Or did he make it up? (Part – 5)
By : Niranjan Kambi, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
What does all this mean to us, the ordinary folk? First and foremost, it gives us a glimpse into how science proceeds from known to unknown. In Noam Chomsky’s words, “Any scientific theory is based on finite number of observations, and it seeks to relate the observed phenomena and to predict new phenomena by constructing general laws in terms of hypothetical constructs such as ‘mass’ and ‘electron’.”
Thus, scientific theories are mental constructs dealing with concepts invented by the mind and just approximations to what we like to call “reality” or “truth” that is out there.
It would be wrong to conclude from this that if scientific theories are indeed creations of the human mind, then Newton and Einstein are only as “true” as a lay person and, as such, we needn’t bother listening to scientists about climate change, pollution, and vaccinations. That is because assuming such fantastical concepts and pursuing them in a logical manner has not only led to spectacular scientific achievements such as knowledge of the physical and chemical nature of our cosmos, and the anatomy, physiology and biochemistry of processes that sustains life, but also ushered in technological advancements such as antibiotics, vaccinations, computers, mobile phones, internet and GPS without which modern life can’t be imagined. Therefore, the uncertainty in our understanding of the world gained through careful, painstaking scientific research over centuries can’t be replaced by assertions based on superstition and all kinds of quackery as has become commonplace in today’s age of taking random WhatsApp forwards and YouTube videos as gospel. That uncertainty is built into science is proof that unlike religion, nationalism and sociopolitical “isms” with their associated orthodoxies, the scientific method is self-correcting and reinvents itself or perishes in the face of observations not predicted by its framework. Science, unlike these “isms”, is not staking claim to exclusive, privileged and hegemonic access to ultimate “truth”, “reality”, “God”, or whatever one likes to call the Unknown. Science paves a systematic path to get at the best possible approximation of the truth or the unknown.
In the end, our incurable ignorance of the underlying nature of the world we are born in, including our bodies and minds, warrants an ultimate skeptical attitude in general that scientific worldview upholds. This is aptly captured, in the context of the question about the universe’s ultimate origin, in these lines from Nasadiya Sukta in Rig Veda:
“But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
So who knows truly whence it has arisen?
Whence all creation had its origin,
He, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
He, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
He knows, or maybe even he does not know.”
CONCLUDED.