20.1.15

I agree. Dermot Killingly too had hit at the right point.

But one can hardly blame this common perception of science. The tendency to see 'science' as physical science, and sometimes even as technology without any theory behind, is ancient. The word has been used to mean ancient chemistry including toxicology in an ancient Sanskrit drama. The tendency is prominent in British-American writings.

For philologists rigorously working with hypotheses and following the trial and error method, it is an insult when one distinguishes science from philology.

The outlook has another fallout. It is often seen that defenders of religious beliefs invoke the views of noted physical scientists in their favour. I have seen believers arguing that Einstein understood god as cosmic consciousness. Einstein had every right to enunciate his idea of god, but as a believer not as a scientist. The above idea does not add any scientific value to theological questions.

It is an alien idea in the narrow misleading conception of science that it is the method with a tangible object of enquiry that makes an enquiry, whether about man or nature, science.

The saddest outcome of the distorted view of science is that such enquirers into science proceed with unscientific methods in drawing conclusions. On the one hand non-existent technologies and ideas are asserted as achievements on guess work or paltry evidence, on the other, some real scientific achievements are ignored. That is disservice to science.  

I know few of the proponents being aware of the debate that went on in medieval India between the believers in the earth's rotation against that of the sun? There is no evidence of burning at the stake or of torture but a study of the history reveals subterfuges. Moreover, why should not one concentrate on the origin and development of the idea of morpheme and stem or of the paradigmatic structure of phonemes and endings or on literary criticism? These are areas where India did contribute a little. There are similar scientific matters worth enquiry in ancient medicine.

I am sorry for a long lecture but it comes from everyday experience.

Best

DB