Professor B M Hegde “is a former professor of cardiology, Middlesex Medical School, London, and former Vice-Chancellor of Manipal University.” But, from where I sit I see him as nothing more than a phoenix arising from its ashes. He has repeatedly taken cudgels against science, even after having been shown wrong.
He has a thing against science. This is OK, as everyone is entitled to his opinion. But, does it not behoove a medical professor that he knows what he is against? Let me be specific – does he know what science is? OK, I will dilute the question – will he elucidate us on the science he is railing against in his Open Page article entitled Is science another of those fanatical religions (June 17, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article3537221.ece)?
This is a post that aims to take apart any and all substantive arguments the professor makes in the referred piece. This is going to be long. I have my motivation and that will be revealed at the end.
“[S]cientists claim that only science is authentic and all else is unreal.” To add, “Why is science being sold as the only route to human wisdom?” and, “[T]o sell science as the be-all and end-all of human wisdom to the exclusion of all other fields of knowledge is the height of foolishness and short-sightedness.” – Professor Hegde, please give reference to these statements and also the names of scientists who have said this. These are straw men that you had setup and you know it too. I am calling your bluff.
I will tell you what Professor Richard Feynman says about science (paraphrasing): Scientific problems/puzzles are much easier to solve/resolve than difficulties associated with sociological phenomena.
I will be the first one to admit that there is an implicit circularity in the above. What is scientific is not answered. If a question is easy to solve, then it is scientific; therefore, scientific problems are easy to solve! If the problem is too difficult for science, it is a fit case for sociological investigations!
Well, it is not so easy. A scientific solution has a step-by-step methodology attached to it, and sometimes that includes statistical reckoning. Sociological problems are tougher because such processes have not yet been even delineated. Social science is an exciting field because it is nascent. Physical and life sciences, to the contrary, are mature sciences; their excitement comes typically in the minutiae.
Even if we have only a hint that there is a solution to a problem, it is responsible, indeed reasonable too, to apply methods of science to take a stab at it. Science, unlike religion, does not guarantee results (an "unparallel" that you may want to remember). There is no claim that science is “the only route to human wisdom.” Never have I heard that a scientific solution has invalidated an existing non-scientific conclusion based solely on the reputation of the field of science. Never.
Science is as much a human created system as religion is. It is as much vulnerable to corruption as religion is. Ergo, there is nothing to choose between science and religion. If this is the logic you subscribe to, let me tell you something. I claim there is a glove (one of a pair, of the left hand to be spuriously precise) orbiting the earth. Can you “unprove” it? Because you cannot, it is true!
“Scientists are so deluded by their invincibility that they have no patience to listen to any other view.” Which scientist is Prof. Hegde talking about? Just an assertion, no different than dozens of others in the piece. No context, no referring authorship and an all-encompassing generality.
The process of “peer review” is taken to task. I agree it is a loaded system, but is there a better system? From the way Prof. Hegde has menioned this almost in passing, you would not think that he has an alternative up his sleeve. Then, why make the best be the enemy of the good, unless of course the motivation is to say a blanket nyet to all scientific publications?
And, go back to what? “Science and technology in ancient India, China and Egypt.” Soon after the sentence that extols the “hoary past” of these civilizations comes the following: “[M]any of them [leading western scientists, again no names] have admitted that they built their views sitting on the shoulders of the thinker-philosophers of yore!”
Tell me, how different is the above than what Newton said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”? Newton standing becomes leading western scientists sitting!
I have argued elsewhere that I will not be averse to ayurveda (one of a set of “complementary and alternative systems of medicine”) if only it could give a time frame for the effect of the treatment to show up. It is always, “It is acting slowly.” How slowly? Slower than however slow you think it is acting! If this is a system of medicine, please gag me! Anecdotally, I have not been converted to homoeopathy after seeing my mother suffer through its regime. No wonder these are “discouraged”, but leave it to Prof. B M Hegde to bemoan such step motherly treatments!
Indeed, compared to the proven ineffectiveness of these alternative medicines even the failures of what Prof Hegde calls “main line medicine” fare better!
By the way, in the words of the professor, life expectancy is a statistical measure “used to mislead people”, in the service of “main line” medical practice, just to show it works. He makes a sweeping statement that “modern medicine” has not contributed in any measure to the health of humanity. I then wonder whether he considers his profession a con job, after all he was a professor of cardiology, a “main line” specialization!
I am an ordinary engineering professional and have no entitlement to profess anything. Yet, let me try to educate Prof. Hegde. He says that advancements in material comforts through technology have given a veneer of veneration to science. That is, science hangs on to the coat tails of technology. This can be the perspective only of a less than a layman. I am surprised that it is held by a former professor of cardiology and a Vice-Chancellor, to boot! Technology, in the current climes, is the product of scientific enterprise spreading its wings. The professor has it precisely backwards.
