On Science: Concepts, Cultures and Limits

265 Pages·2021·1.55 MB·English

by  Tuhina Ray, Urmie Ray

ON SCIENCE
On Science: Concepts, Cultures and Limits explores science and its relationship with
religion, philosophy, ethics, mathematics, and socio-economic changes.
The book gives an overview of the metaphysical contexts in which science emerged
and the particular forms science has taken in history. It examines the preoccupation
of ancient cultures with the validity of interpretations of natural phenomena, the
role of the study of materials in the substantiation of the conceptual world, and the
establishment of modern science on both experimentation and mathematics. This
theoretical discussion is illustrated by a host of examples from physics to the life
sciences, which highlight how current concepts developed over the centuries, or even
millennia.
The volume underscores some of the weaknesses inherent in a scientific approach,
and how in the modern context of a wealth-driven technological orientation, these
have been conducive to a gradual distortion of science into its exact opposite, a
dogmatic faith.
It further discusses the nature of scientific education in the world, and how conditions
can be created to ensure pioneering creativity and to preserve scientific rigor.
The book will be of great interest to scholars, teachers, and researchers of science,
the metaphysics and philosophy of science, mathematics, science and technology
studies, epistemology, ethics, history, and sociology. It will also be useful for general
readers who are interested in the history of scientific discoveries and ideas as well as
in the issues surrounding science today, in particular its relations with many urgent
problems.
T uhina Ray (formerly Ghose) read physics at Presidency College. The recipient of
the Bhabatarini Medal and Bhranti Basu Medal in 1947, the Roxburgh Gold Medal
in 1949, and of the best university student at the postgraduate level award in science
in 1953, she obtained a DPhil from the University of Calcutta in 1956, and was
appointed as a reader at the Saha Institute of Fundamental Research. Forced by
political circumstances, she and her family left India in 1967 and she held research
positions in academic institutions in France and Germany. A keen sportswoman in
her student days, her broad interests and erudition took her to diverse horizons. She
passed away in 2018.
U rmie Ray read mathematics at the University of Cambridge, UK, completing
her PhD under the guidance of Professor J. G. Thompson. After twenty years as
an academic mathematician, she resigned her professorship in France to dedicate
herself to her lifelong interests in cultural and historical questions in order to better
understand current issues.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
Series Editor: Sundar Sarukkai
former Professor of Philosophy, National Institute of
Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India, and Founder-Director,
Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities
There is little doubt that science and technology are the most influential agents
of global circulation of cultures. Science & Technology Studies (STS) is a
well-established discipline that has for some time challenged simplistic under-
standing of science and technology (S&T) by drawing on perspectives from
history, philosophy and sociology. However, an asymmetry between ‘west-
ern’ and ‘eastern’ cultures continues, not only in the production of new S&T
but also in their analysis. At the same time, these cultures which have little
contribution to the understanding of S&T are also becoming their dominant
consumers. More importantly, S&T are themselves getting modified through
the interaction with the historical, cultural and philosophical worldviews of
the non-western cultures and this is creating new spaces for the interpretation
and application of S&T. This series takes into account these perspectives and
sets right this global imbalance by promoting monographs and edited volumes
which analyse S&T from multicultural and comparative perspectives.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
East and West
Edited by Yiftach Fehige
WHO IS THE SCIENTIST-SUBJECT?
Affective History of the Gene
Esha Shah
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGICAL EXPERIENCES
Three Studies from India
Anant Kamath
ON SCIENCE
Concepts, Cultures and Limits
T uhina Ray and Urmie Ray
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Science-and-Technology-Studies/book-series/STS
ON SCIENCE
Concepts, Cultures and Limits
Tuhina Ray and Urmie Ray
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
R outledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group an informa
business
© 2021 Tuhina Ray and Urmie Ray
T he right of Tuhina Ray and Urmie Ray to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A ll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
T rademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
B ritish Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
I SBN: 978-0-367-44255-2 (hbk)
I SBN: 978-1-003-01558-1 (ebk)
T ypeset in Sabon
b y Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
P rologue 1
PART I
On science 3
1 What is science? 5
2 Science in the service of all-comprehensive truth 17
3 Science in the service of external truth 30
4 On mathematics 44
5 Knowledge of materials 57
PART II
Some glimpses of science in action 69
6 The physics of motion 71
7 From atoms to geological questions 94
8 The life sciences 114
9 Evolving perceptions 137
PART III
From science to dogma 139
10 The shortcomings of science 141
v
CONTENTS
11 Science in context 155
12 In the name of science 173
13 Scientism: a new creed 195
14 Science and our future 212
Epilogue 231
Bibliography 233
N ames index 251
S ubject index 254

vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Besides a mother, I have lost my best friend, my spiritual guide, and my
most incisive yet gentlest critic and teacher. If this book fails to reach
her high standards, the fault lies entirely with me. If it is able to convey
the values she has transmitted to me, then it is the best I can hope for.
It certainly could not have been written without her many faceted sup-
port and the innumerable sacrifices she made to financially enable me to
resign a university professorship in mathematics and dedicate myself fully
to writing. The years spent with her, especially after her stroke in 2009,
have been a privilege, providing me with the perfect environment for quiet
reflection, away from the noise of academic life. I also remain indebted to
Professor Louis Sala-Molins for his encouragements and appreciation of
my work. Discussions with him and my mother have proved to be not just
an undreamt-of honour but also tremendously instructive. In particular,
after my previous book on methods to resolve within a democratic frame-
work the many critical perils we now face, she advised me to tackle the
question of science.
T he modern world cannot, she said, be properly apprehended without
first understanding science and its role. Some of C hapter 5, regarding the
importance of materials – in particular of glass – in the development of
science, is based on her notes for a book she had hoped to write herself. I
would also like to express my gratitude to Dr Jerome Ravetz for both his
kindness and his staunch support since her loss, in particular for reading
the manuscript and for his very useful comments, all the more so since we
disagree on so much. I am much obliged to Professor Siddhartha Sen for
his interest and professional help, to Professor Tim Pedley for his invita-
tions back to the University of Cambridge, and to Professor John Thomp-
son for generously funding my stay there. This book could certainly not
have been written without the access to online scholarly journals this
university offers to all its alumni. I would especially like to express my
heartfelt thanks to Professor Sundar Sarukkai for making feasible its pub-
lication. And thank you to Antara Ray Chaudhuri and Shloka Chauhan
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
from Routledge for patiently answering my many queries and meeting
my demands.
L ast but not least, I am most grateful to all who through their friendship
during this dark period in my life have made this book possible. The list is
too long and it is likely that I would inadvertently omit some. So, I hope they
will forgive me if I do not mention them by name.
viii
PROLOGUE
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts .
Richard Feynman1
S cience is as necessary to man as food and drink and clothing –
even more necessary . . . not because we decide that what we
call science . . . [is] essential, but only because Science . . . really
[is] essential.
L eo Tolstoy 2
T he people will perish from their ignorance of how to use the
natural forces and from their ignorance of the real world.
U nknown, Ancient inscription on the pyramid of Khufu3
On August 6, 1945, we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Instead of
being horrified, we have kept refining and expanding our newly acquired
capacity for omnicide , * or at least for the destruction of all human life,
through wars, pollution, and depletion of non-renewable resources. As a
result, we have been steadily marching towards a gaping abyss.
H ow did this happen, and why are so many of us refusing to change
course? To reply, we must first identify the essential characteristic of these
self-made threats. What the late Jonathan Schell wrote half a century ago
about the nuclear threat holds more generally: “The roots of the . . . peril
lie in basic scientific knowledge.”4 The specificity of such knowledge is its
“universality and [its] permanence”.5 It cannot be forgotten – or even if it
is, the human mind would rediscover what it had once understood – nor
can it remain the exclusive privilege of a few initiate. In other words, the
“peril, like the scientific knowledge that gave rise to it, is probably global
and everlasting”.6
A critical assessment of science is therefore vital. To determine whether
one of our noblest pursuits is accountable for the peril we now face, we first
* A term coined by philosopher John Somerville in 1982.
1