Features
World science day: Bridging the gap between science and society
By Prof.Kirthi Tennakone (Email:ktenna@yahoo.co.uk)
Today (Sunday, 10th November) marks the World Science Day for peace and development, intended to highlight the importance of people understanding the value of science and the need for lessening the gap between science and society.
An average Sri Lankan would see science as a means to achieve technological feats and more often an essentiality for his or her children to become doctors or engineers and earn. They consider science a Western artifact, giving them material benefits but secondary to their beliefs, taken as the truths.
Teachers in schools work diligently to meet the above aspirations of citizens and think in the same fashion. Academics in universities are not different from teachers in schools. Except they do research and publish papers to disseminate their findings and a recent trend to boost their rankings.
The above attitude misleads curious students who eventually follow the example of parents, teachers, and professors. After qualifying and gaining employment, they continue with the same traditionalized mindset. Of course there are exceptions among parents, teachers, professors and students but not being a critical mass, they have no collective strength to raise a voice.
Misconceived policy makers dictate that science should be geared exclusively to promote technology and economic advancement. Scientific administrators supported by sectors of the scientific community literally follow the instructions. Often an opportunity for them to undertake less challenging ventures and entertain mediocrity. For that purpose, they would not hesitate to amend statutes and acts.
In the context of the above, I quote below a phrase in a letter written to the journal “Science” by renowned molecular biologist Suraj Bhat about a decade ago.
“It seems that in India, scientists who become successful or achieve some modicum of notoriety eventually become science administrators and preside over decades of myopic science policies and self-preservation, including handpicking those who are “respectful and compliant,” ensuring vertical transmission of mediocrity and incompetence.”
Perhaps India is gaining criticality to naturally diffuse the issue, whereas Sri Lanka seems too far behind. Educational establishments revise curricula to promote the technological aspect of science at the expense of basic prerequisites and the intellectual spirit of science.
New streams of secondary education emerged, branding arts as useless and technology superior, and disconnecting these disciplines from science education. New universities, faculties, departments, and courses more inclined towards technologies dominated education and research in the country. Science faculties took over areas best pursued in engineering schools and technical colleges. Organizations mandated to conduct frontier basic research grossly deviate from those themes, entertaining trivialities where the hierarchies there felt more comfortable.
Reforms were introduced, claiming they would be an avenue to drive innovations. The effort seems to be counterproductive: no innovations but continuation of mediocrity, incuriosity, irrationality, superstition, and apathy.
In order to reduce the gap between science and society, policy makers and citizens need to understand the distinction between science and technology and program education and research accordingly. Technology is a way of doing practically useful things. Technologies existed without science and advanced via trial-and-error exclusion and selection.
Whereas science is a natural thought process based on experience. A method of co-relating things and happenings in nature, seeking explanations and hypotheses. After confirmation by experiments or observation, hypotheses evolve into theories, logical structures possessing predictive power. Therefore, the theories enable planning and arrive at innovations without extensive time-consuming trial-and-error experimentation.
Science and its theories not only stand as the foundation for modern technology but also the essence that triggers innovations, providing solutions to problems. Technology progresses incrementally and by quantum jumps via scientific discoveries. Furthermore, science and technology move forward hand in hand. Science leads to new technologies, which in turn facilitate new discoveries. Semiconductors developed as a result of curiosity-oriented research transformed electrical technology delivering thousands of appliances used in households, communication, transportation, medicine, etc. Their use in research facilitated so many new discoveries and technologies (AI for example).
To build an economy through technology, a nation needs to create an atmosphere conducive to scientific discoveries. Bridge the gap between science and society by building confidence and delineating the distinctions from beliefs. The latter safeguards ethics but does not lead way to discoveries or understanding of the workings of nature.
If parents expose their children to dogma and superstition, conditioning them to believe things that are irrational or never realized. And if science, the antithetical is introduced by teachers, who have the same mindset as parents. Can we expect the posterity to be discoverers and innovators?
General public should also be aware that science does not subscribe to an individual’s opinion, without critical analysis, irrespective of his or her authority.
