Importance of science day
Dear
all,
Last week I had delivered two
talks on science day celebrations. On 27th feburvary 2015, I
delivered a talk on “Grand design of universe” at Devamatha College, Kuravilangad
and again on March 3rd , I could give an invited talk on “Expanse of
Nano” at Government College for Women, Trivandrum. Attaching some photos of the
same.
Talk 2
I would like to share some of the
thoughts that were discussed during the visit of Prof. R V G Menon to our
department on March 6th for the Science day celebration on behalf of Kerala
Sasthra Sahithya Parishad. Let me introduced Prof. R. V. G. Menon.
He is a
professor of engineering in Kerala, India. Prof. Menon, was the Principal of Government College of Engineering,
Kannur. He was deputed as the director of Agency for
Non-conventional Energy and Rural Technology (ANERT). He is the
author of "An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science"
which is a part of the Engineering curriculum in Kerala. Prof. Menon served as
president of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad,
the "Peoples' Science Movement". His thoughts are really nice to be
shared with my students.
Importance of Science for
development of our nation has been a prime concern since we got independence.
As a part of this thought, 42nd amendment was made in Indian
Constitution. The amendment focus on increasing scientific temper among citizen
of India and hence was included in fundamental duties that a citizen is obliged
to do for the nation. An interesting fact about the word “scientific temper” is
that it was coined by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his book “ Discovery of India”.
Scientific temper doesn’t mean merely studying science; it can be defined as a psychological
change that is created in the minds of the subject through scientific methods.
The discussion about scientific temper has been a topic of discussion not only
in India but all over the world. If we look into the history, the discussion
about scientific temper boomed in our country during the time of 42nd
amendment made in Indian constitution. Many revolutionaries, educationalist, politicians
as well as scientist took active participation in these discussions. Science day
can be considered as an outcome of these thoughts. From Indian Science congress
to other Indian origin national/international forms discussed science from then
onwards. This year’s National science day message is “Science and Development
of Nation”. Actually the aim of science is not constrained to nationalism but
it has a wider perspective that is enhancement of whole human race. Science is
a search/quest for knowing the truth about Nature and how it behaves under
certain circumstances. This quest for knowledge does have a long history. Many
ancient philosophers had made many models of how universe look like. All these philosophies
had made many revolutionary concepts in our understanding about the universe.
But we should also mention here about the influence that society, its culture
and the religion that existed, also had strong influence in setting up of scientific
models. In fact, these scientific models had to merge with religious and cultural
thoughts that existed. As a result whenever controversial thoughts were
proposed, there were huge oppositions faced by science. Conflict resulted in
causalities of many scientific men and chaos prevailed. But modern scientific revolution
which could be called as start of neo liberalism made quantum jumps in the scientific
thoughts and changed the face of human civilization by many orders of
magnitude. These thoughts are definitely different from the so called science
that prevailed in 2nd century in Greece, India etc. Science got new
dimensions through thorough observations and there by resulted in more accurate
and precise calculations of our mother nature. Modern science was much better
equipped in its ideology that it rigorously got validated in all its new observations.
As a result science boomed in our society and knowledge about our universe got momenta
from numerous sides in several fold. The reason why it boomed is the right dose
of scientific temper creating liberalization of thoughts of every individual. This knowledge has created creative openings
in minds of common man.
But, today we frequently see
pioneer scientist in our country lose this scientific temper and believe in
ancient mythology since they suppose that their missions are beyond the reach of
any existing science. Even though they do good research, it cannot be
considered as a constructive one since they do science to conclude their finding
merging with ancient myth. Why this happens? It is because science has become a
mere act for getting a better lively hood. This way of doing science is just opposite
to the thoughts that envisaged in Indian constitution. Scientific temper should
result in the use of newly acquired knowledge to empower the spirits of human mankind.
When scientist involved their findings with some ill-behaved mythological concepts,
it should be considered as a crime committed towards the right scientific approaches.
These thoughts may actually cause many rebellions and conflicts within
scientific community. Common man may get bewildered and muddled due to these
radical changes in mindset of these so-called pioneer scientists. This conflict
is itself a big hurdle post in front of young researches since their guides are
stuck with these mythology. For the motivation of youth, it should be stated
here that science grows through oppositions and the final laugh will be with
them who purse science with correct scientific temper. Young people should take
this situation seriously and should work in synchronously to develop the right
scientific temper, thereby deal with superstitions and blind beliefs that exist
in the present science careers. The hurdle is intensified because these
superstitious beliefs in science are glorified in the name of patriotism. Hence
common man has to either accept or suffer these myths for the sake of nation.
In such a situation, it will be
wise if we could analysis the scientific contributions made by India in ancient
times. It is for sure that we have made many contributions to science or
scientific community. But exaggerating the truth may distort our ways for
improvement. The real situations should be known so that we limit our fancies
of our own science. Even the most educated person in our society exaggerates these
facts and results in scarcity of true knowledge for a technology. In
mathematics as well as astronomy, India as well as Kerala had made great
contributions. “Kerala school of mathematics: itself is a fine line noted in
science by international community. Infinite series to astronomical
observations by Aryabhata do have influence on current understanding of our
universe. It should be noted that infinite series solutions that are named
after European scientist are actually the contribution of Indian mathematicians
and to confirm the genuinity of this argument, let me add that these
discussions are not only done in India but also in foreign countries. So definitely
it is worthwhile to investigate on these lines in firm grounds to know why
these teachings got limited to such time regimes and what social/cultural difference
prohibited the further growth of the same. It is necessary that we critically analyses
ourselves for getting better knowledge about these contributions. Indian
science congress and other forums should be a place for such discussion. But in
recent times the fictional concepts like mythological air planes have crept
into scientific discussion and thereby deviate from the concepts of scientific temper
that a person should have while discussing science. These scientific discussion
deviates from the real science since there are hidden political agendas behind
such movements.
The theory made by Aryabhata
resulted in fundamental changes in the thoughts about mathematics. But once Arabians
took over our land, these teachings were transported to Europe and Europeans
brought these scientific truth to the common man. These facts have evidences
too. But fancying about airplane where
engineering in 2nd century was trifle is an impossibility. Airplane
cannot stand in vacuum. For flying airplanes, we need engines with high efficiency
to mass ratio. Such air planes would have never worked in 2nd
century. If we refer to Purans, Mahabharata, Ramayana etc,,, carts pulled by
horses are the main transportation systems that prevailed. Hence air planes are
mere mythical concepts that would have been incorporated by artistic sense of
the author. It should be also noted that these ancient writings are also edited
many fold during the passage of time. So ancient myths considered as scientific
truth is actually a shame we put ourselves in International scientific
community. This should be identified and critical thoughts and thinking could
help us in overcoming these hurdles. Science is a pursuit to know truth about
nature and how it can be used for betterment of life. We all know that Research
methodology is a paper taught in our campus. If we treat it as one of the paper
that is to be cleared to get Ph.D. then such thought would kill scientific temper
that a person would have while doing science. Critical thinking and thoughts
are the true activators to increase scientific temper in our society. It is
high time we should think in these lines so that we may be never late in
knowing the expansion of technology around us. Hope you all will think and
discuss in your own scientific forums.
Last but not least, I am also
happy to share with you that I am awarded UGC start up for Solid Oxide Fuelcell research.
Thank
you all for your unconditional support to all my endeavors.
Sibi
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