Scientific superstitions - An observation of our mindset and education
This guest article is written by Subhroneel Chakrabarti. Read about him at the end of the article. If you wish your article to be published in this blog, please contact at mahanagar.net[@]gmail[.]com with subject as "I Want To Write".
Instead, he proposes an alternate geocentric model and challenged every scientists since to prove him wrong. He is wrong, and it doesn't require a scientist to figure it out. However, it is not my intention to discuss his model or his intentions, it is rather something else.
For 2 days, I spent around couple of hours in front of him, watching the lack of incredulity of my fellow listeners. I didn't observe a single person who tried to refute his model with logic! Instead, I watched most of them standing speechless in front of wrong reasoning and erroneous interpretation of certain well known scientific facts.
Some were indignant, but not towards his mistakes, rather out of an insecurity that their 16 years of education may be overthrown by this person! Judging by their appearance, age and stature, almost all of them must have been at least a graduate in some discipline. Then what happened? It's simple.
Our education system has given us only knowledge, but not understanding. We know many facts, we know that earth goes round the sun, we probably recall some points which shows why does earth goes around, and not sun.
But our education has not inspired us to understand why we must conclude a heliocentric model from pure use of logic alone coupled with what we observe. We have stopped asking the question "why?" a long time ago, and simply started "believing" whatever that is taught to us. And this is what i would like to call a "sceintific superstition".
Not only science, but regarding any subject or discipline, how many of us really try to understand and realize it's true essence? If the legendary Greek philosopher Xeno is reincarnated and comes infront of us with his radical paradoxes and counter-intuitive conclusions, refuting our well known (read "believed") facts - how many of us will remain confident enough of our acquired wisdom?
Yes, it's better to believe sceintific facts than some baseless primitive practises. But we must understand that it is still against the very spirit of sceince! Science has never claimed its theories to be ultimate. Einstein, Niels Bohr, Heisenberg and many others proposed theories that contradicted the theories that were established at that time.
But you have to provide a logical explanation, survive experimental tests to grant a theory to be scientific. Science has never asked our primitive beliefs to be replaced by the facts. It has rather encouraged questioning, rigorous inquiry, and analysis based only on strict, consistent principles. This is the true spirit of science, which is the foundation of modern society, and which unfortunately is almost absent from our education.
This needs to change, and fast. A kid may have read an entire encyclopedia, but if that's all what he is encouraged to do, he will win a lots of quizzes and debates while in school, but will fail to contribute anything new to the society.
On the other hand, a kid who has always been encouraged to think freely and ask questions will go on to experience the joy of discovering and understanding things around us. He will be definitely be a jewel to the society.
Before we blame our system, we must start this practice in our own home. After all a kid spends more time in home than in school. It's essential that we not only know the difference between "knowing" and "understanding", but understand it as well.
Subhroneel is a 21 year old 4th year student at Jadavpur University. He has varied interests and wishes, one of which is to walk in the space at least once.
THE SUN GOES AROUND THE EARTH ONCE A YEAR; ALL SCEINTISTS ARE A FOOL ABOUT REAL COSMOLOGYAt the 34th Kolkata Book Fair, these catchy phrases got my attention like many others and I discovered a certain Mr.K.C.Paul, who for over 30 years is trying to convince people that the heliocentric model of our solar system, taught in every school, is wrong.
Instead, he proposes an alternate geocentric model and challenged every scientists since to prove him wrong. He is wrong, and it doesn't require a scientist to figure it out. However, it is not my intention to discuss his model or his intentions, it is rather something else.For 2 days, I spent around couple of hours in front of him, watching the lack of incredulity of my fellow listeners. I didn't observe a single person who tried to refute his model with logic! Instead, I watched most of them standing speechless in front of wrong reasoning and erroneous interpretation of certain well known scientific facts.
Some were indignant, but not towards his mistakes, rather out of an insecurity that their 16 years of education may be overthrown by this person! Judging by their appearance, age and stature, almost all of them must have been at least a graduate in some discipline. Then what happened? It's simple.
Our education system has given us only knowledge, but not understanding. We know many facts, we know that earth goes round the sun, we probably recall some points which shows why does earth goes around, and not sun.
But our education has not inspired us to understand why we must conclude a heliocentric model from pure use of logic alone coupled with what we observe. We have stopped asking the question "why?" a long time ago, and simply started "believing" whatever that is taught to us. And this is what i would like to call a "sceintific superstition".
Not only science, but regarding any subject or discipline, how many of us really try to understand and realize it's true essence? If the legendary Greek philosopher Xeno is reincarnated and comes infront of us with his radical paradoxes and counter-intuitive conclusions, refuting our well known (read "believed") facts - how many of us will remain confident enough of our acquired wisdom?Yes, it's better to believe sceintific facts than some baseless primitive practises. But we must understand that it is still against the very spirit of sceince! Science has never claimed its theories to be ultimate. Einstein, Niels Bohr, Heisenberg and many others proposed theories that contradicted the theories that were established at that time.
But you have to provide a logical explanation, survive experimental tests to grant a theory to be scientific. Science has never asked our primitive beliefs to be replaced by the facts. It has rather encouraged questioning, rigorous inquiry, and analysis based only on strict, consistent principles. This is the true spirit of science, which is the foundation of modern society, and which unfortunately is almost absent from our education.
This needs to change, and fast. A kid may have read an entire encyclopedia, but if that's all what he is encouraged to do, he will win a lots of quizzes and debates while in school, but will fail to contribute anything new to the society.
On the other hand, a kid who has always been encouraged to think freely and ask questions will go on to experience the joy of discovering and understanding things around us. He will be definitely be a jewel to the society.
Before we blame our system, we must start this practice in our own home. After all a kid spends more time in home than in school. It's essential that we not only know the difference between "knowing" and "understanding", but understand it as well.
Subhroneel is a 21 year old 4th year student at Jadavpur University. He has varied interests and wishes, one of which is to walk in the space at least once.
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Labels: Commentary, Science
2 Comments:
Kolkata is famous for its adventurous mood and atmosphere. Kolkata book fair really a big festival of Kolkata. It is true that our education system has given us only knowledge, but not understanding. I completely agree wit you.
good one....i mean really useful article
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