference of the earth as 4 967 yojanas and its diameter as 1 5811/24 yojanas. Since 1 yojana = 5 miles this gives the circumference as 24 835 miles, which is an excellent approximation to the currently accepted value of 24 902 miles. He believed that the apparent rotation of the heavens was due to the axial rotation of the Earth. This is a quite remarkable view of the nature of the solar system which later commentators could not bring themselves to follow and most changed the text to save Aryabhata from what they thought were stupid errors!

Aryabhata gives the radius of the planetary orbits in terms of the radius of the Earth/Sun orbit as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun. He believes that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, incredibly he believes that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He correctly explains the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon.

Posted by: Arun | January 25, 2006 3:49 PM

Let's teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders.

It won't work. If Hindus were 30% of California's population, it would spark the same conflicts that led to the development of liberalism and separation of church and state in England in the late 1600s. Right now they're too small a minority to matter.

Please note there is absolutely *NO* *historical data* to support the Aryan invasion theory. The main reason to believe in the theory is historical linguistics.

...and the main reason to believe in the theory of evolution is historical geology. Historical linguistics is an immensely powerful tools when the mother language's descendants are plentiful and well-attested as PIE's are; there's no question that its urheimat couldn't have been India for reasons of climate and geography - more likely candidates are various areas around the Black Sea.

Incidentally, the book by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, "Gravitation" does include excerpts from Hindu cosmology, because they were the only ancient people who thought in terms of billions of years instead of thousands of years, and because there is something poetic in their particular excerpt about how the Universe dies and is reborn in an endless cycle.

Sure, and there's something poetic about how every minority group in every country that treats it better than the US treated blacks in 1800 considers reality checks to be a form of oppression. Scientists must butt out of Kennewick Man because it contradicts Native American creation myths; veiling isn't really a form of exclusion of women but merely care and protection (as was denying women the right to vote a hundred years ago); and Hindutva is an earnest attempt to combat anti-Hindu prejudice rather than the Hindu equivalent of the Christian Coalition. You don't even need to be oppressed for that - just look at how fundamentalist Christians act like especially obnoxious post-colonialists in pretty much every country, including those they're absolute majorities in.

And for the record, the three clauses of the previous paragraph's second sentence were brought to you by the Graverobbers' Secret Association (motto: what Columbus started, we will finish), the Global Zionist Conspiracy (motto: don't cross the people who made up the Holocaust), and the Islamic Coalition for Corrupting India (motto: today, India; tomorrow, the world) respectively. And of course, the last sentence of that paragraph was brought to you by the Evil Atheist Conspiracy (motto: we don't exist - move along).

Posted by: Alon Levy | January 25, 2006 4:00 PM

100 bucks says a careful look at Kak's argument will reveal it to be as idiotic and after-the-fact as the argument for the Bible's very accurate estimate of pi (in a nutshell: one verse states that pi = 3, but scaled by the ratio of the gematric values of the two alternate spellings of the word "circumference," it becomes correct to within 0.0001 of the actual value).

Posted by: Alon Levy | January 25, 2006 4:16 PM