A quote often attributed to represent the character of Richard Feynman, one of the foremost quantum theorists is: “Pursuit of science requires some irreverence (lack of respect or disrespect for any authority or authoritative opinion). Irreverence doesn’t mean not paying respect to those who deserve it. One should respect elderly, teachers and religious dignitaries but not accept their opinions without rational inquiry.”
A pinnacle of Gautama Buddha’s teaching is the Kalama Sutra, which we don’t follow. Late Prof. K.N. Jayatilleke, commenting on the subject in his book “Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, states: “Buddha seems to demand from his hearers regarding his own statements. He does not want his own statements accepted on his authority nor rejected but seems to demand that they be tested and accepted if they are found to be true and presumably rejected if they are found to be false.”
A lesser-known related script referred to in Hindu and Buddhist literature, “Nayana Sutra” says: To arrive at the truth, one should follow the guideline: Anumana (possible inference suggested from existing knowledge), Pratyaksha (confirmation), Upama (illustrative examples) and Aptavakya (concluding authoritative statement).
Today, researchers divide their reports into sections: Introduction, Experiments, Results and Discussions and Conclusion. However, major breakthroughs in science have been an ‘anumana’ to begin with.
In 1935, German bacteriologist Gerhard Domagk prescribed a dye found to be antibacterial, in laboratory experiments to his only daughter, fatally ill after contracting a streptococcal infection and cured her – the discovery of the first antibacterial chemotherapeutic agent, sulfonamide. Science requires undertaking risks and challenges. We need to tell these stories to our students, instead of promoting authors on the basis of the multitude of papers they publish every year. Scientists disseminate their findings for critical assessment by peers. They are also obligated to educate the public and contribute to national development, instead some advertise their ranking and percentages purported as a measure of the scientific standard.
An investigation carried out to solve a major problem normally requires years of dedicated work, but the paper output could be just one article.
Crick and Watson’s discovery of DNA replication, published as a one-page article in the journal Nature in1953 was a clever anumana, confirmed four years later by experiment. Finding transformed biology, heavily impacting technology.
Science justifies its findings by repeated observation and analysis using logic and mathematics. Does not assume things as true or false on the basis of faith. Its own findings and assertions are continuously subjected to strict scrutiny to detect faults and errors. Unlike beliefs, when a fault is detected and confirmed, no attempts will be made to cover it up. Instead, it arouses curiosity, demanding further theoretical analysis and experiment. Sometimes, experimentation is costly, but unavoidable. The large hadron collider at CERN Geneva was built primarily to detect the Higgs boson because the validity of the most up- to-date theory of matter rested on its existence. If the boson was not found, curious minds will think differently, and that’s how science advances.
A nation should also undertake projects to unravel the deepest secrets of nature. Such endeavors build the morale of a nation, diverting the attention of the citizens to science and encouraging the young. All the countries in the East that attained comparable technological advancement after the rise of the West had commissioned such projects.
It is heartening that Sri Lanka had the political will to support advanced frontier basic research beginning post-independence. Unfortunately, obstacles to these efforts arose from the myopic attitude of the science administrator and not from the political establishment.
Few Sri Lankans who went to the United Kingdom about a decade before independence worked with the world’s topmost scientists at the time. A. W. Mailvagnam (the first Professor of Physics, University of Ceylon) did research in Cambridge at the time of Sir J.J. Thompson (discoverer of the electron) and Lord Ernest Rutherford (discoverer of the atomic structure). C.J. Eliezer (Professor of Mathematics, University of Ceylon) was a student of Paul Dirac, who revolutionized. physics by showing that the electron should be accompanied by another particle (positron), identical to it but having opposite charge.
Both of them, supported by another Sri Lankan intellectual, Senarath Paranavithana, proposed the establishment of the Institute of Fundamental Studies in the early 1950s. The purpose was to conduct theoretical studies. Theoretical studies cost very little but profoundly impact the science of a nation. Today, most countries in Asia, and a few in Africa, have institutions dedicated to theoretical studies. The idea advocated by A.W. Mailvagnam, C.J. Eliezer, and Senarath Paranavithana stands more important today than during their time.
