The year 2009 is remarkable for the number of anniversaries that crowd it.

UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union have declared 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy, to mark the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by the Father of Modern Physics, Galileo Galilei. In parallel, year-long celebrations have also been launched all over the world to mark the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years after Galileo’s first public use of the telescope. Interestingly, Darwin shares his birthday of 12 February 1809 with the great Abraham Lincoln.

2009 also marks several other anniversaries: it is the 500th anniversary of the excommunication of every citizen of Venice by Pope Julius II, the head of the original Taliban. In 2009, 150 years ago, work began on the Suez Canal at Port Said in Egypt. This year it is 40 years since the first artificial heart implantation by Dr. Denton Kooley in Texas, 30 years since Idi Amin was deposed, 25 years since the HIV virus was discovered by scientists in the US and in France, and 20 years since the brave Tiananmen Square protests and their brutal oppression by the Chinese state.

Darwin and Galileo

Of the persons who influenced the course of humanity, of the personalities who changed the human beings’ understanding of themselves and of the universe, both Galileo and Darwin are amongst the most important. To honour the memory of these two revolutionaries, to celebrate their lives, to popularise their work and to examine the present state of the sciences they founded, IHEU decided to organise a high-level 2-day conference in collaboration with its Member Organisations.

Cooperating with the popular Science Popularisation group Jana Vignana Vedika, and with Babu Gogineni, IHEU’s International Director acting as the Convenor and the Moderator for the two-day Conference, IHEU put in place an event with the collaboration of member organisation Manava Vikas Vedika as co-organiser, and the involvement of the Member Organisations, Atheist Center, Viveka Vidyalayam, Netradana Protsahaka Sangham, Social Development Foundation and kindred organisations Satyanveshana Mandali, Spoorthi and Disha. We also received close cooperation from Mr. T.V. Rao and Sukhdev of JVV. Well over 200 participants followed the proceedings and the lectures by 19 distinguished speakers. IHEU Member Organisations Atheist Center and Netradana Protsahaka Sangham as well as Satyanveshana Mandali brought out special publications for Darwin Day, and the special poster released for the Conference was plastered all over town in educational institutions. The success of the programme can be gauged by the fact that the Conference succeeded in bringing together Humanists and eminent scientists from four scientific institutions: Osmania University (OU), Hyderabad Central University (HCU), the renowned Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and the prestigious Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) which was the venue. On both days of the Conference, the sessions extended by three hours leading up to 8.30 pm with almost all the conference participants staying on for the discussions, and watching the films screened at the Conference venue. The speakers included Prof. Manoharachary, Prof. Emeritus of Botany Department, OU (Darwin, his Concepts and their Relevance); eminent biologist Dr. Durgadas Kasbekar, CCMB (Blind Watchmaker and Blind Fish); Dr. Thangaraj, CCMB, (Evolution and the Spread of the Modern Human); Dr. M.V. Jagannadham, CCMB, (The journey from origin of life on earth to today); Dr. C. Srinivasulu of the Zoology Department OU (Darwin and Biodiversity). Also speaking from a rationalist perspective on the controversial aspects of the Evolution vs. Religion debate were the retired Director of the Geological Survey of India, Prof. Nandi Kesava Rao, (Evolution and Creationism), B. Sambasiva Rao (Evolution and Hinduism) and the hugely popular speaker Penmetsa Subba Raju (Evolution and the Bible). The audience watched documentaries on Darwin and on the Galapagos Islands, and appreciated the greatness of Darwin both as a man of science and as a great human being.

Darwin was born at a time when biology was a subject hardly understood – in fact the word biology did not even exist, and work in the life sciences was carried out by anatomists, doctors, philosophers and microscope makers. Darwin was not the first to speak of evolution – he was born in the very year the great French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first systematic and coherent account of evolution in modern times – the theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics and that of use and disuse of organs. However, it was Darwin who, based on detailed work and close reasoning, established that modern life came about through the principle of natural selection, that nature was blind and that all of nature’s laws were applicable to humankind. Darwin freed humans from the shackles of creationist beliefs, and helped the ascent of man to the rightful place in nature as an intelligent, self-aware form of life capable of moral behaviour. So Darwin did not only give us a theory which is the cornerstone of modern biology, which even helps us understand and treat diseases like HIV.

