“It’s just, you know, monkeys, Darwin – it’s a nice story. I just think it’s a little too easy.... I just don’t buy it.” If that sounds familiar, it’s not because of what the Minister of State for Higher Education Satyapal Singh has said – and subsequently defended.
Instead, this comes from Phoebe, a character in the evergreen and vastly popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S., where she told the rest of the group, “There are a lot of things out there that I don’t believe in...like crop circles, the Bermuda triangle or evolution”?
In the sitcom, it was the character of Ross who took it upon himself to explain to Phoebe that evolution is a scientifically accepted fact, with plenty of evidence to prove it. “Excuse me, evolution is not for you to buy Phoebe,” he says.
In India, that task has been left to members of the scientific community, who have drafted a letter asking the minister to retract his statement.
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