HOPE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

In english language the question ’what is the time’ has got a simple answer. But if we omit the article ’the’ and ask ’what is time’ it opens up a Pandora’s Box. So is the case with science. Everybody uses the world science and its adjective scientific – scientific method, scientific thinking, scientific approach etc. But you ask the question what is this ’science’, what do you mean by ’being scientific’, the answer are not that simple. That it is the opposite of ’nonscience’ is tautology. Is it the opposite of religion? Of superstition? The discourse will then change to what is superstition?

Some of us from the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat had an interesting experience. We were in the midst of a major science popularisation campaign, organized lectures on Nature, Science and Society. (We planned 3000 lectures in one month and ended up with about 12000). Depending upon the inclinations of the speaker there was scope for a wide variety of presentations. In one instance the speaker was a hard core rationalist. He was letting out a harangue on superstition. From amongst the audience rose one middle aged person and requested the speaker: "Would you, sir, give us a list of superstitions which we should do away with? And also tell us why they are called superstitions and what harm they do to us". Our friend sensed the trap and some how extricated himself, though not very creditably.

The border line between ’I know’ and ’I believe’ is very hazy. When people say that "we know that matter is made up of atoms" is it true that they know? Or do they believe only? Nobody had seen an atom. It is a concept which logically explains many a phenomena. No phenomenon has been observed that questioned the truthfulness of the atom. At least that is what people believe. Here comes the bomb. You ask a thousand people who have undergone homoeopathic treatment. More than 90% will swear that the medicines have worked. You ask another thousand people who have not taken any treatment and who had no particular occasion to study it or discuss it: do you think that homoeopathic treatment is scientific? They will answer: "in its own way it is scientific, like ayurveda. But strictly they are less scientific than modern medicine". What do we mean by ’more or less’ scientific? Is scientificity a continuously varying function or a digital function? Elementary chemistry will tell us that beyond 12th potency the so called medicine cannot have even one molecule of the original substance. The whole observable unwise has only 1080 protons. And homeopaths are speaking of dilutions of the order of 10 -1000 and more. Theoretically these medicines cannot work. Still homoeopathy is an accepted discipline of medicine. Many people do believe in it. Is this belief on par with belief in horoscope and astrology? There are far too many people who reject astrology as pseudo science or as pure hoax, still believe that homoeopathy is science. Can we call one as scientific and the other as unscientific. I have been investigating this issue since three decades. Well known scientists like Steven Weinberg, Raja Ramanna, P.K. Iyyengar etc. with whom all. I have discussed this issue have all rejected homoeopathy as science. Still I cannot place astrologers and homoeopaths in the same pigeon hole! Am I scientific? or not?

We all agree that poetry is not science – music and painting too are not. There is science in music and science in painting – but they themselves are not sciences. Then what they are? J.D. Bernal in his masterpiece work "Science in History" has answered the question what is science in the following manner:

It could be a collection of facts and information It could be a compendium of theories It could be a tool for production It could be a way of looking at the universe – a world view

Perhaps, if we follow the history of humans from paleolithic times we may get a better understanding of what this stuff science is, whether such adjectives for science as western, eastern, imperialistic, indigenous, ancient, modern etc. are reasonable.

Early humans were, as we know, hunter – gatherers. There are cave drawings of hunting scenes 15000 years old. The arrows are shown hitting critical parts on the body- nape of the neck, heart etc. Firstly they must also seen that body has several internal organs. They must also have discerned that some are more critical than others. Striking there kills the animal quickly. They also must have, over generations, known which animals of prey are aplenty, when and where. Elements of zoology was forming in their minds but no word for it.

Shooting a running animal by bow and arrow from a distance is a tricky job. One has to have an idea of the direction and speed of the animal, the distance from you, the speed with which arrow can travel, the height through which the arrow will fall before striking the animal, the possible deflection due to wind and so on. It is nothing short of shooting a rocket from the earth to moon. The science of dynamics was in the offing. Fruit and root gathering must have sown the seeds of botany. Selection of stones and bones for tools and actual making of tools must have given him ideas of brittleness, strength, toughness, flexibility etc. The proto science of ’properties of matter’ was being born. They might not have had words for all these properties.

Evolution of language, especially naming things is another wonderful thing, from individual to collective.

Even words like eagle, crow, dove or horse, cow, tiger or teak, jack are already the products of generalization and abstractization. When we say birds, animals, trees etc. we do further abstractization and generalization. We went even further, to animate and inanimate to matter, energy, space, time. . . . .

