Science Day

Science Day

While a handful of thinkers in the Hindu world are debating about the right planetary and zodiacal configurations on which the birthdays of divinities and other festivals are to be celebrated, India also observes  National Science Day on February 28 (Gregorian calendar). Started just over two decades ago (1986), it is a day which inaugurates a whole month of Science-related and Science-inspiring activities, and also awards prizes for the best science-popularization efforts in magazines, newspapers, lectures, and books.

Most importantly, like Black History Month in the United States, the goal of Science Day is to raise science-consciousness among the masses, gradually weaning them away from outworn beliefs, silly superstitions, and a general fear of what science is all about. People are encouraged to watch the skies, locate stars and planets, do experiments and read science books.

We live in a world where, contrary to earlier hopes and expectations, science has come to be marginalized in the minds of many. The general public has been led to believe, thanks to academic philosophers who play clever I-gotchya-you logic, that science is just another way of describing the moon or appreciating the rainbow, and has no greater claims to knowledge than mythology, religious revelations, grand poetry, and speculative philosophy. Science is often seen by the public as no more than a tool for games and gadgetry, for medical technology, washing machines, and creature comforts. Then again, some zealous scientists, by degrading the religious dimension of the human condition, have created the impression that science is derisively religion-unfriendly, and is therefore more dangerous than desirable for human culture.

What needs to be emphasized is that the deeper essence of science expands our mind, enhances our appreciation of our world, and uplifts our spirit. These aspects must reinforced periodically in science courses and through public proclamations like Science Day.

Perhaps the United Nations Organization should follow India’s lead in this regard and declare a whole month as Science Month in all countries.

February 28, 2009

Wars between Old and New

The mindless veneration, often distortion, of poorly understood or anachronistic sacred texts have led to unhappy consequences in all religious traditions. When these are extended to the realm of societal mores and values in a changing world, the excesses of religious zealots degrade and denigrate the very best in any religious tradition.

There is a tug of war going on the world over, under the umbrella of every culture and tradition, between radical forces that are out to change societies in every respect – whether in matters pertaining to social justice or sexual morals – and those who will neither budge nor tolerate any deviation from their own perspectives on what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is to be allowed and disallowed, on the basis of the Ten Commandments, the Sharia, the Manudharmashastra or whatever that they regard as the last sacred word in moral law which one and all should accept, or else….

This morality-war is waged in increasing intensity among casual commentators on the internet and deep-thinking intellectuals who write books and give lectures, whether in India or the Middle East, in Western countries or wherever. Now and again, ideological warfare spills into the open, instigated by the prating and preaching of the more extremist elements who feel that unleashing a mindless mob can be more effective in achieving their goal of an imaginary Utopia than reasoning or persuasive discourse. The fundamentalists who burn abortion clinics in the Western (Christian) world, the honor-killers of their sisters and wives in the Islamic world, and the attackers of women in pubs in the Hindu world, and the like, are all spiritual cousins who belong to the same religion of Intolerance and Self-Righteousness. If such moral extremists are a periodic nuisance in civilized societies, they can become monstrously dangerous when they come to wield political power and police in any nation.

At this crucial juncture in human history it is incumbent upon spiritual and lay leaders to argue for the preservation of all that is good and glorious in their traditions, and also condemn unequivocally mischievous, criminal, and violent misbehavior in the name of any religion that tends to snub free expression of thought and stifle human freedom of action.

On the Impact of Darwin

On the Impact of Darwin

This year celebrates the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth. It is also the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his scientific classic, On the origin of Species. During these hundred and fifty years, more pages have been penned on Darwin and his work than perhaps on most other scientists and theirs works: more perhaps than Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein, more certainly than Leonhard Euler, Michel Faraday, or Heinrich Hertz whose contributions have touched the core of science and altered the course of history no less.

