OPINION • Oct 06, 2020
The crux of "SCIENCE"
Science is a really vague and all-encompassing term. If you think it’s not, then you have a serious misunderstanding of science. I want to expound on this a bit more. There used to be a time that the study of astronomy and certain parts of physics is theology, medicine is considered doctrine, chemistry is considered alchemy, and business, economics, and design are considered art.
Every one of these domains got their freedom from its previous tyrants and became scientific after years of toil. The right analogy will be to the democratization of the world in the last century. More and more domains are getting scientific and getting freedom from dogma.
But first what is "SCIENCE"….
Unlike all other domains like religion, arts, literature, etc, Science is more than just an idea. Science is a process. The crux, the core, lifeblood, essence, and the entire thesaurus of similar words to these of science can be said in a single elegant sentence. “Conjecture and refutation”. As simple as that and it is as indisputable as indisputable gets. Any subject which conforms to this simple statement can be said as science. If you chose to believe this, you can’t believe anything else. There is no halfway through, no middle sweet spot. It is either this side or the other, which is dogma.
If you want a feel for what I am saying about, read the next few statements and think about how you feel.
- Scientists used to say that there were 9 planets, and now they are saying there is just 8; these scientists are giving out contradictory information, confusing people.
- A medicine that has been effective in treating the disease and has been in usage for a few years now has been banned because of long term side effects; Western medicine is a scam and is killing people.
- Tesla’s autonomous driving is killing and must be banned; people always would need a driver to drive a car.
- Einstein showed Newton was wrong in some ways and now Einstein’s theory is at the risk of disproving; these scientists have never gotten anything right. (hypothetical)
How you feel about these statements say an important thing about who you are because Science is a way of life. If you are in accord with the statement, then you probably are dogmatic, if not (for the right reason), you can be considered scientific. For the true scientific people, the greatness of science is measured in progress, which means mistakes. Unlike any form of dogma, whose strength is measured on longevity aka stagnation.
Science is one of those core and consequential beliefs. It shapes your world view. A small belief seemingly innocuous belief has crazy consequences. If you don’t believe in "science", you might believe that the “best” people get it right the first time and don’t make mistakes. You might choose not to take the chance of a failure and you might stagnate. This is that kind of a consequential belief. The reason there is no middle ground is that because the two are highly incompatible and antithetical.
The reason I wrote this article is that I recently heard Modi encouraged reading of Vedas to understand science and the creation of the universe. I respect Modi for his leadership, but I mean “What the FUCK!!”. That man is responsible for the growth of the country encouraging dogmatism. The statement was plain wrong for two reasons, one, India is a secular country, and two, Old scriptures are the worst form of dogma.
People who are of the opposite opinion of mine are quick to point out that Hindu ancestors are scientific geniuses that they knew there were 9 planets (Navagraha) around the sun even before the invention of the telescope and they have written about flying vehicles who know how long ago. But I can’t even comprehend how this could be even considered an argument as if guessing the number of planets is the only science there is or that’s what they actually meant. We could be just seeing what we wanted to see here. It's just an interpretation. Even if that’s the right interpretation, with the sheer number of scientific principles and findings around that could have been just plain luck, considering everything that is false. The second one is even more stupid; you can be credited as an inventor of something if you have not built it. If not convinced of it yet, of my very very limited knowledge about the Hindu and Tamil scriptures, I have seen stuff are completely illiberal for modern standards, encouraging slavery and extremely misogynistic. This is something no one can argue against.
Another thing I am seeing a lot recently (In times of COVID) is that modern medicine is scamming and Ayurveda and Siddha have medicines for everything. This is even more bonkers than the previous example. Actor Vishal trended a video in which he says Ayurveda cured him of COVID. This is a major fallacy. Reasoning based on stories; it should be based on data. I could even say that modern medicine is the pinnacle of science. It works based on a “Double-blind clinical trial”. I have attached a video on it. You will probably understand the power of it. What is those traditional medicine based on?? Some very old books??
If Ayurveda has been working and has been for long, why did the average age of the population never increased beyond 35-40 until the advent of modern medicine? Why did one out of 3-4 children don’t live over 5 years? Why did the Indian population sky-rocket since the 70s?
If I have to give examples like this, I can do it all day, but that’s not the point here. The point here is what you believe. there is no middle ground. There is a famous quote that goes like “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” This has always been the truth in history. Science doesn’t care about politics, but religion is created by politicians (In one way or the other). And true education cleanses the world of dogma. That’s why education is highly correlated with high atheism rates and very low hardcore religiosity rates which is also correlated with economic wealth. If you doubt it, look for the numbers among the countries with high literacy rates yourself. The vice versa of the correlations also hold true.
There is another point of view here too, that everything is an opinion. People just chose to believe in science the same way the people chose to believe in religion. But this argument doesn’t hold water. Science isn’t created by people with vested interests. Science isn’t designed to exploit people’s predictions to accept dogma. Science is created for the furtherment of human society. More than that Science is based on “Conjecture and refutation”.