Universalization of Scientific Temper

Universalization of Scientific Temper

Vivek Monteiro

Dr. Narendra Dabholkar gave up his career as a medical doctor to devote his life to promote the scientific outlook among the common public and fight superstitions. On August 20^th this year he was murdered by hired killers at Pune, Maharashtra. The AIPSN adopted the following resolution on his martyrdom:

The AIPSN strongly condemns the dastardly murder of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar by terrorists today at Pune. It is known that Dr. Dabholkar had received constant threats to his life by terrorist organizations acting in the name of religion. He continued his work courageously, unmindful of these threats, spreading the scientific approach and exposing the fraudulent methods of babas, tantric and self styled godmen. He was the founder and leader of the Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti and was the editor of the progressive magazine “Sadhana”.

We take inspiration from the life of Dr. NarendraDabholkar and pledge to carry forward his work and ideals of spreading the scientific temper, and opposing all forms of superstition and religious obscurantism. We pledge to combat the forces of communal fascism and terrorism acting in the name of religion which are active in different parts of our country today. We affirm the values of the Indian Constitution- of scientific temper, secularism, equality and democracy and will work to carry their message to every school, to every town and village of our country.

 Just as those who perpetrated the murder of Gandhiji could not stop his values and message, the values and message of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar will also not be stopped by this cowardly murder. All of us working in the people’s science movement will work with greater determination and vigor to promote science and scientific thinking in the broadest sections of the public to win the battle of ideas and defeat the forces of obscurantism and communal fascism in our country.

The murder of Dr. Dabholkar has shaken the nation out of its complacency and highlighted the importance and urgency of promoting scientific temper in India today.

The resolution that the AIPSN has adopted commits us to take up the task of nurturing the scientific outlook in every citizen, in every school, in every village and town of our country. Is this a possible task?

More than thirty years back, in 1981, a group of prominent intellectuals came out with a “Statement on Scientific Temper” which adopted a far reaching perspective.  We are still very far from achieving those objectives. Superstitions, Astrology, a wide spectrum of irrational beliefs, fraudulent babas, and self styled godmen still command huge following. Clearly ‘business as usual’ is not enough. We need a better and deeper understanding of what needs to be done.

Can we now take up the task of building scientific temper on a mass scale as a scientific problem? What does it mean to take it up as a scientific endeavor?

Humankind has many great achievements of universalization to its credit when tasks were taken up scientifically. Deadly diseases like small pox and polio have been eradicated from most parts of this planet by scientific mass campaigns. The achievement of universal literacy in many countries is another example. One hundred and fifty years back it was our national tradition to deny women and dalits education. Today it is an undoubted achievement that almost every child in India is in school regardless of sex, or caste. The seeds for this achievement of universal enrollment were sown by social reformers like Jotibai Phule and Savitribai Phule working through the “Satyashodak Samaj”.  Scientific Temper is a definite type of “Satyashodhan”. All the above examples give us the confidence that universalizing scientific temper (UST) may be possible and feasible, though it may take many years.

Scientific validity is established by practical achievement. Universalization means achievement at a mass level. To take up UST as a scientific endeavor means that we must show practical achievement at a mass level. We must have measurable and verifiable ways to assess progress or stagnation, success or failure. In the following pages we analyze some aspects of universalization of scientific temper as a scientific endeavor.

Part 2.

What is Scientific Temper?

In our effort to build scientific temper at a mass level we have a very important foundation- our Constitution. Our country is perhaps the only nation in the world where building scientific temper is provided for in its Constitution. Article 51 A of the Constitution of India states:

51A. Fundamental duties.—it shall be the duty of every citizen of India—

(h) To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;

In 1981, at a meeting convened by Nehru Centre, a group of intellectuals formulated a “Statement on Scientific temper” in which “Scientific Temper” was defined as follows, in terms of method of science:

a) That the method of science provides a viable method of acquiring knowledge;

(b) That the human problems can be understood and solved in terms of knowledge gained through the application of the method of science;

(c) Thatthe fullest use of the method of science in everyday life and in every aspect of human endeavor from ethics to politics and economics is essential for ensuring human survival and progress and

(d) That one should accept knowledge gained through the application of the method of science as the closest approximation of truth at thatthe and question what is incompatible with such knowledge; and that one should from time to time reexamine the basic foundations of contemporary knowledge.