The very act of living is interaction with surrounding nature, transforming it. This process gives humans a host of sensory experiences. They note changes, they note similarities and dissimilarities, they differentiate, they classify, they generalize, they abstractize and then go on to theorize and predict. They plan newer ways of transforming nature, act in new ways, gains new experiences – the cycle of generalization, abstractization and theorization is repeated. And thus facts or information accumulate, theories originate, newer and newer methods of interaction get developed, ability to transform and to produce grows.

There were, however, a totally different category of issues which caused wonder to humans. The question of life. What is it? The question of heavenly objects, what are they? And above all the question of ’my’ and ’I’. Anything ’mine’ is a thing different from me, not me. My book is not me, my pen or shirt is not me. My hand or head, eye or nose, stomach – none of them is ’me’. Then what is it? What am ’I’. How ’I’ am related to the rest? Why I am sad? Sometimes happy other times play full and morose? Such questions led humans to different views of themselves and the rest of the universe. Historically two basic approaches got evolved: ’I’ am the sum total of my head, hand eyes, ears, nose . . . all as well as the sum total of all ’inter connections’ and inter relations among them. There is no ’I’ independent of them. Further, everything including me is constantly changing and all are interconnected, this is one approach. The other approach maintains that there is an ’I’ totally independent of everything that is mine, that this ’I’ is part of a more universal ’I’ including all other ’I’s. The Jeevatma and the Paramatma.

My body, the eyes, ears, nose, head, hand ..... everything exist only in the abstract ’I’, which exists always.

One can say that the first is a scientific approach and second one an illusory approach.

We can now say that science deals with the way in which humans transform the nature around them. Transformation involves hands. Experience involves all the five senses. Generalization, abstractization and theorization takes place in the brain. It is this interrelationship that constitutes science. To understand these relationships and to predict, we use variety of categories like particular and general, essence and phenomena, cause and effect etc. Of these the cause and effect relationship is of special importance. This try to answer the question, ’why’ and ’how’. We establish, based on our repetitive experience, a connection between two classes of events, one class necessarily following the other one. We link up these two sets as cause (the earlier one) and effect (the later one). We also try to explain how the two are connected up, though not always with success.

Humans must have started this process of classification since long. They must have asked thousands and thousands of questions and must have given some or another answer to each them. Many of these must have been proved, later, to be unsatisfactory, partial, or even out right wrong. We can quote any number of examples from the history of science. The Ptolemaic astronomy, Aristotelian science, Brihatsamhita of Varahamihira .... all were, in their times, the ’state of the art’ compendiums. Today to accept what they had said is tantamount to superstition. Theories of today can predict more successfully events of tomorrow. So we call them ’scientific’.

’Ability to predict’ is a major attribute of science. All experience cannot be, however, subjected to this sort of generalization, abstractization and theorization. Our emotions, our actions based on impulses, our concepts of morality, our faith in religions, our ability to write poetry, our pleasure in hearing music, all these are real experiences. But we have not been able, still to bring them under the aegis of science. We know that all these emanate from the kilogram and half mass of gray matter, which we call the human brains. It is, almost indescribable. With its trillions of neurons, quadrillions of inter connections. One still wonders at it. All we know is this: once the heart stops pumping blood to it, or once a car knocks it down and crushes it, it loses all this capability. We only know that brain is the seat of all these, and perhaps also know a bit of which part of brain is responsible for which capabilities.

It seems rather unnecessary to attribute a digital divide between science on the one hand and everyday experience on the other.

Many of us use the word ’bourgoise’ in a contemptuous manner. For Karl Marx it was a scientific term. Our reaction to the word ’superstition’ is something similar. We categorize it as something bad, very bad and even dangerous. Here I go back to the experience of my friend, crusading against superstition – against horoscopes, auspicious days and time: muhoorta, manthras, marriage or death rituals and a host of other things. What about shaking hand, ’good morning’, ’welcome’ and ’vote of thanks’, saluting the flag, offering flowers at martyrs tombs (even today followers place flowers or wreaths on Marx’, tomb in High Gate Cemetery) .... The argument is clear. We consider certain acts good, others harmless and still others harmful without being able to scientifically substantiate these beliefs.

