The Government is organising a Science Week, ‘Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate’, as a prelude to National Science Day on February 28 that commemorates Sir C.V. Raman’s discovery on light scattering. The programme appears to have been designed to make youth be proud about India’s scientific achievements. Using this opportunity as nationalistic mission is rather unfortunate. On the contrary, this event should be used to celebrate the true spirit of science that defies all types of intellectual curtailments, thus promoting critical thinking in our academic centres.
The essence
A prominent physicist of our times, Freeman Dyson in his book, The Scientist as Rebel, makes a clear argument about why dissent is the soul of science: “There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture, Western or Eastern as the case may be. The vision of science is not specifically Western. It is no more Western than it is Arab or Indian or Japanese or Chinese. Arabs and Indians and Japanese and Chinese had a big share in the development of modern science. And what is true of science is also true of poetry. Poetry was not invented by Westerners. India has poetry older than Homer... Poetry and science are gifts given to all of humanity. For the Arab mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam, science was a rebellion against the intellectual constraints of Islam, a rebellion which he expressed more directly in his incomparable verses....”