The reason for this is that Darwin’s discovery touches our self-appraisal as beings in the universe far more profoundly than Jovian satellites, gravitation, or the curvature of cosmic space, more directly than differential equations, electromagnetic induction, or the transmission of electromagnetic waves. The only time such a jolt had occurred before was when the Copernican discovery summarily kicked our habitat from the prestigious center of the universe, and transformed it into an insignificant speck in a vast and silent expanse. Darwin’s work removed us from the pedestal wherein we were seen as the crowing jewel in God’s creation. In the view of some it not only mercilessly reduced us to just another of the countless life-forms that crowd the earth, but also revealed our lineage to be simian rather then saintly, or as one wit quipped, we are nor not so much the apex as the ex-ape of creation.

It is both biological and cultural to regard oneself as the center of the universe. The sun seems to rise and set from our perspective, we evaluate the world and react to changes with self-preservation as the bottom line. So it is not surprising that practically every religion gives a special place to humanity among the plethora of life forms. Other creatures, bereft of language and scale of values, have never protested this presumption in any biological court of law. Darwin’s suggestion that we were not molded by clay, nor fashioned on the sixth day, nor come into being from the mind of God, as reported in religious mythopoesie, but that we just emerged as a result of slow changes over the eons, like so many other sister-species, not only belies assertions in sacred texts, it also seems to trivialize Homo sapiens, and certainly appears to take away all sanctity from this special-to-God creature.

It is both understandable and legitimate for traditionalists to resist the Darwinian view of anthropogenesis not only as an affront to human dignity but also as assault on the religious framework. There are at least three ways of reacting to this predicament. One is to declare cold-bloodedly that the religions are dead wrong on this matter, as they are on many other issues pertaining to the phenomenal world. The other is to proclaim that that since the scriptures (revelations by God Almighty) cannot, by definition, by wrong, it is Darwin who has been misled by superficialities which hide the true essence of things, and must therefore be rejected, or at best, be accepted as just another theory formulated by the finite human mind which can never fathom the Ultimate Infinite Mystery. The third alternative has been to find a reasonable via media by recognizing the role and relevance of religion as an important and meaningful cultural and spiritual experience, and also interpreting religious texts in symbolic and metaphorical rather than in literal modes, while maintaining the integrity of science and its methodology. The oft-mentioned warfare between science and religion is between the ardent protagonists of the first two schools while members of the third group write such books as “How one can be a good Christian/Hindu/Jew/Buddhist/Muslim etc. and also subscribe to Darwin and evolution.”

My own suspicion is that the first two groups, in their own belligerent ways, are perhaps closer to their truths, but the third course is the best for a peaceful world where science can flourish and religiously inclined people can find fulfillment also. This approach is difficult for those who see every aspect of the human condition in black-and-white terms: a point of view, which inevitably leads to intolerance, self-righteousness, and bigotry, when taken to the extreme. But it is the only way by which we can handle this situation which may seem quite simple from the perspective of die-hard rationaltry (worship of the Goddess of Reason alone) or mindless faith, but which is enormously complex in the context of human emotions, culture, sensibilities, and psychology.

With all the problems that have emerged from the Darwinian Pandora’s Box, it is appropriate for enlightened humanity to pay homage to the name and memory of a scientific searcher who relentlessly pursued his quest and uncovered one of the great mysteries of the phenomenal world, namely, the emergence, continuance, and extinction of countless species with an incredible range of properties and propensities that adorn our planet, and of which we ourselves happen to be among the more remarkable ones. It is no less enriching to regard ourselves as one culminating end-point in the complex web of life that has been unleashed on the planet by the marvelous laws of nature, with potential for further change, than to imagine ourselves to be the most wonderful creation of the Cosmic Creative Principle that many choose to worship as God

