Scientists without a scientific temper

[Kloitra]

Scientists without a scientific temper - The Hindu: Mobile Edition
Jan 17, 2015 12:23 AM , By Pushpa M. Bhargava

India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner in science in the last 85 years — largely because of the lack of a scientific environment in the country
Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term ‘scientific temper’ in his book The Discovery of India, which was published in 1946. He was also the President of the Association of Scientific Workers of India (ASWI), which was registered as a Trade Union, and with which I was closely associated with in the 1940s and the early 1950s. (This may be the only example of a Prime Minister of a democracy being the President of a Trade Union.) One of the objectives of ASWI was to propagate scientific temper. It was very active in the beginning, but fizzled out by the 1960s as the bulk of scientists in the country, including many who were occupying high positions, were themselves not committed to scientific temper which calls for rationality, reason and lack of belief in any dogma, superstition or manifest falsehood.

The conclusion that our very own scientists — who would be expected to be leaders in the development of scientific temper — did not possess scientific temper themselves and were just as superstitious as any other group was supported by another incident in 1964. Following a statement by Satish Dhawan (who later became Secretary, Department of Space), Abdur Rahman (a distinguished historian of science) and I, set up an organisation called The Society for Scientific Temper, in January 1964, the founding members of which included distinguished scientists like Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner. For membership to the society, the following statement had to be signed: “I believe that knowledge can be acquired only through human endeavour and not through revelation, and that all problems can and must be faced in terms of man’s moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural powers.”

We were disillusioned when we approached scientist after scientist and all of them refused to sign the statement. Clearly they were devoid of scientific temper. Following this disillusionment, I persuaded Professor Nurul Hasan, then Education Minister, to have the following clause included in Article 51A in the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976: “It shall be the duty of every citizen of Indian “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform.”

This should have woken up our scientists and reminded them of their duty vis-à-vis scientific temper, but I do not believe that the situation in this respect is any better, even today, than what it was 50-60 years ago. Let me cite three examples.

Little improvement
During the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, then Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi asked the University Grants Commission to issue a circular to all universities stating that they should start a degree course in astrology. For this, he said, a special grant would be given. My colleague Chandana Chakrabarti and I filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging this dispensation. Our lawyer was Prashant Bhushan. The petition was admitted but was eventually dismissed (as could be expected), for belief in astrology — which is totally unscientific and irrational and has been repeatedly shown to be a myth — is widespread, with those who dispense justice also not being immune to it. Not one scientist came forward in support of us; nor did any of the six national science academies we have, on which a substantial amount of public funds are spent every year. Our supporters, who even sent us unsolicited funds to fight the case, were all non-scientists. In fact, recognising the above inadequacies of our science academies and their insensitivity to science-related social problems in general, I resigned from the fellowship of three of our science academies in 1993.

The second example would be the silence of our scientists and the six science academies when, last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a group of scientists in Mumbai, claimed that organ transplantation was known in ancient India — he gave Ganesha with his elephant head and human torso as an example.

The third example would be the much publicised symposium on “Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit” at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai, which was held earlier this month. At this meeting, it was said that India had jumbo aircraft (60 x 60 feet; in some cases 200 feet long) that flew between continents and planets 9,000 years ago (some 4,500 years before Harappa and Mohenjo-daro). Not only that, it was also claimed that we had a radar system better than the present one, based on the principle that every animate or inanimate object emits energy all the time. And in the 21st century, “fusion of science and spirituality will happen because of the law of inter-penetration,” it was said. I doubt if any serious academic would have heard of this law which would not make any sense. These and many other absurd claims made at the symposium were an insult to the several real scientific accomplishments of ancient and medieval India.

Winding up academies
None of our so-called scientists of note and scientific academies has raised a voice against these claims. Surely, the distinguished scientists who organised the Science Congress knew what was likely to be said at the symposium, but, perhaps, they believed in it all or were pressurised politically. Therefore, there is a strong case for the annual Indian Science Congress to be banned (as I also argued in my article in The Hindu, “Why the Indian Science Congress meets should be stopped” (Open Page, September 30, 1997), or its name to be changed to Indian Anti-science Congress.

As regards the science academies, they can easily be wound up without any damage being caused to Indian science. India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner in science in the last 85 years – largely because of the lack of a scientific environment in the country, of which scientific temper would be an important component.

(Pushpa M. Bhargava is the founder-director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad, and chairman of the Southern Regional Centre of Council for Social Development.)

 

[django]

To be fair brilliant physicist George Sudarshan should have received the prize in 2005 for his work on quantum optics.

 

[livingdead]

To be fair brilliant physicist George Sudarshan should have received the prize in 2005 for his work on quantum optics.

a few here and there does not change the fact that scintific temper is quite low in India.. for most its a collection of facts and opinions with sits side by side with other collection of facts and opinios.. say for example astrology.. feng sui and vastu... worse still many of these are called science.
then there is influence of religion.. the belief that religious books have all knowledge and firangis read and got it first...
and then the revisiting of religious books based on todays scintific discovery.. big bang in quran... bosons in vedas.. ... no less than ministers believe this crap

 

[A1Kaid]

There was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar born in Lahore (1910) but held Indian citizenship (1947-1953) but he eventually adopted US citizenship (1953-1995). So his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 goes to an American citizen not Indian. Although he is of Indian origin.