Now, he quotes (I am sure it is selectively done) and I will give the complete sentence:
If “science is making models, mostly mathematical constructs, which with verbal jargon are supposed to work,” (John von Neumann), then science is as good as dead.
Well, the closest I could Google to the above is the following:
"The Sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work." John Von Neumann. (http://www.safercrowds.com/PhD-Chapter-9.html)
The starting “If” in the sentence in the article is not implied anywhere in the original. The concluding phrase “then science is as good as dead” is a sentiment that cannot be drawn no matter how hard one tried from what John von Neumann had said. The meaning one can easily discern is the model can fail – “expected to work” implies “may not work”. The quote was deliberately taken and interpreted disingenuously only to buttress the decidedly false and motivated argument that science “must die” (strains of “Jesus must die” from Jesus Christ Superstar).
Let me educate Prof. Hegde further. String Theory in physics is a model that has not been able to make a testable prediction. Within the physics community, it has started losing the preeminence it had enjoyed over the past more than two decades. This is science working. Science is not dead and can never be, at least as long as the genie cannot be corked inside the bottle again.
Prof Hegde says, “science as defined above [in the article] probably knows very little of reality.” Unfortunately for him, Neumann’s quote, the true version given above, says clearly that science does not even try to explain reality. This is a classic case of “hoist with one’s own petard.”
He who swears by Neumann dies by Neumann!
My motivation for this post is a sentence I had read in a friend’s post/comment: “My view is that all systems are limited, being creations of limited human beings. Even science is as much as religion is.” He also said, taking reference to Prof. Hegde’s article, “The way science is functioning today has made it look like a fanatical religion.”
This equivalence grates on my nerves. True, the medical profession is rapidly descending on its ethical parameters just as religion has since its inception, if it ever started high on the scale. But, science has an internal mechanism of correction and religion does not. Why does this “unparallel” go unmentioned?
Remember it was the people of science who pointed out a few years ago that a claim of successful cloning as published in a leading journal was false. The scientist (South Korean) has not been reabsorbed into the fraternity. But in religion, pedophile priests are sheltered and protected by the people of cloth. Ha, religion promotes ethics! Bah, humbug! Where is the equivalence?
One last sentence to pick on: The blogger says to me, “If you think science serves more functions than religion, you are sadly wrong.” I have never claimed that science serves more functions than religion does. Therefore, I am not wrong, happily or sadly. Next, I know people swear by religion, an infinite exasperation for me. I only wish people would try to figure out whom and what functions religion serves and how and by whom, people are hypnotized to serve religion.
Therein, and not in canned science, lies human being’s salvation.
Raghuram Ekambaram
He has a thing against science. This is OK, as everyone is entitled to his opinion. But, does it not behoove a medical professor that he knows what he is against? Let me be specific – does he know what science is? OK, I will dilute the question – will he elucidate us on the science he is railing against in his Open Page article entitled Is science another of those fanatical religions (June 17, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article3537221.ece)?
This is a post that aims to take apart any and all substantive arguments the professor makes in the referred piece. This is going to be long. I have my motivation and that will be revealed at the end.
“[S]cientists claim that only science is authentic and all else is unreal.” To add, “Why is science being sold as the only route to human wisdom?” and, “[T]o sell science as the be-all and end-all of human wisdom to the exclusion of all other fields of knowledge is the height of foolishness and short-sightedness.” – Professor Hegde, please give reference to these statements and also the names of scientists who have said this. These are straw men that you had setup and you know it too. I am calling your bluff.
I will tell you what Professor Richard Feynman says about science (paraphrasing): Scientific problems/puzzles are much easier to solve/resolve than difficulties associated with sociological phenomena.
I will be the first one to admit that there is an implicit circularity in the above. What is scientific is not answered. If a question is easy to solve, then it is scientific; therefore, scientific problems are easy to solve! If the problem is too difficult for science, it is a fit case for sociological investigations!
Well, it is not so easy. A scientific solution has a step-by-step methodology attached to it, and sometimes that includes statistical reckoning. Sociological problems are tougher because such processes have not yet been even delineated. Social science is an exciting field because it is nascent. Physical and life sciences, to the contrary, are mature sciences; their excitement comes typically in the minutiae.
Even if we have only a hint that there is a solution to a problem, it is responsible, indeed reasonable too, to apply methods of science to take a stab at it. Science, unlike religion, does not guarantee results (an "unparallel" that you may want to remember). There is no claim that science is “the only route to human wisdom.” Never have I heard that a scientific solution has invalidated an existing non-scientific conclusion based solely on the reputation of the field of science. Never.