V. V. Raman

12 February 2009

The Royal Society’s Zeal

This week (Seeptembe 15, 2008) , the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science, forced Michael Reiss to resign from his position as director of education because of a speech he made in which he reportedly said that “creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a worldview,” and therefore students must be allowed to discuss it in class. He also stated that a “student who believes in creationism has a nonscientific way of seeing the world, and one very rarely changes one’s worldview as a result of a 50-minute lesson.”
In the eyes of the prestigious Royal Society these are blasphemous utterances. According to a statement released by the venerable society, “Professor Michael Reiss’ recent comments … were open to misinterpretation … .While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the society’s reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the society, he will step down immediately.” Whoever wrote this lofty condemnation of Reiss, a biologist and ordained Church of England minister, obviously does not realize that this move has probably led to even greater damage to the society’s reputation. One would have expected the society to clarify Reiss’ comments and avert any misinterpretation of them instead of summarily relieving him of his position.
If this reminds some of us of the treatment that Galileo received at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, it should. In the one case, it was a fear of scientific knowledge, and in the other case, it is a fear of respect for religious visions.
An unexpected long-range effect of the Enlightenment has been to develop in rationalist thinkers and movements a veritable phobia for anything smacking of religion. After all, Voltaire’s injunction “Ecrasez l’infâme”—Wipe out religion!—has still not been fulfilled after more than two centuries.
This is quite irritating to many. In their enthusiasm to eradicate God from the hearts and religions from the minds of millions of people, those addicted to ratioaltry (the worship of reason alone), like all who are constrained by mono-visions, can’t brook any expression of a different view. When a devotee of Darwin (like Reiss) so much as suggests that we should allow other perspectives to be expressed in a classroom, he is pounced upon as a dangerous supporter of the forces of superstition and anti-science.
What such rationalist zeal fails to see is that by its intolerance it is not only stifling free thought—stooping to a level that science is supposed to condemn—but is also engendering sympathy and support for the forces that regard science as a dangerous element in society. It alienates millions by creating the impression that science is out to destroy everything that they hold to be uplifting, fulfilling, and meaningful.
Those who fear an idea usually silence those who express it. If you are not against my enemy, say people who are insecure, then you are not my friend. You don’t have to be a religious fanatic to behave this way.

Multiuniverse-metaphysics

Since the rise of modern science in the 16th century, science has been meticulous about what it will consider to be scientifically acceptable or even worthy of consideration, and what it will reject outright. Working in this framework, science has made stupendous progress in acquiring new understanding about the physical universe and extending the boundaries of human knowledge.
The question of the origin of the universe was not even raised by serious science until the second decade of the 20th century. Then, on the basis of observational evidence of the recession of galaxies, the notion of the big bang emerged. This has been improved upon and modified in interesting ways. At the same time, some interpretations arising from quantum mechanics suggest that there may be countless universes, not all like our own.
What is interesting in all of this is that while science started with an explicit rejection of metaphysics about the ultimate, physics has given rise to its own variety of metaphysics: uncertain and often fantastic models, but generally based on abstract mathematics intelligible to a handful, and propounded by the denizens of the ivory tower. These are taken seriously by the elite esoteric community which rightly enjoys the respect and trust of the rest of humankind. The experts present their latest speculations to the public through popular books and interviews with authority of any priestly class, with periodic revisions of scientific cosmogenesis.
All this is fine. After all, they provide food for thought and are as uplifting as good poetry and fine plays which take us away from humdrum life and depressions that are likely to ensue by contemplating on the current political and economic scene. Even if they are as incomprehensible to the uninitiated as abstract art or as jarring as dissonant music, these scientific ruminations come from men and women who are in a selfless quest for truth, whose goal is to unscramble the ultimate mysteries of the tangible world. But then, when one presents religious interpretations of origins and mythologies about different universes (what are heaven and hell and the lokas of Hindu reflection if not other universes?), those ideas are usually dismissed as expressions of the unscientific imaginativeness of our distant ancestors.
Of course I am not arguing that we must give religious pictures of the unfathomable cosmos equal billing in scientific textbooks: that would be mathematically impossible, conceptually alien, and terminologically unacceptable. I am merely drawing attention to the fact that in ontological terms and on the criteria of verifiability, current cosmological multiverses, for all their fascinating coherence and expert sources, are not much different from ancient visions of worlds beyond. I also suspect that these are likely to have a much shorter shelf-life even in the ranks of scientific literature than the more meaningful mythopoeia of ancient vintage.

What Makes us Humans

Atoms in the bodies that we own

Make us matter like sand or stone.

Then we have proteins and also genes.

We’re life-forms, is what this means.