We get angry when we are told that "you too are superstitions, though in some other ways". For example take the belief "Unscientific is undesirable, science is desirable". Is this always true? It is science, which made nuclear bombs possible, ICBM’s possible, chemical and biological warfare possible, made it possible for foot lose capital to wander across the globe destabilizing the economies of many a country, produce genetically modified and potentially hazardous crops . . . . the list is long. We may argue: science is not the culprit, but the people, especially the capitalists. Or we argue that it is not science but technology that is value laden, that science is universal, value free . . . "Hold on. We are completely derailed". But we don’t stop. We go on. We accuse the post modernists, for questioning some of our beliefs, such as for example, socialism fear that what may follow is not socialism but barbarism will necessarily follow capitalism, though many of us as pointed out by Rosa Luxemburg.

We tend to establish unwarranted and rigid connections between rituals, superstitions and religious beliefs on the one hand and the pogroms in Gujrath, or Sathi in Rajasthan, on the other hand. In the process we miss the real, and sordid connection between economic interests and such pogroms. Whether it was Crucifixion of Christ or later witch hunting of the Jews, whether it was the long years of crusade or the creation Israel , the basic driving force was economic wested interest. The Godhra incident was only a pretext. The Gujarat program was planned long before that. The important targets – successful small Muslim entrepreneurs – had been identified and listed long ago. Godhra was used to kindle an orgy. In the process even the land of the poor were appropriated.

It is true that a large number of innocent ordinary people have been injected with the poison of communal hatred. To do this they have reintroduced and invented a number of rituals and slogans. None of them have anything to do with Hindu religious practice or its philosophy. Neither the genuine parotids nor the scholars approve any of them. There is a proven: when an elephant runs beresk don’t recite vedas into its ears! A crowd is running beresk. The best strategy would be to direct it towards something creative. For example we too accept that Ganga is an important river, a life line. The story of Bhagirath, who brought it to earth, is well known to them. Today Bhageerathi is defiled – it is one of the most polluted river. There was an ambitions Ganga Action Plan to clean up Ganga. Let a million of them do ’Karsewa’ to clean up Ganga, not just once, but for years. Let them institute vigils along its banks, to prevent future pollution, let them ensure that Ganga flows crystal clear and potably pure. By the time they have done this, they would have become sufficiently sober.

If, instead we mount an agit-prop program on scientificity and scientific attitude, that will be irrational on our part. Irrational because God and religion are beyond the pale of rationality, beyond the ambit of science. You cannot prove the non-existence of God. They don’t have the burden of proof – of the existence of God, because they believe in it. There is an anecdote attributed to Laplace, the French mathematician. He had formulated a thesis on the origins of the solar system, the earth and other planets. It was considered a plausible explanation by many during those days. He presented his book to Emperor Napoleon who waded through the book in sufficient detail and remarked:

"Prof. Laplace, I don’t find any reference to God anywhere in the book. What was his role?"

Laplace is said to have replied:

"Sir, I did not find the necessity of such a hypothesis".

Laplace didn’t have the necessity. Many of us don’t feel the necessity of the hypothesis called god. But many others do feel the necessity. We don’t have the right to question them, to de-settle them. Often we fail to differentiate their private faiths from their public action. Though secularism means, strictly, a separation of the State from Religion, many of us interpret it in terms of atheism and anti-religionism. Often we become intolerant of all religions. Is this in tolerance justified? We must accept their right. Then we can ask: now you accept our right not to believe in God because we don’t find any necessity of such a hypothesis. Let us be frank, we have our hypotheses too.

The KSSP, during its initial years, was most virulently rationalistic. It used to go to temples to protest against ’superstitions rituals’. But the impact has been highly negative. We would not convince a single person that he is superstitious, we could not convert a single person into a scientific mode of thinking. That was during the first decade, from 1962 to 1972 or so. We became mellowed down and began to accept that we have to respect others’ beliefs. However, we felt that we should share with them the joy of science. That was how we planned the first series of mass campaign lectures Nature, Science and Society. A journey from the micro universe of atoms and fundamental particles, to the mega universe of galaxies and galactic, the size and distances involved, the identification of stars in the night sky, an imaginary radio communication with the nearest star, Proxima Centauri requiring 8 years to say simply hello with each other, the origins of science through life experiences and language, from paleolithic to modern times, the development of human society from primitive times to socialism through slavery, feudalism and capitalism... people, even deeply religious people liked them all. They did not shed their belief in god, but their faith in man got strengthened. What more we should demand?

