Locking Horns: Some Indian scientists want students to fight 'cow science' with science

In response to the Centre’s growing emphasis on 'cow science', some Indian educators are encouraging students to use scientific methodology for debunking politically-motivated research on the subject

Around 12 Indian scientists have decided to take the ‘cow science’ bull by the horns. A day after Union Science Minister Harsh Vardhan laid emphasis on fast-tracking approvals and funding of research on the subject, a group of scientists and educators has come together to ask students to apply scientific scrutiny to pseudoscientific claims. Through a research proposal writing competition, the group hopes students with an interest in science will come up with ways to rigorously test various 'cow science' claims.  

“One of the aims is to give a chance to students to understand how a good or proper scientific study should be designed. The second is to contrast the well-written proposals from this contest with the bad scientific investigations typically propped up to support 'cow science',” explains Mumbai-based Dr Aniket Sule, one of the scientists, who is also an educationist with the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. 

“There is a lot of research on Indian cows done by agriculturists and zoologists which is of top quality. But they don’t make an idiotic connection between religious significance of domestic cow and its gene or behaviour characteristics,” he observes, making a case for separating scientific methodology from mythology. “We are trying to take a stand against politically motivated research.”

On April 13, Vardhan said the Covid-19 pandemic should not stop ministries from approving and funding cow research projects, after he observed delays in the ‘Scientific Utilisation Through Research Augmentation Prime Products from Indigenous Cows (SUTRA-PIC)’.Launched in India in 2020 with a focus on indigenous cows, the project wanted scientists to conduct research on the animal’s urine and dung to develop products such as toothpaste and shampoos as well as cures for diseases including cancer.

So far, the various ministries involved in the project have shortlisted 174 out of the 337 proposals received. The union science minister wants the process to be accelerated so there is significant development before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 15 speech this year. With Rs 98 crores being allotted for the projects, Department of Science and Technology secretary Ashutosh Sharma has set a three-week deadline for all the ministries involved in the project.
In their document inviting students to send in proposals, Sule and fellow scientists noted that many people who are ill-informed about modern scientific process think scientists simply dismiss such claims about ‘cow science’ due to a ‘western bias’. So, even if some claims of supporters of ‘cow science’ can be disproved through logical scientific arguments, the group decided the best way to do it is through science itself. They hope that the proposals, which will be accepted until May 15, will help counter the interest in cow science. To be clear, while there will be a winning proposal in the competition, the scientists are not in a position to fund the actual proposed study.  

Sule is among a set of science educators who have protested over the last few years, when they observed research on the medicinal value of cow urine being funded easily and speakers known for controversial remarks being invited to the Indian Science Congress. In their view, “a broadly worded call for proposals”—such as the one made for SUTRA-PIC—“will open the door for many poorly designed studies, which would merely conduct one-sided experiments to seemingly confirm the predetermined conclusions.”

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