We feed our young with mother’s milk:,

This puts us in the mammals’ ilk.

“But what makes us human?” is what you ask.

Answering this is a difficult task.

But let me try to list a few

Items that we alone can do.

We feel happy and also sad,

Now and then we get quite mad.

All kinds of books we can read and write,

And talk for long on wrong and right.

We can look back, think of the past

We can feast with friends, and also fast.

We can look into the distant unborn future,

We can assault and also worship Nature.

We can believe this fleeting world is real,

And imagine things immaterial.

We can affect the world that is around,

Make pleasing and also painful sound.

We can enjoy physics and calculus,

(Like all else, not true for all of us!).

We can take a topic and argue

With friends or foes, no matter who.

With primes and patterns we can play,

To unseen gods we can pray.

We can kill in the name of God

And not know that this is rather odd.

Tasty food we can cook and eat,

Love animals and enjoy meat.

We can weave thick cloth with very thin thread,

And hold places and books as holy and sacred.

Pride and shame we can feel,

Drink wine or beer with every meal.

We can be wake up early and yet be late,

We can believe in free-will and also fate.

We can with success cure many a disease

Solve many a problem with effort or ease.

Glorious music we sure can write,

With a variety of weapons we sure can fight.

With a joyful heart we can deeply love,

We can study the stars in the sky above.

We can cause much pain and give great pleasure,

Things in the world, we can very well measure.

We can blindly believe and also doubt,

Be silent for long, and also shout.

We can keep our minds, chained or free,

We can agree with others and disagree.

Very well we can many things explain,

Though sometimes we do this just in vain.

We can climb many mountains far and high,

We can run to the store, sale-items to buy.

Principles noble and great, we can enunciate,

For which we can fight and heartily hate.

We can be sure that our minds can

Figure out how the whole world began.

We can be fooled into believing we do

Have all the answers right and true.

We can laugh aloud, we can also cry,

When we fail in something, we again can try.

We can make jokes, want Truth to find,

We can be harsh, and also kind.

We can track the passage of time,

We can reason out things, and say them in rhyme.

We can care for creatures, and parents ignore,

All this we can do, and a lot, lot more.

We can be ascetic, and indulge in lust,

We can do things we mustn’t and we must.

One thing in common which all of us have got,

Which, I am sorry, I almost forgot:

The twenty three pairs of chromosomes too,

Are what make humans like myself and you.

Why science has become suspect

One of the many attacks that science has been subjected to in recent decades, is the intrusion of callous technology and capitalist-industry in the practice and interpretation of science. The goal of these enterprises is the bottom line, and nothing else. Callous technology seeks ways to augment the bottom line by exploiting every bit of scientific knowledge, quite indifferent to its possible impact on the environment.

Capitalist-industry devises ways of interpreting or misinterpreting scientific results to its advantage, more exactly to avert negative impacts on the bottom line that might ensue from exposure of the dangers of technology.

The agents of these money-seeking enterprises have insinuated themselves into many scientific organizations and research reports.

The public has been slowly becoming aware of these tactics, to the point that it no longer knows whom to trust.

The result is the kind of suspicion of all science mentioned in this article.

However, it is important to understand that the skepticism that has been growing in the public’s mind is not towards science as a disinterested quest, but towards public and governmental spokespeople who talk about the beneficial impact of this technology or that drug, or minimize the dangers resulting from indiscriminate and irresponsible technology.

On some anti-religion & anti-science noises

1. We live in an age when science has sometimes been transformed into metaphysics, portrayed as an enemy of religion, and become a matter for debate via media propaganda. In such a context, using quantum mechanics to prove the existence of God, writing scientific-sounding popular books to bash religions, and producing sensational movies to disprove Darwin have become the order of the day.

2. Just as the anti-religion folk are fond of reminding us of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Caste system, and the Jihad to show how rotten religions are, the standard refrain for the anti-science folk is that scientists have a closed mind because they don’t accept astrology, the possibility of miracles, and fossils being delusions created by God to fool inquisitive humans, etc.