 

[Bang Galore]

There was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar born in Lahore (1910) but held Indian citizenship (1947-1953) but he eventually adopted US citizenship (1953-1995). So his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 goes to an American citizen not Indian. Although he is of Indian origin.

His uncle though was India's nobel laureate - C.V Raman.

 

[nik141991]

Our education system sucks & now we have illiterate sanghi who are demanding we should add their fantasy also to already fuked up system

 

[Bombermanx1]

The second example would be the silence of our scientists and the six science academies when, last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a group of scientists in Mumbai, claimed that organ transplantation was known in ancient India — he gave Ganesha with his elephant head and human torso as an example.

The man who wants his head transplanted

Valery Spiridionov in an interview with Russia Today. Photo: YouTube: Russia Today

Valery Spiridionov is a 29-year-old educational software designer from Vladimir, Russia.

He also suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a condition that has wasted away most of the muscles in his body. He has not walked since he was a year old.

At 9am each day his neighbour comes over to help him out of bed and into his electronic chair, where Mr Spiridionov spends his life on his computer, toiling day and night producing 3D graphics and doing social advocacy work.

For a man who has such a debilitating disease it has by no means halted him from working the cameras in his native Russia.

Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, described Dr Canevaro as "nuts", while plenty more have branded the procedure impossible.

"This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely," said Harry Goldsmith, a clinical professor of neurological surgery at the University of California. "I don't believe it will ever work, there are too many problems with the procedure."

Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, said the disembodied purgatory could result in unimaginable suffering. "I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death," he told CNN.

While there have been earlier attempts at the surgery - puppies and monkeys both fell foul of the experiment in the 20th century - it has never even been considered on humans.

But Dr Canevaro maintains he has the right technique to produce a functioning body.

First, the recipient's head and the donor's body have to be cooled to maximise their oxygen efficiency. Once the surgeon cuts through the neck tissue, the blood vessels of each person are linked using tubes and then the spinal chords fused using a polyethylene glycol glue which Dr Canavero believes promotes the growth of spinal chord nerves. The new body would be placed in an induced coma for the next four weeks while the two elements "fuse".

Any attempt at actually conducting the procedure would be the most radical since an experiment on a monkey in 1970.

The Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio transplanted the head of one monkey onto another without joining the spinal cords, as a result the monkey breathed through nine days with the help of artificial assistance but could not move.

The monkey's immune system eventually rejected its new head, an obstacle that could be overcome through drugs that have been developed in the course of heart and lung transplants, argues William Mathews, chairman of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons.

For now, both Dr Canevaro and Mr Spiridionov are on a fundraising mission: head transplants don't come cheap.


The surgeon has floated an arbitrary figure of $US13 million ($17 million) and both he and Mr Spiridionov will be busy lobbying governments, the medical profession and the public for the next two years in a bid to make the surgery possible.
The man who wants his head transplanted

Yet some people laugh when we talk about Head transplants?Why because White man thinks it isn't possible?
When the white man is ready to learn Sanskrit as in Germany now, many of these Indians will be queuing outside German Universities to learn Sanskrit, but the same people will heckle Indians when they teach Sanskrit.
Everything here needs a white mans approval, because without it our brown sepoys think it is unscientific,Mumbo Jumbo.Yet when the same white man does it, it automatically becomes Scientific and rational.
Nobody suffers from such low self esteem as the Brown sepoys in India and outside does, i guess the 1000 year slavery has a deep impact in the psyche and self esteem of some Brown sepoys.

 

[livingdead]

The man who wants his head transplanted

Valery Spiridionov in an interview with Russia Today. Photo: YouTube: Russia Today

Valery Spiridionov is a 29-year-old educational software designer from Vladimir, Russia.

He also suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a condition that has wasted away most of the muscles in his body. He has not walked since he was a year old.

At 9am each day his neighbour comes over to help him out of bed and into his electronic chair, where Mr Spiridionov spends his life on his computer, toiling day and night producing 3D graphics and doing social advocacy work.

For a man who has such a debilitating disease it has by no means halted him from working the cameras in his native Russia.

Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, described Dr Canevaro as "nuts", while plenty more have branded the procedure impossible.

"This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely," said Harry Goldsmith, a clinical professor of neurological surgery at the University of California. "I don't believe it will ever work, there are too many problems with the procedure."

Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, said the disembodied purgatory could result in unimaginable suffering. "I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death," he told CNN.

While there have been earlier attempts at the surgery - puppies and monkeys both fell foul of the experiment in the 20th century - it has never even been considered on humans.

But Dr Canevaro maintains he has the right technique to produce a functioning body.