We often forget that our knowledge about anything is incomplete. As Lenin put it: even the atom is inexhaustible. That was before quantum theory. How true it he proved to be! Still we tend to digitize: scientific or unscientific, true or false. Once I had an interesting experience. KSSP had organized a science parliament in Kondotti, Malappuram district of Kerala, a predominantly Muslim area. It was organized jointly with the local Islamic Cultural Society. Dr. Aboo Beckar, District Medical Officer was president of both ICS and the local KSSP. I was the concerned Minister for Science. KSSP had placed question boxes in several places of the area. The public can write down their questions on a piece of paper and put it in the box. There were about hundred and odd questions, most of them similar. The hall was full by the time I reached – about two hundred persons. The front few rows have been occupied by white turbaned, white robed, white bearded moulavis. I was wonderstruck. So many of them Dr. Aboo Beckar presided. After the usual chores of welcome etc, the president asked me to answer the questions. I began saying that bulk of the questions pertained to two issues: about the origins of the universe and origin of life. Suddenly one of the Moulavis stood up and raised a point of order:

"Sir does the scientist know everything about the Universe" I answered: "No, only very little" "Then what right you have to speak about it. Sit down" They had come prepared to disrupt the function. I could sense it. I turned back and asked the president:

"Dr. Aboo Beckar, You are a medical doctor. Do you know all the biochemical and electrochemical reactions that are taking place in the body and brains of this gentle man?" "No, no. Not even a fraction of percent" I turned to the Moulavi and asked of him. "Didn’t you hear what the doctor was telling? He don’t know most of the things happening in your body. Still when you are sick you go to him, you allow him to treat you, because he cures you. So is the case with science. It does not claim to be perfect or to know the whole truth. But with what it know we can act more successfully – it cures you, it sends rockets to moon, it gives the telephone to talk to your kith and kin in Dubai... It is humble, not arrogant".

Thereafter the Parliament went on smoothly. At the end of it, one of them came to the stage and announced "Science is incomplete. They have agreed. But religion is complete. We can show it. We will have a religious parliament in this same venue some time later".

It is a pity that often protagonists of science behave as the Moulavi and arrogantly declare: science has answers for everything if not today, tomorrow. Often I have been asked: What is science? What is scientific attitude? I found most of the treatises on the philosophy of science problematic. They did not help me to ’feel’ science, and so to transfer my ’feeling’ to others. The best I could ever do was to give rather simple definition.

"Humans are humans because they transform nature, they consciously interact with nature. This gives them experience, gathered through sense organs. Over a period they learned to generalize and abstractize. So from a particular crow they could conceive crows, a category, different from eagles and pigeons, but then combine them all within the category of birds. When they observed that certain results invariably follow certain actions and coined the categories of cause and effect they began to raise such questions as Why? and How? This lead to theorization and from theorization to prediction. Prediction prompted them to experiment, which gave them new experiences and the cycle gets repeated on and on. This process of action – experience – generalization – abstractization – theorization – prediction – new action – new experience – new generalization ..... this never ending chain is science and scientific method.

As far as scientific attitude is concerned my answer is: "an optimism that tomorrow can be better than today, depending on our actions based on yesterdays experience. This is scientific attitude. Put in other words: humans create their destiny."

This is optimism. But how anybody can be optimistic today? There is a continuous erosion of optimism throughout the world. It is but natural that more and more people seek solace in god and religion. Their faiths, in a better tomorrow, have been betrayed. The fall of socialist governments on the one side, the degeneration of socialist ethics, the disillusionment with parties and leaders – all have contributed to this. Even post modernism, is a flight in despair, rather them a conscious project of capital. It is not surprising that this started in Europe, where they were, closer to the bitter truth, which many of us came to realize only much later.

We have to give back hope to the people. They are scientific or rational enough to understand whether the hope is rational or not. We have to go to them with a program, which kindles hope and self confidence in them, a program for a better society, a better world, a rational course of action and above all a leadership which is intellectually and morally inspiring. Mechanical repetition of words like dialectical and historical materialism, socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat, imperialism, globalization etc. won’t foot the bill. Obviously the influence of the left in declining. In the correlation of forces it is becoming weaker. This is not because people are becoming more superstitious and communal. Perhaps it is the other way round: we have gone down in their eyes, may be we have to look inwards to find the reason for their present behaviour, and not to post modernised liberalism.