(Lewis Dartnell)
“And in spite of this, we are currently living in a world of
alternative facts, in which there are climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers.’
‘Many of the challenges we have been facing recently are because people have,
to certain extent, rejected science….I think the solution isn’t to teach people
scientific facts but to teach people a more scientific way of thinking, of
thinking logically about what might be the better solution.” – Lewis Dartnell,
Astrobiologist. (Quoted from an article by Rushati Mukherjee published in the
Hindu Sunday Magazine dated 11/8/2019)
World population could now be divided into two: one section
practicing a scientific approach to life and the other, the illogical section that
lives in ‘modern superstitions’. By modern superstition what I mean is what exactly
Lewis Dartnell means, a way of life dominated by ‘alternative facts’ where
people believe that everything that they do with the environment is good and
one does not need to vaccinate for prevention of life threatening or
incapacitating sicknesses. People practice modern superstition by employing the
scientific innovations and technology in order to perpetuate blind faiths and
age old superstitions. For instance, a larger section of the people in the
world who use smartphones with internet connections to pass on trivia, fake
news, unconfirmed reports and age old superstitions. Word of mouth now has been
replaced by ultra-modern technology and the scope of its reach has been
multiplied into unimaginable numbers.
Unfortunately, the people who perpetuate modern
superstitions are far more in number and they could easily outdo the section of
people who practice a scientific approach to life. Scientific approach to life
is always contested and looked down upon by the majority mainly because it
discards the religious beliefs and the rituals associated with them. They think
that an uncontested and unquestioned life is not worth living. But they are up
against a huge wall which has been raised by the religious believes over the
centuries using well-crafted mythologies, superstitions, metaphysics,
spiritualism and fatalism. Together they support the political ideologies that
come to dominate the socio-cultural and economic spheres anywhere in the world.
Dominant ideologies, for their perpetuation and survival need the fuel of
modern superstition as well as modernizing superstitions; market and the life
style products are such modernizing superstitions.
(Dr.Krishnan Balendran)
Superstitions of all kinds have survived time and
adversities mainly because the politico-economic powers have always supported them.
Against this substantially deep and binding impact of the superstitions,
scientific world views though will have fewer takers for the time being, make a
strong presence and bring about certain lasting changes in the society. Unscientific
statements made by the political leaders for ideological expediency often
contradict themselves by using the most modern technologies and by living a
no-nonsense life. Scientific approach has been trying to expose this and also
developing and implementing new parameters to enhance social life and longevity
so that slowly but steadily more people are looking up to it for a much more
sophisticated and comfortable life. Old habits die hard; that is the only
problem now people are facing when they attempt to discard the old
superstitious ways. It will take time but it is bound to happen.
When an internationally reputed scientist like Dartnell says
that scientific approach is what we needed people sit up and listen. However,
here in our place too we have egalitarian social thinkers, scientists and
doctors who speak in the same line. Task at their hand is more difficult than
that before Dartnell, especially when we consider the deeply superstitious
societies within which our scientific people have to work. Dartnell is right
when he says that it is not important to teach people about scientific facts
for they may find it absolutely dense and repelling; superstitions are easier
to comprehend because they come in small doze of parables, allegories and
socio-cultural entertainments. Science does not impact the society through
stories and myths. As I understand it, science does not have a story to tell
but it has many examples, which have been successfully tested with evidence and
positive results, to display. While an anti-vaxxer insists that vaccination is
against belief, it is for the multinational corporations, it is against faith
healing, it is for economic domination and so on, he has only partial records,
projection and spurious data to substantiate his arguments, meanwhile ‘vaxxers’
have solid data to prove that how vaccinations have helped people in different
contexts by saving and improving their lives.
(Maitreyan)
Though they do not enjoy the fame of a scientist like
Dartnell, Dr.Krishan Balendran, a famous forensic surgeon in Kerala has been
propagating the very same idea in his speeches and writings for a long time.
According to him, our ‘scientists’ who take the ‘chandrayan’ (homemade space
shuttle) model to the Tirupati Temple for divine blessings before the actual
launching of the rocket, are not scientists but people who do scientific work
in a detached way. Dr.Krishnan categorically says, “Many of our scientists are
not scientific,” and in the same breath he adds that many scientific people are
not scientists either. Same is the idea expressed by Maitreyan, a social
thinker and activist who takes a wholistic analytical approach to anything that
is either presented as facts (even scientific facts) or commonly held beliefs.
During the last few years Maitreyan also has been pointing out how our
scientists are losing out in scientific spirit and are getting into the esoteric
zones of metaphysics and magic. Sunny M.Kapikkad, noted social thinker raises
this point in one of his highly impactful public speeches and asks why a post
graduate in Science (MSc) still thinks that the Dalits who have passed the same
examination and come out with first classes and ranks are ‘lower’ in merit than
an upper caste person. According to Sunny Kapikkad, the scientific education
that he gained has not impacted him at all. If he understood what he had learnt
in the university such a doubt would never have raised its ugly head in him.
To develop scientific approach we do not need degrees in
science. Nor do we need to read scientific journals and keep in company with
scientists. We just need to develop an attitude that goes in tune with
scientific spirit, which is not superstitious and retrogressive. There
rationalists and atheists who try to spread scientific spirit in the society.
But their problem is, if I go by the views of Dartnell, that they try to teach
people ‘facts’ scientifically and try to teach them scientific facts ‘logically.’
It is the same coin of superstition flipped the other way round. We have emphatic
logicians who knock in facts into the minds of people who go back in a zombie
state with undigested facts and live in conflict with the superstitiously
conditioned social ethics that includes believing in god, doing charity,
visiting temples and going with the majority opinion. To develop scientific
approach in life one needs to nurture an open view of the world. One should
understand that oneness is not created out of one but many. One should also
understand that world functions based on law of science not out of the diktats
of a furious god or a pantheon of godheads. Mythologies are literature
generated out of limited physical and intellectual resources with glimpses of
liberal and intuitive world views. But it cannot be taken for the guiding
principles of today’s life. A flood cannot be stopped by sincere prayers. A
flood could be tackled only through scientific methods.
(Sunny M Kapikkad)
I am not a scientist nor do I read a lot of scientific
literature. But I keenly discern the scientific out of a host of superstitious life
practices and reject the latter without a second thought. When in the right
company that makes you think and act, you tend to be scientific than in the
wrong company that compels you to act out of a spur of emotion. With scientific
approach to life every parameter changes and with that you become a new human
entity that would surprise you upon encountering it in the street of emotions
and inconsiderate actions.
n
JohnyML
No comments:
Post a Comment