A review of #NLHafta by Dhiraj, Navneet, Akshat and Abhimanyu

Hi there,

Here are a few comments that I need to make, I am a bit apprehensive that I might be called out for “SHAMING” and “MISOGYNY”. The new buzzwords !

Sumedha Pal and Nidhi, please take time to read what I have written !

While everybody thinks Aziz Ansari was wrong. Here is my take.

Non-verbal cues given by him – rushing with the dinner, calling a taxi, invitation to his apartment, and trying to get the woman drunk. Four cues enough for the woman to say no. Did she get it? No. Let’s just leave it there. Now I am misogynistic, Ain’t I ? No, I am not. For me the Ansari case was a bad date till she reached the rest room the first time. It was sexual harassment when he tried again and would have been RAPE if he would have succeeded BY being FORCEFUL.

As an afterthought, if he had not rushed dinner, given her a back rub and given her red wine and then proceeded to a subtle form of seduction, would it have been okay then? If you said yes, well she wasn’t interested in sex to begin with, so how is it okay ?

Like Anand Vardhan says – Let us not take ourselves too seriously. If you do, you will end up finding faults no matter how perfect something is.

On your 5 scenarios for the spy — just a question. Any outing of information on a spy, would it not be a contravention of the Geneva Convention? That is in terms of humane treatment of the spy.

Hafta vs Charcha – Honestly Charcha seems to be more intellectual / technical and better in my book as I like it that way. But it becomes a bit dicey when diametrically opposite views are conveyed in either programmes for the same subject. An example is the discussion on Supreme Court judges’ press conference. On Charcha, it was an ego issue (someone on the panel gave a concrete judge-by-judge evidence) and on Hafta , the ego issue was completely dismissed. So who or what do I believe.

An observation on #NLSena . You had 2 projects – Cauvery and the RSS killing. Cauvery Part 2 is yet to take off. I was just wondering if TR Vivek would have been assigned both projects, could you have done both the projects simultaneously instead of waiting. I am looking at accommodation and travel costs. Amit did a fantastic job. But I was just looking at the logistics.

Hence a suggestion – I think #NLSena projects could be clubbed. So club 5 projects and get a total cost. Subscribers might be interested in 1 out of 5 but will end up making a contribution for all 5.

By the way Abhinandan, you always complain that fan mails end up taking loads of Hafta time. Ummm, Manisha did Hafta last week with loads of emails and it was 70 minutes, Madhu does Hafta and it is the same. (80-100 minutes max). Hence, I have also decided to cross the word limit.

Kyun ke jin ke ghar sheeshe se baney hotey hain wo dusron par pattar nahin martey.

Nah, just kidding! Here I shall end my rant.

Best Regards,

Dhiraj

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Dear NL Team,

I have been a subscriber for 2 years now but I’m writing my first letter, so I hope this will be included.

I was deeply saddened by Prof Ranganathan’s lack of Science communication skills. Keeping his enthusiasm aside, I cringed as he quoted genome sequencing and ribozymes as proofs of Darwinian evolution. I could sense that the panel kept quiet out of respect rather than in affirmation of his views.

If you would allow me, I would like to quickly clarify why Mr Singh’s comments are so wrong. Firstly, evolution of organisms does not take place by morphing of adult forms (i.e. monkey into man). Rather, evolution takes place at the developmental stages (for examples: the evolution of the peppered moth, Biston betularia, into a melanic form  occurred via a dark caterpillar form).

Secondly, humans and apes share a common ancestor and have not directly evolved from them. This statement can be traced to the Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford who debated against Thomas Huxley in 1860. It is a sad comment on the Minister’s ability to read history of Science.

I also found Mr Vardhan’s attempts to bring parity to the discussion problematic. Every ‘sadak chaap’ comment such as Mr Singh’s can not be taken as valid criticism (also because he is not beaten up by Science-rakshaks). If he indeed believes in his views, he needs to put out a carefully considered response. Unfortunately, it is but a dog-whistle aimed at anti-Science sections of society.