Let us discuss the above in some more detail:

What do we mean by the method of science? Basically it means that before accepting something as scientifically valid, or true, we should put it to rigorous test.   There are tests of experience and experiment. There are tests of reason, consistency and logic. Before something can be accepted as true it should be put to practical tests and moreover, it should not be internally contradictory, and should be consistent with other things which we accept as true- because they too have been put to the tests.

Willingness to face the test

Anything that claims to be scientifically true must be open to being tested rigorously. Any system of knowledge that is not willing to take the rigorous tests of science cannot claim to be scientifically true.

For example, astrology cannot claim to be scientifically true, for the simple reason that no astrologer is willing to take the simple tests posed by the Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ANIS). Those astrologers who came forward to take a test posed by Dr. Jayant Narlikar, Dr. Dabholkar and others failed.

Critical Questioning

What we today know as the method of science is the result of a long historyof learning by humankind in all parts of the world.

Critical questioning is the core of the method of science. Everyone has the right to question. The highest authority in science is liable to be questioned by the youngest student, by every thinking person. There are no sacred texts in science, which cannot be questioned and there are no high priests in science. Anything claiming to be scientifically true must be put to proof, must be open to be tested.

The well known physicist Richard Feynman gave an apt description of science:

"Science is a long history of learning how not to fool ourselves".

The method of science is always skeptical and critical. It is always in a state of trying to question and refute. It accepts no "truth" as final. As Einstein put it:"In the most favorable cases it says 'Maybe', and in the great majority of cases simply "No”. If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"- most theories, soon after conception."

The method of science is therefore a definite way of approaching questions of validity. In science, there is never certainty.  At best, there are only increasing levels of confidence. Or putting it in another way, decreasing levels of uncertainty and disbelief.

Fundamentally Opposed to Fundamentalism

Since science is based on systematic disbelief, it is inherently opposed to all varieties of fundamentalism- which may be described as unquestioning belief in some type of ‘infallible’ and ‘unquestionable’ scripture, or dogma. In our country many varieties of religious fundamentalism influence both the common people and even some intellectuals. And fundamentalism of a non religious variety is also quite common. Science is inevitably in conflict with these fundamentalist tendencies whenever there is an overlap of subject of attention.

Democratic Religion

On the other hand, we also have a long tradition of social reform and non fundamentalist, inclusive, humanist religious movements in various parts of our country- such as the Buddhism of Gautam Buddha, or the Sufi-Bhakti cults of the Middle Ages, or the work of Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Sree Narayan Guru. These movements of religious reform, which encouraged questioning of the prevailing system of caste discrimination and inequality, though religious in form, had more in common with scientific temper than with religious fundamentalism. It is not accidental that ‘scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform” are all mentioned together in our Constitution. The four attributes have been integrally related throughout our history.

Part 3

Critical Questioning - Universal or Western?

After the “Statement of Scientific Temper” (SST) was released it came under fierce criticism from various quarters. One strain of criticism came from a tendency calling itself “Patriotic and People Oriented Science and Technology” (PPST). According to PPST, the SST was seeking to impose a “Western Science” concept on India.  Evidently PPST sought to negate a concept of scientific method which is universal by terming the method of science as a ‘western’ concept.

 It is our contention that by doing so the PPST critique denies the long and diverse traditions of questioning criticism, materialism and efforts to combat superstition and obscurantism in our history from ancient times to the present. These traditions are from both the secular streams of the natural sciences, mathematics and politics such as Lokayata, Charaka, Sushruta, Aryabhata, PC Ray, Phule, Periyar, Ambedkar, Nehru and Bhagat Singh as well as in the stream of democratic religious reform from Gautam Buddha through the Bhakti and Sufi traditions to Ram Mohan Roy, Vivekananda, Sree Narayana Guru and Gandhiji. The appeal to think critically for oneself and fight superstitious belief, a strong commitment to equality is present in not only the materialist schools of thought like Lokayata but also in idealist thinkers like Swami Vivekananda. We give below only a few examples from these traditions:

Gautama Buddha

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Vivekananda

Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.

Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.

If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

Bhagat Singh

Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcomed. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and makes a man reactionary. A man who claims to be a realist has to challenge the whole of the ancient faith. If it does not stand the onslaught of reason it crumbles down. Then the first thing for him is to shatter the whole down and clear a space for the erection of a new philosophy. This is the negative side. After it begins the positive work in which sometimes some material of the old faith may be used for the purpose of reconstruction.

Gandhi

Nothing in the Shastras which is capable of being reasoned can stand if it is in conflict with reason.Faith becomes lame when it ventures into matters pertaining to reason.

Part 4

A Rational Understanding of Irrationality

How to explain and understand the widespread prevalence of irrational beliefs among all sections of society? Without understanding the roots of irrationality, how can we uproot it to grow a rational outlook? Scientific practice must be realistic. If we are realistic we have to acknowledge that one of the strongest reasons why people believe in something is convenience. In a contest between inconvenient truth and convenient fantasy, very often it is convenience that wins. Since a scientific view is often inconvenient does this mean that universalizing scientific temper is a hopeless task which is doomed to failure from the outset?

The vast majority of Indians lives and work in the unorganized sector in conditions that are difficult, uncertain and insecure. It is a well known phenomenon that such conditions breed belief in luck, supernatural assistance, charms and other such irrational morale boosters. The reality of their lives is bleak and hopeless. Why should they accept rationality if it gives them nothing to hope for? Marx recognized this problem when he wrote about religion:

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions.

Marx makes a crucial point here that if one wants to remove irrational beliefs we must work to remove the conditions which breed irrational beliefs. Building scientific temper therefore requires us to build a credible movement to change society, to abolish conditions of insecurity and fear, conditions which engender illusions. Changing society requires politics.

Two Questions

What is the relation of the method of science to politics?

What is the relation of scientific temper to religion?

Let us begin with the second question. Religion plays many roles at many levels and has many forms in a society like India today. It has already been stated that ST is fundamentally opposed to fundamentalism. It is also irreconcilably opposed to the use of religion to spread hatred between communities. In a society based on exploitation of masses of people by a few, religion is shaped by the exploiting classes into an instrument of domination of the few and acceptance of that domination by the masses. The caste system played and is playing such a role in our history. In monarchic dictatorships in the middle eastern countries use laws enacted in the name of Islam for the same purpose. Right wing politics in the Western countries has a close ties with Christian fundamentalist organizations. Sectarian ideology is a mainstay of right wing politics everywhere in the world, including India. The experience of many countries across the continents shows that theocratic states are dictatorial and authoritarian, just as democracy requires secularism. In modern India also there is a close nexus between corporate capitalism, organized-commercialized religion, and politics to perpetuate the systems of exploitation. Let us term all the above manifestations as sectarian-exploitative religion.

Scientific Temper is in an antagonistic position against sectarian- exploitative religion, just as it fundamentally opposes fundamentalism.

But in a scientific view of our own history we have to appreciate the important role played by democratic religious movements. Just as science is not western science, liberation theology is also not a western construct. There are many organizations in India which, though religious in their constitution, support secularism oppose sectarianism and communalism, and work for social and religious reform, promoting humanism, pluralism and a spirit of open enquiry. Such organizations, many of which are working in the field of education, do not have antagonism to the promotion scientific temper. These are allies of and participants in the movement for universalizing scientific temper.

Though scientific outlook is distinct from religious outlook, Section 51 A of our constitution provides the basis for joint platforms and active work together to promote the four attributes mentioned therein. Indeed such joint work is essential for politically isolating sectarian-exploitative religion and exorcising it from the mass consciousness of the common people.

Part 5

Method of Science and politics

Coming now to the first question of the relation of ST to politics, we note that in the definition of scientific temper, politics and ethics are both included in its scope:

(c) that the fullest use of the method of science in everyday life and in every aspect of human endeavor from ethics to politics and economics is essential for ensuring human survival and progress;

However, there is often an attempt made to avoid and evade the continuity between science and politics.  A good example is from the writings of the same Prof. Richard Feynman whose apt definition of science we had quoted earlier.