He was a deeply sensitive man, and horrified by the claims of genetic superiority being touted by the colonial rulers. Despite Herbert Spencer’s strange ideas about Social Darwinism with which Darwin would not agree, today Darwin is recognised as one whose contributions went beyond the establishment of facts to laying the foundations for understanding the essential unity of humankind.

Media Strategy

To ensure that Darwin’s great contributions would be known to the general public, IHEU also initiated a media strategy that was a tremendous success. Apart from news coverage of the Conference in the print media, TV9, TV 5, ETV2, Maa TV, Teja News and Gemini TV – all the major TV Channels in Andhra Pradesh state – put out special programmes on Darwin, based on material supplied by IHEU and with interviews with Babu Gogineni and T.V. Rao, including on prime-time news. ETV2 made a 20-minute documentary on Darwin, with Babu Gogineni as the commentator and T.V. Rao and the great science populariser Nanduri Rammohan Rao also being interviewed. Some of the special programmes were repeated three times within 24 hours – covering intelligent design, the battle with the Church and the problems of modern society. It was a real celebration of Darwin the great Humanist!

A Fitting Tribute to Galileo

Day Two of the Conference was 15 February, which is also Galileo’s birthday. The proceedings started with a viewing of Galileo’s Battle for the Heavens, the well known film based on Dava Sobel’s best-selling book Galileo’s Daughter. This and subsequent interventions on Galileo revealed a complex mind, with the arrogance and impatience that genius can justify. How much of a Catholic was Galileo and how much of his belief he was willing to reveal publicly is an open question. For those who have read Galileo’s correspondence with Kepler it is obvious that the great man played an extraordinary game and revealed only a bit of himself to the ‘ignorant mob of scholars’. Galileo is the father of Modern Physics, but he also fathered a daughter with his lover. He had a keen and profound mind, and he did not hesitate to admonish those around him that ‘the Holy Books tell us how to go to Heaven, not how the Heavens go’!

But genius brings trouble. After all it was only 10 years prior to his first use of the telescope that Giordano Bruno was assassinated by the original Taliban for heresy. Dr. Vijayam of the Atheist Center spoke about this ordeal and the perils of intolerance towards science. After this a four-member team of professors from the Hyderabad Central University’s School of Physics led by its Dean Prof. Vipin Srivastava made enlightening presentations on Galileo and today’s science. Prof. K.P.N. Murthy spoke on The Long Shadow of Galileo: Galileo’s Influence on Later Giants like Newton and Einstein; Prof. Sunandana spoke on Galileo and the 21st Century Student, while Prof. Bindu A. Bambah spoke eloquently on the Evolution of the Scientific Method. The special lecture of the day was delivered by Prof. Vipin Srivastava on How the Mind Thinks and Remembers. Radha Krishnamurthy from Anantapur, and IHEU’s Chandraiah exposed some magic tricks of the so-called god men, to the delight of the many youngsters in the audience. Penmetsa Subba Raju was invited by the audience to deliver a second lecture, which both entertained and educated them.”. The Conference concluded with the participants asking for more such high-level conferences, and to enable this to happen there was a fund-raising round that was most encouraging. The participants, many of them newcomers to Humanist activities, resolved to fight superstition – with a focus on combating the superstitions associated with the Total Solar Eclipse which will visit North India on 22 July 2009. A major movement is to be built with this focus, with the aim of generating enough interest and loyalty to the scientific temper which would make us all worthy of the contributions, courage and sacrifices of the great Galileo and Darwin.

The momentum has been continuing since the exciting days of the Conference, and other related media and publicity activities, and several meetings were and are being conducted on the same theme.

Babu Gogineni is International Director, IHEU.