I would also like to take this chance to congratulate you on the good work and on nearing 3 years of Hafta. The new podcast #NLCharcha is a fantastic addition and it is a delight to listen to Mr Chaurasia and Mr Bhardwaj.

Keep rocking. Jai jawan, jai kisaan, jai vigyan!

Yours,

Navneet

-Navneet Vasistha

University of Copenhagen

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Hi NL team,
I am a subscriber and a regular listener of #NLHafta. I appreciate the work you people do and hope you continue growing and get a bigger audience. This is the first time I am writing to you as in the last episode of #NLHafta, Anand Ranganathan talked about a subject very close to my heart – scientific inquiry and Darwinism. I want to thank him for introducing me to the the experiments that have resulted in a wide consensus in the scientific community on the subject. Through the medium of this email, I want to make a couple of remarks on what Anand said regarding “theories” and “axioms”. The subject matter of my email may come across as pedantic but please bear with me as I believe that it is an important conversation to be had.

With all due respect, I do not understand how Anand ignored the massive distinction between a “scientific theory” and the vernacular usage of the term “theory”. He, unfortunately, reminded me of the likes of “Dr” Zakir Naik who manipulate the masses by claiming thatDarwinism is just a “theory” and not a “law”. In the vernacular usage, “theory” can imply that something is an unsubstantiated and speculative guess, which is the complete opposite of its meaning in Science.

A scientific theory is an explanation of a physical, universal phenomenon which can be tested and re-tested in accordance with the scientific method. Just to give some examples, both Newton’s “Laws of motion” (NLOM) and “Theory of Gravitation”, despite one being called a “Law” and the other a “Theory”, constitute scientific theories. They both have limited capacity to explain the physical universe – NLOM fails to explain the motion of sub-atomic particles and gravitation is better explained by the “Theory of Relativity” – but they remain as valid scientific theories. Scientific theories make testable and falsifiable predictions, and it is true of Darwinism as well. Like many other scientific theories it may turn out to only have limited capacity to explain physical universe but it remains a valid scientific theory. As far as calling it an axiom is considered, I have no problem with it, but blurring the difference between vernacular usage of the term “theory” and “scientific theory” is dangerous and ill-advised.

I guess, I believe using precise terminology is very important in the public discourse around Science. I am not an expert in epistemology or any other branches of philosophy of Science but I do hope that I make some sense and that I succeed in articulating my concerns.

Akshat

References:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structure-scientific-theories/

https://www.richarddawkins.net/2015/11/is-it-a-theory-is-it-a-law-no-its-a-fact/

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Hi guys ,
My name is Abhimanyu Singh and I have been a subscriber since last 1.5 years. I really like you guys and your work, especially.

This letter intends to do some fact-checking on the way you discussed the issue of disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs.

Anand Vardhan said that the Bill which AAP introduced to exempt these MLAs from the office-of-profit ambit couldn’t be introduced retrospectively. This is false .

Except for criminal law amendments (where a punishment is prescribed for an offence), any law can be amended/passed retrospectively. [ I am a law student so I know a bit .]

You might be wondering why this piece of information is important. It is important because the President refused to give assent to this Bill. The President here means the Govt of India headed by the BJP. What if the same Bill was introduced by the Sheila Dixit government when Congress was in power at the Centre (hypothetically). Can any person say that such a Bill wouldn’t have been cleared by the President in that situation .

This is where the politics comes into picture.

There is nothing illegal about introducing a Bill retrospectively. However, the decision to deny assent to this bill was purely political, considering many states already have parliamentary secretaries and have brought in laws to exempt them. In legal terms, it doesn’t matter if it was retrospective.  Nobody discussed this last week. I think this is a very important issue.

However, that being said it is not wrong on the part of the Election Commission to [recommend] disqualification of these MLAs considering there was no law which exempted these MLAs.

Abhimanyu Singh

PS: My sympathies for AAP. They are novices in Indian politics.