In the late sixties and early seventies, during the height of the Vietnam War there were a number of American scientists who were active in the antiwar movement. But an even larger number of physicists and scientists of repute, Feynman included, preferred to take no position on the Vietnam War. Most of them, when asked about this would say that they were scientists, and war was politics. The underlying presumption was that politics had nothing to do with science. They preferred to remain neutral or ambivalent on this issue.

In 1967 Feynman was asked to sign a petition against the war in Vietnam, which would be published as a paid advertisement. Feynman declined to sign the petition with the words: “I feel unhappy that I am not sure enough of my position to be able to sign your letter.” He also sent a cheque, writing “As next best alternative I am enclosing a small check to help make sure your advertisement is published”.

In another place he is more assertive, in fact almost bragging about his apolitical world view. Writing about his association with the brilliant mathematician John von Neumann at Los Alamos during the Manhattan project, he writes: “We used to go for walks on Sunday. We’d walk in the canyon, often with Bethe and Bob Bacher. It was a great pleasure, and Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of Von Neumann’s advice. It’s made me a very happy man ever since. But it was Von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility.”

What can explain the question of how a person like Feynman, with intellectual capacities of the highest ability, can remain permanently unsure of his position vis-à-vis a war that his country was involved in for more than a decade?  On the other hand why does he accept so readily the advice of a half baked moral authority like Von Neumann on an issue as important as personal responsibility? There can be only one answer-Von Neumann was saying something that Feynman wanted to believe.  And in this willingness to believe, to accept a certain foregone conclusion, without questioning it critically, we see the sure symptom of a retreat from the method of science.

The inconvenience of scientific thinking

Science has given the world many conveniences, but scientific thinking is not one of these. It is not always convenient to be scientific. There is a natural tendency to believe what is convenient, so it is not easy to be scientific.  Natural scientists like Feynman, who are unwilling, for their own reasons, to be consistently and constantly scientific in all areas of life ,  deal with this problem of inconvenience with opportunistic intellectual jugglery which is clearly manifested in the following excerpt from another of Feynman’s essays titled “The Value of Science”. 

“From time to time people suggest to me that scientists ought to give more consideration to social problems -- especially that they should be more responsible in considering the impact of science on society. It seems to be generally believed that if the scientists would only look at these very difficult social problems and not spend so much time fooling with less vital scientific ones, great success would come of it.

It seems to me that we do think about these problems from time to time, but we don't put a full-time effort into them -- the reasons being that we know we don't have any magic formula for solving social problems, that social problems are very much harder than scientific ones, and that we usually don't get anywhere when we do think about them.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy -- and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he sounds as naive as anyone untrained in the matter.

From Feynman’s language, it is clear that in his view social problems are not ‘scientific ones’. Social problems are ‘non-scientific’ problems, ‘non scientific matters’. In his view, which is quite common among natural scientists, there are two kinds of problems- scientific problems, which one can think about seriously, and ‘non scientific problems’ about which it is not possible to think seriously.

Feynman abandons his own powerful definition of science as a method for arriving at valid conclusions about reality.  He retreats from the power of that world view by dividing reality into two parts, one scientific and the other ‘non scientific’, nature and society. Having earlier defined science as a method, he retreats to viewing it only as a subject area, in order to be able to avoid looking at the inconvenient areas and escape inconvenient implications.

The above examples are chosen deliberately to show how easily a brilliant scientist like Feynman, slips casually and repeatedly into intellectual opportunism in order to avoid having to take a political position. To put it in his own terms, in any area where ‘not fooling ourselves’ becomes inconvenient, change the definition of science, from being an all encompassing method to something else, so that one can escape the responsibility of being thoroughly and consistently scientific.

Modern Superstition

The resistance to comprehensive science today comes not only from traditional quarters like reactionary religion, but also from modern sectors including the scientific establishment.  The modern superstition that science must be apolitical or anti-political and that politics has no place in science is widespread among professional scientists. Many scientists take pride in professing their political illiteracy as if this were a necessary consequence of their being scientists. Commitment to ST requires us to demolish the opportunistic obfuscation that is at the root of this retreat from science by many stalwarts within the ‘science establishment’ itself. 

