#22 Science as just another inter-human barrier – Guest session by Prof. Radhika Seshan

Here the well acclaimed professor and history scholar discussed how science itself creates barriers through the claims to ‘universality’ of knowledge, what is right and what is not. A fantastic session, but how to capture it in so few words of a blog post written by someone who only sat in for 1 class ?

#20 Science and wars (incomplete)

Motivation

Wars – the favorite pass time for power-monarchs – either to express existence of power, to expand power, to consolidate power or to preserve power – are a part of human nature. Like it or not we are affected by it, sometimes we want war and sometimes we dont and so on. This huge complicated endeavor often uses and improves sciences and technologies – tools to ‘help’ humans get on with lives in a ‘convenient’ way. So needless to say this must be explored.

Session

science and wars

  • First we explore why we fight in the first place? We may be fighting for resources of food and shelter, or over mates – physical stuff. Or we may be fighting for our group which has some threat from diversity (another group). The un-digestible diversity maybe over myths or traditions or our sacred symbols. However, the basic pattern in all fights is the prelude – the justification that goes on before fights begin, that hatred that grows against the ‘other’ group. We break the character of the ‘other’ down, demean them to unworthy of stuff, stereotype them into some bad image and so on, all the while forming an ‘us’ of superior qualities, fantastic values and ideals. We do this so inherently, at least i find myself doing this when i am not so stable. I wonder how wide-spread it is. Why do you see this happening even now between India and Pakistan, Hindus Vs. Muslim, etc and etc? ‘They’ (Pakistanis or Muslims or Christians or Westerns or caste people, or any one else) are doing something wrong and we have a moral right over them, we would like to teach them a lesson because they deserve… We do this on an individual level as well as national levels.

#19 ‘At the tri-junction of fragility and vulnerability – the Andaman and Nicobar story’ – A guest Lecture by Dr. Pankaj Sekhsaria

Dr. Pankaj Sekhsaria has been a journalist (see TheHindu articles) for many years in the domain of ecology and environmental advocacy (through NGO Kalpavriksh). Recently he has also been researching and writing about how science, technology and society operates in India. Currently he is an Assistant Professor at Center for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas at IIT Powai, Mumbai.

At SoS we wanted to invite Pankaj for two things 1) to speak on the topics of his PhD- how STS (Society, Technology and Sciences) work in India and 2) About the ecological story and challenges faced in Andaman and Nicobar islands. Due to shortage of time and also the pressing needs of the time, the latter was chosen for this session.

Guest talk

I would not be able to paraphrase everything here, but only those that i took notes about and which stuck me. This was a presentation. The point-wise noting here (sorry its dry and no where compares to the engaging and lively 1.5h talk):

  • In the first few slides Pankaj introduced why and where A&N islands lie, what constitutes this place, the ecology and human populations there. Striking is the ecological diversity within the island chains as well as the ecological uniqueness because of being remote islands.
  • Next mainland india’s political and strategic interests that treat the islands as a ‘real estate’ and its native population as an ‘infestation’. This part, which Pankaj emphasized through the showing of what language the mainstream commentators/politicians/governments use while describing the A&N islands, is actually very tragic. How language can already bias a knowledge piece being transmitted was very evident through these examples.
  • The ecological impact of various flora and fauna due to the mainland India’s mainstream interests of tourism, real-estate, etc was elaborated.
  • Also the impact of tsumani and the very high possibility of such natural calamities occurring again and again and this region is right at the ‘ring of fire’ – the clashing of two tecktonic plates. There’s also a live volcano – Barren Islands on the A&N islands  chain.
  • And in the last slides a very interesting concept indicating technology classification as  polytechnic and monotechnic by Lewis Mumford way back in the 1930s was shown.
    • Polytechnic is one that classifies technology of types that cater to solving multitude of human problems and is life-oriented instead of work centered (work for the sake of work) and power centered (for more concentration of power).
    • Monotechnic – “Monotechnic, which is technology only for its own sake, which oppresses humanity as it moves along its own trajectory; based on scientific intelligence, quantified production, directed towards economic expansion, military superiority (eg. Automobile)
  • And another classification:
    • Technology of hubris – which basically is technology to create consistent demands, and then address them technologically – a cycle of technology for the sake of technology. This being the center-point, opresses human beings, small communities, and of course nature.
    • Technology of humility – which acknowledge the complexity and smallness of human knowledge and hence gives way to humility- does not intend to overpower/control the human-animal-nature biosphere, which is the intent of the ‘technology of hubris’.
  • And then the final conclusion – which explains the tri-junction of the following aspects A) The vast flora and fauna and the ecological live museum that exists there B) The high propensity for earthquakes and tsunamis C) and the existence of a very much thriving but at the same time very vulnerable communities of native inhabitants that have co-existed within the ecology for thousands of years – what kind of situation arises especially when either of the three are threatened? When profit and exploitation driven interventions are carried out, we might as well expect many things to collapse and be gone forever.

