Recently, there has been an uproar, with equal ridicule, over the video which went viral, showing a religious cleric explaining to a student - the Earth is standing still, and not rotating. If you haven't seen it, see the Video here. Apparently, I could understand why this video has generated so much mockery. I say this, for those who think that their religion is superior to this particular cleric's - None of YOUR religious text has ever explained all the mysteries we have in front of us. None of them have explained the WHY part. Galileo was accused of heresy when he proposed his theory based on his meticulous observations. And could you guess, who accused Galileo of heresy. Yeah, right. And if you are one of those saffron brigade which claim that you had invented 'flying planes', 'plastic surgery' much before anyone else had, then I say, 'Good Luck'.
But, there is an underlying idea in this mockery against this particular lecture, which is principally against science and its methods.
Science doesn't care about - "who says it". It has the innate method of testing and scrutinizing, and trying to disprove the proposal. After mutually agreed, peer reviewed, rigorous testing only there is a common understanding and publishing of the fact to public. This is what makes the scientific community honest and always open to scrutiny, unlike the religious community. But the main reason, I was so compelled to write this blog is this wrong understanding about science, especially by those who advocate religious way of thinking.
As a child, when I was first told that the Earth rotates around the Sun every year, and revolves around itself every 24 hours, I was not sure what that meant. Till that day, I never even wondered, what was Day, Night, Sun, Moon, Stars in the sky, Calendar.... So, when I was first told about Earth's orbit, it didn't challenge any of my pre-conceived notion. Simply because, I didn't have any. Fortunately for me, a trip to the 'Planetarium' (in Chennai) was all it took to see the obvious. The idea presented in front of me made perfect logical sense, and didn't contradict my daily observations.
But, what if...? What if, if I was told to investigate whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or the other way around. As a child, or for the argument sake, even at this age, I don't have the knowledge or tools or the hardware to make a thorough investigation and conclude that 'the Earth is a sphere, and not flat', or that 'the Earth revolves itself'. So, what I did was to investigate the ideas presented to me by my elders, and check for logical consistency. Now, my sense and logic is purely mine, and even though its shaped and inspired by the world around me, there is an innate biological ability to pursue knowledge and logic. I checked for the data presented before me, and checked for who it was presenting to me; what were they asking in return for that knowledge; what was the implications of me following the idea as it is, or rejecting it; after which I arrive at a conclusion for a period until someone else presents me a better logic.
This is how I acquire knowledge when I can't test the theory presented before me, by myself. I don't approve or reject ideas by my judgement of the individual or the organization presenting that idea. Just because NASA or ISRO or Fermi-Lab or CERN says so, I don't necessarily have to agree. At the same extension of this argument, I don't blindly disapprove of anything presented to me by a person of religious authority. I scrutinize the ideas in a detached manner. My scrutiny of 'the presenter' (of ideas) happens separately from this. However, checking for hidden agenda by 'the presenter' helps me arrive at a quick conclusion.
So, stop laughing. Ask yourself, "Am I doing enough background research and have sound logical reasoning for my stance on any issue..?, or am I just blindly building the argument for what I want to believe to be true...?"
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