Another serious abdication of scientific temper by the science establishment is the absence of critical scientific scrutiny of economic theory and economic policy. Calculations of economic cost, notions of economic efficiency which have been adopted uncritically over the years may be said to be directly responsible for natural resource depletion, environmental degradation, climate change and distorted concepts and patterns of development on a global scale. Illusions of efficiency of energy intensive fossil fuel based technology under capitalism, which for lack of criticism, are being adopted by some socialist countries, and are rapidly leading to a crisis of unsustainability on a global scale. For essentially the same reasons that the science establishment avoided a consideration of politics, it has similarly quarantined economics from critical scientific scrutiny. It may be said that there has been a comprehensive avoidance of point c. of the definition of scientific temper by the mainstream science establishment in all countries.

Some modern superstitions about the efficiency of high-tech ‘solutions’ to problems like providing electricity are no less irrational than astrology. The Enron/ Dabhol /RGPPL project is a contemporary example, where a 2000 MW project is lying shut because it is unaffordable. The absence of critical scrutiny which is so basic to scientific temper is again manifest in the phenomenon of major projects like the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project ands other similar projects being taken forward without any techno-economic cost benefit analysis in the public domain. Moreover there has been no demand from the mainstream science establishment for scrutiny by the science community of these projects before they are taken forward. This abdication of scientific temper by the mainstream science establishment has seriously eroded the credibility of science.

The continuity of science and politics

What does it mean to include subjects like politics and ethics within the purview of the method of science ?Why is ‘the fullest use of the method of science in every aspect of human endeavor, from politics to ethics and economics, essential for ensuring human survival and progress ?’

A thorough discussion of the above question is beyond the scope of this essay. What we will briefly discuss in the following is the limited question of why politics, ethics and economics must necessarily and unavoidably come within the purview of the method of science. The scientific temper does not recognize any disjoint compartments in reality, in the real world.

Science, as we have seen, is a method of attempting to arrive at reliable conclusions about reality. Are there areas of reality which are scientific and others which are not? Is physics and chemistry scientific, while politics, economics and culture nonscientific?

Science, in our schools, is still taught as a number of disparate `subjects', which are in separate compartments. This is no longer consistent with a modern understanding of science. Perhaps the single most important scientific achievement of the twentieth century is the discovery that all these different subjects are only bits and pieces of a single story. The name of that story is “The History of the Real World".

The discoveries regarding the structure of matter and its universal character, which were made during the nineteenth and twentieth century have far reaching implications. Atomic physics has made a major contribution to the study of history.  The tools that it has provided have effectively established that everything that exists in nature: plant, animal, earth, planet, sun and star, have come into being, and are made of the same atoms and sub atomic matter. Everything has had a birth and will have a death. Everything in the real world has its history. Life and living species also have their history, including the human species. Studying anything in the real world scientifically means trying to understand the history of that thing without, as far as is possible, fooling ourselves.

That there may be only one story is not an easy concept to digest. What about religion, culture and ethics? Are they also part of this story called “The History of the real world”?

The answer to this question becomes clearer if we ask a few more questions. Is there ethics on the moon? Is there religion on Mars? What happened to our ancient cultures and eternal truths in those millions of years when there was no life on earth?

There is a growing school of researchers who are trying to understand culture and values as aspects of the real world, as aspects of human history. In this view ethics and values are the rules that societies and communities make up for themselves in order to survive. The so called `eternal' values, like truth, honesty, compassion etc. are the common rules that many different societies have found necessary for their well being, survival and growth.

History is not indifferent to values. Societies that adopt the wrong values don't survive. They destroy themselves, and with them their unsuitable values. So with the economic and political systems that society adopt from time to time. Societies with wrong rules have short histories.