There were some student questions thereafter. Unfortunately i am not able to remember much. What lasts with me is that such a tri-junction could be true for any place and that defines the precipice of that place. With the possibility of large movement of resources and technology, the tri-junction’s considerations no longer find any relevance to the global forces and thus we don’t even realize the consistent damage we carry out every day, through every action of our lives.

Student questions

  • MJ
    • Why is there very little awareness about the condition of A&N islands?
    • What will the consequences of urbanization of the islands be to the economy of India?
    • How can the government prevent further extinction/destruction of the A&N islands?
    • How can different technologies help preserve the islands rather than destroying them?
    • How should the government maintain the balance between preservation and tourism of the A&N islands?
  • SD
    • What would be important and helpful ‘science’ for A&N islands?
    • The kind of ecological diversity that the islands host. do they have a chance to evolve to survive the climate change?
    • Would one imagine for science to have a language bias?
    • Can science be equipped for resistance?
    • What are the SDGs for islands around the world?
  • KG
    • Since tourism affects the ecology of a place to sych a large extent, how should researchers conduct their study for the development of that area alternatively?
    • What can be done to develop the tribes and communities in the A&N islands? (A: Why ‘develop’ them, who are we to do so to them? Have we thought about this thing enough?)
    • Had the Andaman trunk road not been built, how would the tribals connect to the mainland India?
    • What can be done to protect communities from the constant natural disasters such as weekly earthquakes?

 

 

Some analysis of Breathe2 data

Thanks to our team-member Dr. Sumithra’s (SSLA, Pune) efforts on the python coding, analysis and in general discussions on the how/what/why of data, here is a brief analysis of the Breathe2 data generated so far.

The above is the auto-correlation of 1 device with itself as well as cross correlations between 2 Breathe2 devices, placed side by side at Shivaji Nagar’s IMD campus. Conclusions :-

  1. Cross-correlation of 1 device to another shows that each devices is just similar to anyother Breathe2 device. That means, of a device in Antarctica (some place we’ll eventually dream to setup this – oh what fun will that be!) will be similar to a device in Mumbai in terms of data.
  2. Auto-correlation shows that there is a pattern that repeats – in this case its for a couple of days of the week when data of 1 day, when properly overlapped by the data of another day (24h gap) shows a high correlation. This we can observe visually too, pollution rises during morning hours, falls during afternoon times and then rises again in the evenings.

 

Following is a trailer of the kind of data that we are planning to generate on a regular basis. The x-axis is the hour of the day, whereas the y-axis is the running day from the start of data gathering. This could be marked in weeks, months and weekends to see how patterns emerge. The color bar on the right indicates which color in the plot corresponds to what intensity of PM2.5 emissions (ug/m3). In the following plot, the Breathe2 device firmware was upgraded on 5th October and then-on gave correct values for PM2.5. The last 10 days (today is the 20th of Oct.) seem very polluted – maybe because of the rain break!

Current placements of Breathe2 devices (Updated 18th Oct. 2019)

IMD, Shivaji Nagar, Pune

Massnumber and ambient conditions

Example of PM2.5 live data –

Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt. Ltd., Law college road, Pune

Massnumber and ambient conditions

Example of PM2.5 live data –

Near Indradhanushya Hall,  Rajendra Nagar, Pune.

Massnumber and ambient conditions

Example of PM2.5 live data –

Near Bapat Hospital, Model Colony, Pune

Massnumber and ambient conditions

Example of PM2.5 live data –

MIT College, Kothrud, Pune

Massnumber and ambient conditions

Example of PM2.5 live data –

All the data can be downloaded as a single CSV file from each channel. Here’s how:

  1. Identify which channel you wish to analyze for which device. Each device outputs 3 channels
    1. Mass concentrations of  – PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10
    2. Number concentrations of – PM0.5, PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10
    3. Ambient conditions – Relative Humidity (%), temperature (deg. C), and pressure (Pa)
  2. The channel number is the one at top left corner of the page (which opens when you click any of the mass, number and ambient conditions links) by name of “Channel ID”.
  3. Copy and paste the following command on any internet browser, and replace the <channel_ID> with the channel id you recovered from step 2 –
    1. https://api.thingspeak.com/channels/<channel_ID>/feeds.csv?results=8000
  4. This will download a csv file.