3. Given that Darwinian evolution has become incontrovertible at the empirical level, and the more ancient scriptural theories of anthropogenesis can’t find a place in the rational framework, some anti-science people try to dig into the dirt in the past of their opponents (as is the norm nowadays in political campaigning). This leads to the discovery that indeed at one time some ardent disciples of Darwinism tried to justify their racism and exploitation of Non-European peoples on the slogan of <survival of the fittest,> and worked on eugenics.

4. Instead of arguing that we need to be careful about how we apply the knowledge acquired through science, the anti-science crowd revels in the misuse of science to attack science itself. Often they do this because they are unable to see the difference between scientifically acquired knowledge, and its appropriate and inappropriate uses by humans. Inappropriate applications can occur in the absence of an ethical framework which science does not always (some think it can never) provide.

On the end of the world

A running theme in the past few decades has been something we used to read only on the screen at the conclusion of movies: The End.

In recent years, we have had books and articles on the End of the World, the End of Physics, the End of History, the End of Communism, and the End of Civilization. There seems to be no end to publications of this kind, fueled by the internet free-for-all and the flourishing market for any kind of sensationalist proclamation.

A couple of generations ago, monster movies and murder mysteries used to sell very well too. Now frightful finalities seem to be the fad. I am almost inclined to say, à la Hamlet, “America, thy name is fad!”

Unfortunately, the ends predicted by current Nostradamuses are not the fantasy-calculations of star-mongers and soothsayers, but the serious prognostications of well-read scholars and well-informed scientists. But they do remind us of the Biblical Book of Revelations and the Puranic Kalki Avatara: both of which were inconvenient truths of by-gone ages, but those projected unhappy endings were to be followed by new happy beginnings, for in the end Almighty God would establish harmony and bliss (according to one interpretation, at least for Christians).

But the ends foreseen by current diviners are dismal beyond compare, and indiscriminate in sweep.

True, in medieval times, astrologers used to foresee disasters now and again because comets showed up in the sky or planets were coming into conjunction. But these days, we are heading towards a kind of thermodynamic disaster which, in its entropic fury, is leading us down a path of no return, with no chance of a cyclic reinstatement of an Arthurian Utopia.

Like so many other people who are counting on spending more years of planetary residence for themselves and their progeny, I am somewhat concerned about, perhaps I should say, quite disturbed by all this. Our only hope seems to lie in these scientists being dead wrong, and that doesn’t seem very likely at this point. I am frantically looking for some loophole in arguments that prophesy inevitable catastrophes, but like peace in the Middle East, that doesn’t seem to be within my grasp either.

But then, when these pundits talk of civilization, they are primarily thinking of the creature-comfort-abundant hyper-technological voraciously-energy-devouring modes which are the goals of billions all over the world who are, not so slowly, and surely, catching up.

Many thinkers and most people in the Non-West, indifferent to or unaware of the dire warnings of Western wise men, are eager for mid-century when, per economic forecasters, India and China would have equaled, perhaps surpassed, the U.S. in GNP and what not. They are dreaming, not of a white Christmas or about the end of the world, but the beginning of a new era when they will be the lead economic players.

Then again, there are billions now living in countless villages in Africa and Asia and South America where people live fairly peaceful lives as all our ancestors did centuries ago, making do with whatever is available, hunting and in harmony, sitting around for chats and songs and folktales, listening to ancient stories narrated by elders, laughing and merry-making, unaware of asteroids, and above all, being quite content with what is available, even if the average life-span may not be considerable. I wonder if their civilizations will also come to an end because of the unintended catastrophic forces that scientific knowledge, industrial pollution, and ecological rampage have unleashed.

Sometimes I tell myself that like individual death, the end of civilization will also be but a sad and passing phase of history. When it is all over, the surviving few will manage somehow or other, perhaps sitting in groups and recalling how their more energy-gobbling ancestors lived and enjoyed and ruined the whole damn thing. Or perhaps, it will all be over for Homo sapiens, and birds and beasts will once again fly and roam following the dictates of evolutionary instincts, with no wars or religions or wanton intrusions that would upset the balance in the biosphere. But the world will also then be deprived of poets and singers, astronomers and pure mathematicians and humorists and that wold be the greatest tragedy of all!

