When Science becomes a Dogmatic Religion

.........“magic two centuries back is science today”. Just imagine if men of science from the 19th century with the dogmatic belief that they have understood science and assigned magic to mere witchcraft, then I think we would have still believed a remote-controlled device as witchcraft.

The moment you begin to believe that science knows everything is when it becomes a dogmatic religion. The real science is humble and seeks knowledge in its effort to understand the various phenomena of the world.

If the scientists of the late 19th and early 20th century had began to believe that they’ve understood an atom in its entirety after the discovery of electron, proton and neutron than we would’ve never discovered the myriad and wacky sub-atomic particles like Higgs boson, neutrino, bayron, etc. And we would have never discovered the magical quantum world and our efforts to understand the cosmos and ‘the cosmos within an atom’ would have remained in the realm of ‘pseudoscience’.

People don’t bother to think the roles plants play in our biosphere. All they know is ‘plants photosynthesize to produce food and reduce carbon dioxide’; but science that is humble and progressive (and not egoistic and dogmatic) would continue on its quest to understand the further ‘unseen’ consequences of this simple process of converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into food by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. Without plants constantly replenishing oxygen, I doubt if there would be any free oxygen in the atmosphere because it’s such a reactive element. And without free oxygen, life as we know it would’ve never thrived on earth!

So what does this mean?

Two things.

We must plant more trees and continue to protect and conserve forest cover as much as possible.

Second, if we really want to cultivate proper scientific temper, we must have an open mind towards natural phenomena, even those that appear paranormal/supernatural and instead of ignoring them, we must try to understand them. Labeling any phenomenon as paranormal/supernatural and discarding them by sweeping under the carpet will only show the failure of science to understand them; not that they will go away from history, mythologies or our collective conscience.

A phenomenon is a phenomenon is a phenomenon and the onus is on science to decipher it, not ignore it.

As the old adage goes, “magic two centuries back is science today”. Just imagine if men of science from the 19th century with the dogmatic belief that they have understood science and assigned magic to mere witchcraft, then I think we would have still believed a remote-controlled device as witchcraft.