Science is as much a human created system as religion is. It is as much vulnerable to corruption as religion is. Ergo, there is nothing to choose between science and religion. If this is the logic you subscribe to, let me tell you something. I claim there is a glove (one of a pair, of the left hand to be spuriously precise) orbiting the earth. Can you “unprove” it? Because you cannot, it is true!
“Scientists are so deluded by their invincibility that they have no patience to listen to any other view.” Which scientist is Prof. Hegde talking about? Just an assertion, no different than dozens of others in the piece. No context, no referring authorship and an all-encompassing generality.
The process of “peer review” is taken to task. I agree it is a loaded system, but is there a better system? From the way Prof. Hegde has menioned this almost in passing, you would not think that he has an alternative up his sleeve. Then, why make the best be the enemy of the good, unless of course the motivation is to say a blanket nyet to all scientific publications?
And, go back to what? “Science and technology in ancient India, China and Egypt.” Soon after the sentence that extols the “hoary past” of these civilizations comes the following: “[M]any of them [leading western scientists, again no names] have admitted that they built their views sitting on the shoulders of the thinker-philosophers of yore!”
Tell me, how different is the above than what Newton said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”? Newton standing becomes leading western scientists sitting!
I have argued elsewhere that I will not be averse to ayurveda (one of a set of “complementary and alternative systems of medicine”) if only it could give a time frame for the effect of the treatment to show up. It is always, “It is acting slowly.” How slowly? Slower than however slow you think it is acting! If this is a system of medicine, please gag me! Anecdotally, I have not been converted to homoeopathy after seeing my mother suffer through its regime. No wonder these are “discouraged”, but leave it to Prof. B M Hegde to bemoan such step motherly treatments!
Indeed, compared to the proven ineffectiveness of these alternative medicines even the failures of what Prof Hegde calls “main line medicine” fare better!
By the way, in the words of the professor, life expectancy is a statistical measure “used to mislead people”, in the service of “main line” medical practice, just to show it works. He makes a sweeping statement that “modern medicine” has not contributed in any measure to the health of humanity. I then wonder whether he considers his profession a con job, after all he was a professor of cardiology, a “main line” specialization!
I am an ordinary engineering professional and have no entitlement to profess anything. Yet, let me try to educate Prof. Hegde. He says that advancements in material comforts through technology have given a veneer of veneration to science. That is, science hangs on to the coat tails of technology. This can be the perspective only of a less than a layman. I am surprised that it is held by a former professor of cardiology and a Vice-Chancellor, to boot! Technology, in the current climes, is the product of scientific enterprise spreading its wings. The professor has it precisely backwards.
Now, he quotes (I am sure it is selectively done) and I will give the complete sentence:
If “science is making models, mostly mathematical constructs, which with verbal jargon are supposed to work,” (John von Neumann), then science is as good as dead.
Well, the closest I could Google to the above is the following:
"The Sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work." John Von Neumann. (http://www.safercrowds.com/PhD-Chapter-9.html)
The starting “If” in the sentence in the article is not implied anywhere in the original. The concluding phrase “then science is as good as dead” is a sentiment that cannot be drawn no matter how hard one tried from what John von Neumann had said. The meaning one can easily discern is the model can fail – “expected to work” implies “may not work”. The quote was deliberately taken and interpreted disingenuously only to buttress the decidedly false and motivated argument that science “must die” (strains of “Jesus must die” from Jesus Christ Superstar).
Let me educate Prof. Hegde further. String Theory in physics is a model that has not been able to make a testable prediction. Within the physics community, it has started losing the preeminence it had enjoyed over the past more than two decades. This is science working. Science is not dead and can never be, at least as long as the genie cannot be corked inside the bottle again.
Prof Hegde says, “science as defined above [in the article] probably knows very little of reality.” Unfortunately for him, Neumann’s quote, the true version given above, says clearly that science does not even try to explain reality. This is a classic case of “hoist with one’s own petard.”
He who swears by Neumann dies by Neumann!
My motivation for this post is a sentence I had read in a friend’s post/comment: “My view is that all systems are limited, being creations of limited human beings. Even science is as much as religion is.” He also said, taking reference to Prof. Hegde’s article, “The way science is functioning today has made it look like a fanatical religion.”
This equivalence grates on my nerves. True, the medical profession is rapidly descending on its ethical parameters just as religion has since its inception, if it ever started high on the scale. But, science has an internal mechanism of correction and religion does not. Why does this “unparallel” go unmentioned?