Like we study the history of the atoms, the elements, the stars and the planets, the cells and the animals, the apes and the humans, we can also try to study the history of social reality. We can try to learn how not to fool ourselves while understanding what societies and communities need to survive. Reality does not divide into two parts- areas where we can learn how not to fool ourselves, and areas where we can' t. Social reality and social questions do not lie outside the domain of what can be studied scientifically, outside the scope of science. Why then do so many scientists sincerely believe that areas of reality like politics, economics, ethics and values lie outside science?

One reason is that many contemporary societies have a vested interest in people continuing to fool themselves on questions of social reality. One important such fool's notion is the belief that things can never be different. Poverty and inequality has no history. It has always been there and will always be there. It is a matter of ‘human nature’.

No religion talks about changing society. Science, in its rigorous modern version, does.  So it is not surprising that the ruling class of many contemporary societies attach considerable importance to keeping the methods of science strictly out of areas such as politics, economics and ethics.

An important reason why many professional scientists try to restrict the scope of science to strictly ‘nature’, excluding 'society', is that the rules of nature are not rules which can be changed. However, the moment we begin to look at things historically with the eyes of science, we discover that the rules of societies and communities have changed in the past and are changing today. This means that they can be changed for the future. We can look critically at all the existing social and economic rules and ask whether they need to be changed. As already stated  the ruling class of many contemporary societies has a vested interest in people fooling themselves into believing that social rules  'are a result of human nature, and can never be changed'. Changing the rules of society, or even asserting that the rules can be different, is never convenient, and can be dangerous, requiring courage to assert.

Scientific temper and Basic needs

But one consequence of modern science is hard to deny, even for those who shun inconvenience. Enough food is, and can be produced in our country to give everybody two square meals a day. The resources and knowledge exist to provide everybody with enough clean water for drinking and washing. The technology and resources for basic needs for all
exists.

Yet, in our country, basic needs are denied to most. Why? This is a social question, and as we have seen, also a question for science.

In 1991 and thereafter, as part of the new economic policy, many rules were changed, and it was vehemently argued that the new rules were necessary 'to speed up development’; Speeding up development through Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization would result in basic needs for all.  Twenty four years down, the results of the experiment say "No" to that
hypothesis.

What rules (laws, rights, and economic policies) really need to be adopted to universalize basic needs is probably the most important scientific question before our country today.

The Directive principles of the Indian Constitution provide for basic needs .They direct the state to promote the welfare of all its citizens based on economic, social and political justice. They provide specifically for employment, health, nutrition, education, living wages, and social security in old age, decent conditions of living and full enjoyment of leisure for all as rights. Directive principles are not legally enforceable, but they define the direction in which laws are to be made through democratic politics in order to strengthen these provisions into legally enforceable rights. Education of a good quality became a legally enforceable right in 2010 in this manner.

If the economic policies being implemented are not delivering basic needs for all, Scientific temper demands that we examine alternatives and address the problems of universalization of basic needs in a scientific manner.

If this scientific exercise points to radical restructuring of society , of economic policy and laws, as being necessary for universalization of basic needs, scientific temper  demands political activity to achieve this restructuring, because science is not just a theoretical exercise, but always has to prove its validity in practice. As Marx put it succinctly “The philosophers only interpret the world in various ways, the point however is to change it.”

Defense of Scientific Temper against reactionary politics

We have examined a number of reasons for the engagement of scientific temper with politics. But there is a far more immediate reason for this engagement. The coming period may see systematic attack against scientific temper, emanating from politics, and government itself, which will have to defend against.

It is not only the fringe extremist organizations like the Santana Sanstha from the self styled Hindutva brigade who were opposed to Dr. Narendra Dabholkar’s work. A Google search performed on the website archive of the RSS mouthpiece ‘Organizer’ on ‘Dr. Narendra Dabholkar’ turns up only two entries- one from 2007, the other dated 20^th July 2013 titled “Its Warkari Vs Government over Anti Superstition Bill”.

After 20^th August 2013, the date of the murder of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, till today (early December 2013) there is not a single mention of his name in Organizer. There is of course, no condemnation of the murder. The silence of ‘Organizer’ and also ‘Panchjanya’ (both organs of RSS) on the murder of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar is eloquent.