On Fermat’s Last Theorem

We live in an age in which the depressing dimensions of the human condition in their myriad manifestations are reflected day in and day our in the media. Newspapers and magazines are filled with reports of crime and war, of cheating and hatred, of drug and disease. The TV screen, whether for entertainment or as news, often offers us violent, tragic, or obscene images. Such are the impressions of the human race formed in the impressionable minds of our young. In their professed commitment to presenting the news and inspired by blatant greed, media manipulators blow up the gruesome and the gory, the sleazy and the sordid, for these seem to sell more. They are indifferent the impact of parading such truths on the emerging generation.

An item like the discovery of a new elementary particle or the proof of a mathematical theorem cannot have the same claim for headline on the first page as deception in a fund-raising campaign, a verdict of guilt in a murder trial, or the career-transition in the life of a midnight buffoon. So it was good to see in bold-faced heading -even if it was only on the second page- a report on a major ripple in the world of mathematics. We need to be reminded now and again that while the world goes wild with its atrocities, sick with its fanaticism, and helpless with its countless problems, there are men and women who still compose music and write poetry, explore the universe and do mathematics for the sheer joy of it all.

Seeing the prominence given to the report that Fermat’s Last theorem had finally been proved, an economist friend of mine called me up to ask what the fuss was all about. After listening to my spirited discourse on the significance of the achievement in the world of mathematics, he sighed plaintively, unconvinced that an abstruse proof about some puzzling property of numbers deserved all that attention.

I asked him if he thought that the split between Charles and Di, or the honeymoon of Naruhito and Masako should demand our attention more than the conquest by the human mind of a challenge that has taunted the greatest of mathematicians for more than three and a half centuries. “But this is not as interesting,” he replied. Ruskin talked about books of the hour and books of the ages. Likewise, there are also news of the hour and news of the ages. While the former is what we are inundated with, the latter is seldom given much prominence.

Yes, scientific discoveries, artistic achievements, literary creations, and selfless acts do find a place in Sunday magazines. But I have often wondered how we would perceive the world if these were the headlines in our papers, while bank robberies and briberies, political scandals and wasteful wars were relegated to small prints in later pages. Would the public be any less informed as a result? Perhaps not, and it is even possible that the thoughts and interests of people, young and old, will be more attuned to the nobler elements of the human potential.

This is not the place to discuss Fermat’s Last Theorem, but the mere story of how it arose could fascinate and inspire the young. Suffice it to say that Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) was not even a professional mathematician. He wrote poetry in French and Spanish, was a scholar in Greek and Latin, and served as councilor to the King of France. Yet, he is remembered as one of the creators of the mathematical theory of probability and the proponent of a fundamental principle governing the physical universe, and as a curious contributor to the theory of numbers. It was in this last context that he scribbled in the margins of a book that he had discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of an apparently simple property of numbers (integers). But generations of the most prolific creators in mathematics have been baffled by the result, unable to prove it with rigor. [The interested reader with only minimum familiarity with arithmetic can find out about the theorem from a book in the local library.]

And now, if the report be true, the theorem has been proved to be correct. Not that anybody doubted its veracity, but proof in mathematics is like tasting in kitchen-creations: by looking at an elegantly served platter, we may be convinced that it is delicious, but we need to taste it before we can be absolutely certain.

So, to recall my friend’s question, “why all this fuss about the proof?”, I say that proving Fermat’s Last Theorem is the equivalent of the hoisting a flag on the peak of a mountain defiant thus far. Not all of us may reach the mountain top, but we can all share in the excitement. It is a triumph of the human spirit, and we can all rejoice in the achievement. Problems and politicians come and go, fights and frustrations arise and abate, but the positive landmarks left by human minds and efforts, from the Vedas and the Pyramids to sublime symphonies and the unveiling of the secrets of the physical world and of the magic of numbers: these and the like will remain as our lofty legacies for as long as our species treads this planet. These too deserve frequent and prominent mention in the media.