Chennai: Padma Bhushan awardee and cardiologist Belle Monappa Hegde who was in IIT-Madras for a lecture session on Tuesday was called a proponent of ‘pseudo-science and quackery’ by a group of scholars at the campus.
Hegde won the third highest civilian award in 2010, and he was invited by one of the student bodies of the institute ‘Saathi‘ to lecture on the topic ‘Matters that Matter’.
While he was speaking, a section of research scholars held placards against him. The placards carried slogans such as ‘RIP Science’ and ‘Saathi of Quacks.’ Attempt by the institute security to curb the protest went in vain.
In a statement, the protesting group said, even though Hegde’s profile looks attractive being a Padma Bhushan awardee and a cardiologist, an elementary googling revealed that he is a proponent of pseudo-science and quackery.
“He (Hegde) has time and again rejected modern medicine and supported ‘quantum healing’, which has been dismissed by the scientific community as ‘technobabble’, a portmanteau of technology and babble,” said the statement.
They even asked whether the team Saathi and IIT Madras were accomplice in propagating pseudo-science. In response to the protest, Hegde reportedly said this only indicates how much the scholars knew about science.