Very often I hear people criticizing science by arguing that it doesn't solve all the problems or answer all the questions. This point is regularly raised during the discussions where science and religion are discussed together and pitched against each other. Science vs. religion is a very common and popular debate topic. They are pitched against each other often and people try to evaluate both disciplines based on their own perceptions, knowledge, likes, and dislikes. I want to discuss specifically science and its impact on our society, especially the pointless accusations that science has not solved any major problems for humankind or science claims to know everything but then, doesn't answer all the questions. Some religious people say these things in a tone as if religion does solve all the problems or have all the answers. First of all, one should understand that science doesn't claim that it can answer all the questions or solve all the problems. People who think like this are either ignorant or are purposely saying this to mislead people or just saying this to malign science. First, problem-solving and knowledge generation is a continuous and never-ending process in science, so, it cannot claim to know everything or solve all the problems, it is always a work in progress. Secondly, science is not just an academic discipline or a subject of school curriculum, it is a way of thinking. It is a logical and systematic way of handling any question or problem. Any person can have a scientific aptitude, they can follow scientific methods to generate the same results that scientists generate, they don't need any formal education or degree to be called a scientist. I have seen many uneducated people making brilliant discoveries using their own logical and rational thinking, they are all scientists according to me. One can definitely become a scientist by profession by having proper training and education but this is not the only way to learn and practice science. I am a very lucky person that I came across many people from different disciplines who instilled a scientific aptitude in me.
I clearly remember one lecture from my college days where one of our chemistry professors who was also a very good poet asked question to our class, what is science? Many students tried to answer this question and finally, all of us agreed that "anything which we study systematically is science." Now what do we mean by "systematically"? It simply means using verifiable and reproducible methods. If things are not reproducible or if data is not verifiable independently, then it doesn't have any scientific significance. The evidence can be direct or indirect but it has to be there and the onus is always on the claimant to prove their claim. The biggest quality of science that attracted me to it is that it only believes in data, it doesn't care who produced that data, who proposed theories, or who carried out the experiments. The data has to be verifiable and reproducible for any scientific experiment to be successful. Even the data from unsuccessful experiments is very valuable in science as it provides important insight to others working in that field. My experiment or Einstein's experiment are judged with the same skepticism and open-mindedness by the scientific community, we both can be proven right or wrong by any person who can produce the data to prove our experiments wrong. It doesn't really matter that Einstein is a Nobel laureate, his theories are open to challenge like any other scientist's theories. This is another interesting point, there is no absolute authority who is unquestionable in science. Everything is open for debate and anyone can raise any question about anything. All one needs is verifiable and reproducible experimental data to challenge any hypothesis. This is a very reliable method to proceed forward and generate reliable knowledge, this prevents getting stuck in a particular mindset and avoids stagnation of knowledge. This is also one of the reasons why science has managed to solve so many problems and answer many questions that were considered mysteries just a few decades back. Let it be a problem related to water purification, vaccination, some disease management, related to transport, or even clothing or entertainment, scientific communities all over the world are busy tirelessly solving many problems from many diverse areas. They will continue to do so as long as they keep on asking questions. Asking questions and challenging the status quo are integral parts of scientific thinking. Please keep on questioning science and throwing new challenges towards scientists all over the world, constructive criticism will make it only better and stronger.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]
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