First, the recipient's head and the donor's body have to be cooled to maximise their oxygen efficiency. Once the surgeon cuts through the neck tissue, the blood vessels of each person are linked using tubes and then the spinal chords fused using a polyethylene glycol glue which Dr Canavero believes promotes the growth of spinal chord nerves. The new body would be placed in an induced coma for the next four weeks while the two elements "fuse".

Any attempt at actually conducting the procedure would be the most radical since an experiment on a monkey in 1970.

The Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio transplanted the head of one monkey onto another without joining the spinal cords, as a result the monkey breathed through nine days with the help of artificial assistance but could not move.

The monkey's immune system eventually rejected its new head, an obstacle that could be overcome through drugs that have been developed in the course of heart and lung transplants, argues William Mathews, chairman of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons.

For now, both Dr Canevaro and Mr Spiridionov are on a fundraising mission: head transplants don't come cheap.


The surgeon has floated an arbitrary figure of $US13 million ($17 million) and both he and Mr Spiridionov will be busy lobbying governments, the medical profession and the public for the next two years in a bid to make the surgery possible.
The man who wants his head transplanted

Yet some people laugh when we talk about Head transplants?Why because White man thinks it isn't possible?
When the white man is ready to learn Sanskrit as in Germany now, many of these Indians will be queuing outside German Universities to learn Sanskrit, but the same people will heckle Indians when they teach Sanskrit.
Everything here needs a white mans approval, because without it our brown sepoys think it is unscientific,Mumbo Jumbo.Yet when the same white man does it, it automatically becomes Scientific and rational.
Nobody suffers from such low self esteem as the Brown sepoys in India and outside does, i guess the 1000 year slavery has a deep impact in the psyche and self esteem of some Brown sepoys.

lolz... here they come.. 'firangis stole our butter chicken recepe' brigade.

 

[Bombermanx1]

lolz... here they come.. 'firangis stole our butter chicken recepe' brigade.

The firangis came to steal everything from India.They didnt come here out of their love for us. Brown Sepoy battalion out to defend the white masters loot and excesses.Typical brown coconut. brown on outside, white on Inside.
Oh btw, they made Chicken tikka their national dish,if that is not stealing then what is?

 

[Sugarcane]

The firangis came to steal everything from India.

Below is what Al-Biruni wrote in his book Kitab-ul-Hind centuries before arrival of firangies ...

“We can only say, folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khurasan or Persia, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they travelled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their minds, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is” (p.10-11)

PS: Don't shoot the messenger, take up matter with Al-Biruni himself..

 

[Kloitra]

Yet some people laugh when we talk about Head transplants?Why because White man thinks it isn't possible?

We laugh at that Ganesh head transplant theory because bar a miracle, it is impossible to do so even with current technology. Besides, the claims goes like this: it was mentioned in the mythology, so we must have had the technology!

If you had the tech, dig it up and prove it to the world. Don't use Gita and Mahabharat as proofs.

Below is what Al-Biruni wrote in his book Kitab-ul-Hind centuries before arrival of firangies ...

“We can only say, folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khurasan or Persia, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they travelled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their minds, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is” (p.10-11)

PS: Don't shoot the messenger, take up matter with Al-Biruni himself..

They paid the price for being the frog in the well.

 

[Solomon2]

...Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term ‘scientific temper’ in his book The Discovery of India, which was published in 1946. He was also the President of the Association of Scientific Workers of India (ASWI), which was registered as a Trade Union, and with which I was closely associated with in the 1940s and the early 1950s. (This may be the only example of a Prime Minister of a democracy being the President of a Trade Union.)

Quiz: Which U.S. President was leader of a trade union?

 

[Gauss]

South Asian scientists will remain dogmatic for the foreseeable future. Scientists cant have a rational and reasoning mind on their own. Its a cultural thing. A culture of reason and rationality will always produce reasoning scientists. But scientists on their own will not bring reason to a culture. Almost all scientists Ive come across in Pakistan were religious. As an example: My next door neighbor is a retired chemist with a distinguished career in the west behind him but he is deeply religious. My uncle is a quantum physicist but he is a very religious man as well. Even Pakistan's only noble laureate Dr Abdus Salam was highly devoted to his religion.
Scientists here just know the way to go about their work i.e to derive logical conclusions from their observations, but they have no intensions whats so ever to apply this reasoning method to the world in general. Their concepts about the world and existence in general will remain dogmatic according to their religion, they will only become reasonable for their work.

 

[Kloitra]

Quiz: Which U.S. President was leader of a trade union?

Reagan?

 

[Sneaker]

Below is what Al-Biruni wrote in his book Kitab-ul-Hind centuries before arrival of firangies ...

“We can only say, folly is an illness for which there is no medicine, and the Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner. Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khurasan or Persia, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they travelled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their minds, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is” (p.10-11)

PS: Don't shoot the messenger, take up matter with Al-Biruni himself..

and then he stole Hindu ideas like zero.....