Understanding the Nature of Science

As we celebrate one more milestone of science, the 102nd Indian Science Congress, it is time for stock taking. There is little doubt that in the present century science and technology will dominate. But for that, a conducive mind set will be needed. Thus, more than science and technology, it will scientific temper that will be required. The temper to think in scientific and rational way, to ask right questions and formulate right answers.

Not mere knowledge, but its application for the benefit of the society. Possession of knowledge is much different from its application. Knowledge is simply the amount of information one has. It is scientific temper that makes this information productive. Science should focus on not just knowledge but scientific attitude.
It is only people who were blessed with scientific temper who contributed to the betterment of this world. Newton was certainly not the first man to see the apple falling downwards. But he was the first man to question why? And that made the difference. Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, they were all men of scientific temper. So was Raja Ram Mohan Roy. And we all know what difference their presence made to the society.
Many people know many things. Some question the basis of such knowledge and only a few understand it. It is this understanding which is the cardinal principal of scientific temper. It was Descartes, the father of modern western philosophy, who first brought the question of understanding to the fore and his principal tool was doubt. ‘To doubt’ is ‘to exist’ or ‘cogito ergo sum’ as Descartes had put it. In fact, for Descartes, the very essence of existence was doubt. ‘I doubt, therefore I exist’ said he. To doubt till you are convinced why a thing is what it is. To understand the relationship between cause and effect. This is scientific temper, this is scientific spirit.
A parable from the panchtantra is narrated here. It is the story of four brahmins who grew together in the same village. Three of them were erudite scholars while the fourth was a simpleton who was considered a dullard by the other three. One day the three scholars decided to travel to the city to use their learning and collect a fortune. At the first instance they thought of leaving the dullard back. But finally they took him. As they passed though the forest, they saw bones of a lion scattered around. One scholar suggested that they test their scholarship. All agreed. One of them said he could put the bones together and make a skeleton. The other said he could cover the skeleton with muscle and skin. The third said that he could breathe life into it. The three set to test their knowledge. When the lion was ready the scholar who said he could breathe life into it wanted to test his knowledge. The dullard objected saying it could be dangerous. But the third brahmin insisted on testing his knowledge when the other two ready tested theirs. Seeing this the dullard quietly climbed up a tree to see what followed. And he saw what he had guessed. The three were killed by the lion. The moral of the story is very clear. The three scholars possessed scientific knowledge but lacked scientific temper. It is this scientific temper that makes science deliver.

As the year begins

The massacre of School children in Peshawar was perhaps the most tragic of the incidents that marked the last year. No doubt, a tumultuous year by any standards, 2014 did end on a sad note. As the trigger happy terrorists, claiming to be soldiers fighting the cause of a religion mowed down school children by wiping out an entire class IX of an army school in Peshawar in Pakistan a basic question cropped up. Is it the ascent of man or descent? When paeans were sung about the advent of twenty first century and proud boast of the rise of the humanity being trumpeted from roof tops, all of us were carried away by the hullaballoo. So the class homo sapiens is shedding much of its basic animal instinct. Is it? There is no question of a doubt. Man is still as barbaric as he, was. Rather more. Man today is more inhuman than in the ancient times. There is a popular catch phrase – The more things change the more they remain the same. Well it needs to be amended. The more things change, the more they get worse and there is no need of any proof. Or else, how do you describe what happened on that fateful day in Peshawar. Killing innocent children is in no way pardonable. With due apologies to Christ, I now pray, ‘Punish them O’ lord they very well know what they do.’ But, that apart it is time to ponder and yes reflect seriously. Just to prove something very inconsequential the Taliban killed 132 children. And look at the way they did it. And this is not the first time children have been targeted. A decade ago in Moscow Chechen rebels had killed 186 children. Why are human beings becoming so insensitive? Why do they kill? It is not a question of a religion. Nor even a country. Not ideology also. It is the question of the entire humanity. At this rate the entire humanity is being threatened. By its own ilk.
Where do we go from here? Perhaps the human mind has to be reexamined. The streaks of violence are definitely the act of diseased minds. Aggression world wise is on the rise. Impatience world over is on the rise. Unreason world over is on the rise. In fact, in the prehistoric days the human beings behaved better. They were called barbarians. They were called uncivilized. Yes they were ruthless. Yes they were savages. They did not know how to dress. They were not educated and they killed to. . But they killed for some reason. It was out of rage or revenge or self protection. If history is any indicator the medieval scourge has dehumanized man. His greed, his ambitions, his expansionist design, may be his desire for something he himself is not sure of.
Any clues as to what can be done. Not very sure at this point of time. But there is still hope. The tragedy of Peshawar struck a human chord across geographical boundaries. The pain was felt worldwide. However, there is need to move ahead from here. Our greatest problem has been to try and remain politically correct. It is time to be humanly correct. That is to think as one entity. The means are there. The social media has provided that connectivity across humanity. Bigotry cannot be jehad, naxalism cannot be a cause. Let us look forward to the present year with the resolve to arise for just one cause – Humanity.

Wanted- A New Agenda

The year 2015 is here. Will it be different? Not easy to predict but all new years have one thing in common. They begin with a lot of hope and a large number of. Gradually, hopes start giving way to despair and resolutions get watered down due to inadvertence or compulsions of circumstances. As the year progresses and people look back for stock taking things appear much the same and a sense of déjà vu sets in. Can the present year give a break from the past? People may ask why. Because we have had enough of sameness in a decade and half of the 21st century. Let us look at the coming months with a new frame of mind. A mind free of all encumbrances of the past. A mind free from spurious ideas of hatred and violence. A mind that wants to cherish peace and happiness. Is it possible will be the question that many will raise. And rightly so, because our thought processes operate like a series, in a continuum in which the past pushes the future. For a change let us alter the paradigm. Begin with a new approach. Like the management idea of zero based budgeting. Start a fresh. Let this be a year of change. And the first requirement will be the peace of mind. It is the lack of peace of mind that is proving to be the root cause of all our problems. There is a step wise process to arrive at the peace of mind.
The first step is to identify the causes that destroy peace. While there may be many, the board categories can be identified. As a student of psychology we were told that stress was a factor that disturbed peace. And my professor taught me that three life style attributes were responsible for this. Those were, as very poetically told but the professor, hurry, worry and curry. Well, that was some four decades ago. The time has changed and so has the nature of these attributes, though their character still remains the same. The hurry is about the rush to catch up with everything in one go. Or rather doing too many things at the same time. In the modern lexicon it is called multi tasking. Yes, the net result is hurry. Hurry leads to anxiety. Anxiety of not being able to complete any one of those myriad tasks. The result? You end up doing nothing properly. This leads to worry. What if I fail? As if the heavens will fall. But heavens do not fall and the worries are largely imaginary. Now coming to the third attribute – curry. It is again a life style attribute which indicates culinary misadventure. What you eat. The traditional curry has acquired broader connotations today.
It includes many of the new age food that we push through our gullet. Yes, the pizzas, the hot dogs and several other varieties of junk food fashionably called fast foods that damage your system faster than curry. All these three lifestyle attributes come in combo pack. Hurry leads to worry and worry leads to more curry. Results are rather disastrous. To both mind and body. What to do? ‘Hasten Slowly’. Have a simple agenda. No hurry, no worry and very little curry. Observe this for the entire year there will be less of despair when we look back at the end of the year.