Remember it was the people of science who pointed out a few years ago that a claim of successful cloning as published in a leading journal was false. The scientist (South Korean) has not been reabsorbed into the fraternity. But in religion, pedophile priests are sheltered and protected by the people of cloth. Ha, religion promotes ethics! Bah, humbug! Where is the equivalence?
One last sentence to pick on: The blogger says to me, “If you think science serves more functions than religion, you are sadly wrong.” I have never claimed that science serves more functions than religion does. Therefore, I am not wrong, happily or sadly. Next, I know people swear by religion, an infinite exasperation for me. I only wish people would try to figure out whom and what functions religion serves and how and by whom, people are hypnotized to serve religion.
Therein, and not in canned science, lies human being’s salvation.
Raghuram Ekambaram
7 comments:
Such a pathetic article. As you have said, he has not given any references to all that he has said – clearly he is not a man of science. Worse still, he attributes things to people that they never said (thanks for the research on Von Neumann’s statement). Electron is not visible, so it does not exist? Has he seen X-rays that he has used as a doctor? What kind of an analogy is that. Doctors too prescribe diets, exercises etc as supplements to their ‘allopathic’ treatment. Isn’t that all part of medicine? What kind of doctor is Dr. Hegde? He knows that religion cannot stand up to questioning and thus he will stop ranting against science if all followers of science stated that religion is perfect and that they will never ever question it.
Your last sentence is a gem Amrit, about how to stop anti-scientific ranting. Reasoned critique of science is valid and welcome, but shrill rants, no.
Thanks for going through BMH's article; that must have taxed your patience.
RE
Raghuram, thanks for the detailed answer to my blog... Well, I'm not really concerned about Prof Hegde.
Since you've mentioned my blog, without naming it though, I have to make my stance clear. But before that I should say that though Prof Hegde's article made me write the blog I don't agree with the Prof in many places. I agree with him in other places! I hope you get the difference.
Which places? That would be the problem. I repeat: science does not have absolute answers. Science is just another system, a system limited by its own rules. Any logical system is perfect but highly limited by its own perfection. What is imperfect is not untrue, however.
I am not a believer of any religion. But i accept religion as part of human life as long as the vast majority of people choose to believe in it. My interest is why do they believe? Why doesn't science with all its "perfection" appeal more to people?
My blog was an answer to that question. But a very oblique answer. What I did was to question every system including science and ask people to rise above all of them. Because I belive (and know) that truth lies beyond all systems. Truth is a highly relative thing. The kind of truth that the Buddha spoke about, Jesus refused to speak about (in front of Pontius Pilate who raised the question), Gandhi defiend as 'concordance between word, deed and thought' (in my own words)... More will follow in my blogs, but gradually as I promised there!
First and foremost Matheikal your blog post was only the secondary "target".
If anyone has claimed science as perfection, he knows neither about science nor about perfection. The supposedly religious thought that the ONE is perfection personified is reached closest by the process of enquiry that we tend to equate with science and is procedures. This is what the Buddha did and found that there is no substrate from or on which to build an ego.
Why are scientists so eager to confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson? Not to get THE FINAL THEORY OF EVERY THING (That was a sales job by Steven Weinberg in favor of the Superconducting Super Collider), but to take one more step in the direction of unravelling nature's mystery.
Matheikal, religion is making the mistake that physicists made at the dawn of the 20th century when they declared that all of physics has become known and what is left is to fill some mere gaps here and there. It is then Einstein opened up a full can of worms. Will religion ever do that? Or, is it even capable of doing that? I am not saying that you believe in religion; I know you better than that. However, you balance religion against science as opposites and equals. This is my only criticism. You are even free to assume that religion and science cannot be compared. I am game. But, equating them gets me.
One last comment: why do religionists think that nature MUST be revealable to MAN? That is conceit. If MAN is humble enough to admit that his species could very well b a half-way house in the story of evolution of MAN (but without being burdened by the implied teleology), he would not be consumed by the desire to know the ultimate but will be driven by the curiosity to get closer. This is what science is.
RE
I've just posted another blog in relation to this. Welcome:
http://matheikal.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/inward-journey/
"One last comment: why do religionists think that nature MUST be revealable to MAN? That is conceit. If MAN is humble enough to admit that his species could very well b a half-way house in the story of evolution of MAN (but without being burdened by the implied teleology), he would not be consumed by the desire to know the ultimate but will be driven by the curiosity to get closer. This is what science is."
Agree totally with this. Brecht makes Galileo say something like we jsut hope to reduce error bars
Also I think you should make Mr Hegde know about wht you write. othersise he will go on writing this type of stuff ..
Pala,
I had half a mind to send the link to the post to him (his email given at the end of his piece), but I chickened out.
Thanks for endorsing
RE
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