Almost all recent achievements in science and technology originated as a result of subsequent advanced studies. Unfortunately, fundamental research is disappearing from Sri Lanka’s science agenda. I hope the new government will look into this crucial issue essential for fostering science
We are familiar with mega developmental engineering projects such as hydroelectric power and river diversions, commissioned at a cost of millions of dollars, expecting hundreds of times returns in decades. Today, countries launch mega-projects of that magnitude to find answers to the most perplexing questions in fundamental science without expecting any monetary gains. Are these justified? Yes, because here the intellectual return is more valuable than money. And that profit eventually turns into a monetary gain with high interest by motivating the human resource to innovate.
This year China is to expected complete the construction of the dollars 300 million Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory. Its primary purpose is to assess the weights of the tiniest entities in the universe known as neutrinos. They occur in three different forms, with weights in the range of decillions (1 divided by 33 zeros after 1) grams. The aim of the 300-million-dollar experiment would be to determine which one of these is the heaviest! Answering this question has far reaching implications, including why matter exists.
Today, even less developed nations have recognized the importance of active involvement in mega-science projects. South Africa, in collaboration with Australia, plans to construct the Square Kilometer Radio Array to probe furthest into space. The High Energy Stereoscopic System to detect and locate sources of gamma radiation, an international facility, is housed in Namibia because of the excellent atmospheric opacity near the Gamberg mountains. In 2018,the Indian government granted approval for construction of a neutrino observatory at Bodhi Hills, Tamil Nadu.
Can Sri Lanka afford mega – science projects? Obviously, Sri Lanka at the moment cannot commit millions of dollars for projects of that nature. However, our unique geography may be exploited to attract international collaborations with our active participation, as Namibia did.
In 1972, I attended a conference in Sicily as a student who had just completed a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, returning from the United States to Sri Lanka via Europe. At the conference, I suggested that the World’s End base in Sri Lanka, near Balangoda, could be an ideal site for the construction of an underground laboratory for the detection of neutrinos. At that time, facilities of the type now constructed in China did not exist. A European group seriously considered the new concept I proposed and encouraged me to submit a proposal immediately after my return to Sri Lanka. However, because of circumstances too lengthy to elaborate here, I could not do it.
Lately, in 2016, Dhammika Tantrigoda (former Professor of Physics, University of Jayewardenepura) conveyed the above story to the Minister of Science and Technology in a discussion on basic science policy in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Science and Technology Commission. The Minister invited me to give a presentation. At a meeting where he and a number of leading scientists were present, I said, unlike in 1972, there are underground laboratories functioning, and the competition is high; as several are in the pipeline, obtaining external funding would be hard. Yet a feasibility study is worth it.
Particle detector technology will change in the future. The decision was to form a study group as a project of the Ministry of Science Technology to pursue Astroparticle Physics in Sri Lanka. As usual, the idea didn’t move forward. It was not the fault of the minister or the scientists who participated; they were very supportive and endorsed my opinion that Sri Lanka should think big and enter the international arena of advanced research.
The public should also be made aware of the necessity of our participation in attempts to understand the most tantalizing puzzles of nature
Although the method of science applies profitably to human affairs, science is not everything. Ethics as taught in religions, art, literature, and discourse on beliefs are equally important. Both Eastern and Western philosophies benefit society. The scientific method is hidden in the former, and the latter focuses on abstract thinking in addition. To induce abstract thinking, we need to promote mathematics and theoretical studies.
Science originated in the West as a result of the abstract thinking and questioning of beliefs by Greeks. Knowledge other than science is symbiotic to science and stands against abuse of science in war, inflecting cruelty to animals, and endangering of the environment.
The failure to distinguish science from beliefs and science from technology is largely the cause of our weakness in both science and technology.
(The author was a former director and professor at the Institute of Fundamental Studies and the first Professor of Physics, University of Ruhuna. Educated in Sri Lanka and the United States he has conducted research in several institutions in United States, Europe and Japan. He began his academic career as a physics and mathematics teacher at the Veyangoda Madya Maha Vidyalaya.)