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.