The RSS is the core of the Sangh Parivar combine of Hindutva communal organizations, who are expected to become increasingly active and aggressive in the coming months. The BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Shri Narendra Modi is himself a former RSS pracharak whose partisan role as Chief Minister of Gujarat in the 2002 worst communal pogrom of this century in our country is well documented. The gains made by the BJP in the recent assembly elections may or may not translate into gains in the 2014 parliamentary elections. If they do result in a BJP led government in the next Lok Sabha, we are likely to see attacks on many fronts on the programme of universalization of scientific temper. Astrology was introduced as a UGC course during the last NDA government by the HRD Minister Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi, also an RSS leader, with a PhD in physics!  The AIPSN will have to build self reliant activities promoting scientific temper on many fronts in a comprehensive manner, without depending on government funding in such changed circumstances.

Part 6

Building Scientific Temper Scientifically

We have taken up universalizing the scientific temper on our agenda. Scientific mass work means conscious, consistent, systematic and sustained effort at all levels from micro to macro. Scientific temper can only be built by sustained work over a long period of time. Initially the focus will be on systematically expanding the space for scientific temper, spirit of enquiry, humanism and social reform and trying to restrict and isolate the irrational/ obscurantist /sectarian combine in every state. The following programme is a long term programme for universalization of scientific temper.

·         Universalization of Good quality Science Education under the RTE Act 2009. : Though universalization of scientific temper is provided for in the constitution, it is not yet specifically a legally enforceable right. However, with the enactment of the Right to Education Act 2009, education of good quality has become a legally enforceable right of every citizen. Universalization of scientific temper can and must be taken up as an integral part of universalizing good science education. The universe around us is a wonderful science laboratory that no nation could ever afford to build. Yet it is available free of cost in every part of the world. The sun, moon, planets and stars, the natural world in and around every school, are powerful learning resources for universalization of quality science education. “Universalizing the universe” can and must become an effective tool for promoting scientific temper by encouraging every child to learn  good science by  making, doing, experimenting and questioning. Good science will definitely promote scientific temper. Even fundamentalists want their children to learn good science

·         Scientific Temper in Science Teacher Training: The teacher community can become a cadre force for this effort. Education for scientific temper can and must become an integral part of their science teaching training courses at the diploma and degree level.

·         Universalizing the Universe mass science campaigns: AIPSN has gained valuable experience in mass science communication campaigns around Astronomy - both Daytime and Nighttime astronomy- for the general public. This work can be expanded. A seed organizational network for this is already in place.

·         Dr. Narendra Dabholkar’s lucid and eloquent lectures on scientific temper are recorded on video. They must reach every school and every child through the electronic media including websites, school computers, Akash tablets and internet e mail. For this purpose AIPSN should take up the task of dubbing these lectures in Hindi, English and every regional language. This must be done on a priority basis in 2014.

·         Scientific Temper and basic needs: As we have seen earlier, it is important for the campaign to link up with the common citizen’s struggle for basic needs. The close connect between scientific temper and building alternative economics and politics for meeting the constitutional mandate for meeting every citizen’s basic needs and reducing inequality has to be worked out specifically in each area such as food, housing, energy and electricity, water, education, health etc. Scientific temper and the scientific  understanding of our struggles for  universal provision of basic needs  can and must be linked together both theoretically, as well as practically through joint programmes with mass organizations of workers, farmers, youth, women and students .

·         Scientific Temper and the Directive principles : Putting back on the national agenda  and building popular mass consciousness in the public about the directive principles of our constitution particularly Articles 38,39, 41,42,43 and 47 is an important basis for building scientific temper

·         Scientific Debate in the mainstream science establishment: Forcing scientific debate in the mainstream science establishment on important S&T issues like energy, power, nuclear power, economic policy, natural resource policy, food security etc. is important for science to recover its credibility as a representative of public interest.

·         Joint campaigns with progressive anti-communal organizations (including organizations with religious affiliation) on issues of defending secularism, and religious and social reform in the spirit of article 51 A of the constitutions.

·         Establishing self reliant alternatives in the areas of health, science education, energy, etc. for providing quality services to people without becoming dependent on funding.

·         Expansion of space for good science in public media in a sustained and systematic manner.