#18 Science and Morality – Einstein the scientist-intellectual

Motivation

So we discussed why we can consider a scientist to be powerful and if so then morality becomes something of concern. We also saw how if a scientist’s work and some of life’s most important things (status, dignity, social value) depend on who funds it, the scientist becomes a tool at the hand at the funding body. So on one hand a scientist can have immense power (power of knowledge and sanction of society to discover and disseminate more + a growing number of people look up to them for direction and purpose and as heros) and on the other can become a stooge of the funding – that could be a situation that can lead to many problems. In this session, we explore one such scientist, Albert Einstein, who was great in his own right but also thought about the society, repeatedly showed that he was self-aware of his cult – an intellectual example for many – all the while not playing stooge to anyone.

Session

science and morality 2

  1. First we begin by discussing the significance of Einstein
    1. Most of classical world was already pretty set. Our day to day experiences do not require any more than the classical physics of Newton and Maxwell and basic non-statistical thermodynamics.
    2. However, there were outliers which the physicist could see and could not explain with the classical physics. There were patchy jobs made to explain some, but then patch job is a patch job – example:
      1. How blackbody radiation was dealt with before Max Planck’s quanta theory – the Rayleigh-Jean’s laws that could explain the radiations at larger wavelengths but could not account for the complete blackbody radiation spectrum as one went to shorter wavelengths.
      2. Light, when treated as a conventional electromagnetic wave was by theory required a medium through which the electric and magnetic fields could express themselves and pass on. This was a heavy argument which was much debated upon but could not rejected either for the want of a better theory. See Luminiferous aether.
  2. In this vacuum of the world awaiting a paradigm shift (T.S. Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions), in 1905, a 26 year old patent office clerk publishes 4 papers in a german scientific publication, single authorship. Using my scant knowledge about the content of the papers, i skimmed through it only on the surface – enough for a class of snoozing art students (those who did not fit into this category soon changed their minds). But one can read in-depth online, even on Wikipedia! This slid further lists some other achievements of Einstein.
  3. The scientific storm Einstein created shook the world. But many argue that the time was such that a hero was made out of Einstein. This fellow, obviously great in his subject was not understood outside – sign of a potential genius candidate. He also fitted the underdog hero that everyone wants to be and so that could also have made him famous. However, the question still remains, why? Why so excessively famous that even now we consider him one of the greatest of scientist for sure, but also one of the greatest intellectuals?
  4.  Comparing to other contemporary scientists, who were also great minds and achieved equivalent (if there were a way of comparison) breakthroughs, none could stand up to the cult following of Einstein. Why?
  5. In the fantastic article by Susan Neiman ‘Subversive Einstein’ she explains why. Describing her own initial bias as not being a fan of Einstein’s to exploring the why of this human being, she describes the various philosophical takes, the writings, the self-awareness, down-to-earth approach to life and so on. Some passages are read out in the class.
  6. Next we discuss the obvious reasons behind Einstein’s power and relationship with the masses. How he would not mind going against the mainstream trends while in significantly authoritarian Germany of the WWI to the almost fanatic anti-communism days of McCarthy era during the end of WWII. He would be known to host and support many African-American artists or students. All this, was written by him through letters and books and created an immense ‘serious work’ rather than hobby as per Susan Neiman’s analysis. Also some discussion on the involvement with the atomic bomb and its eventual disagreement were discussed.
  7. Finally some of Einstein’s philosophy in his own words are quoted with the discussion open to “Do we need Einsteins?” pointing to the main questions behind all this story –  does and scientist A) Agree that she/he is powerful enough and B) And thus is bound to reflect on her/his morality and choices to be a stooge of the funding forces or an intellectual of her/his own right?

Criticism

Explaining the physics was a bit difficult because A) I had to brush them up and may have goofed up on some parts and B) The students may find it all very abstract. The remaining was OK, probably they didn’t buy or were not convinced that Einstein was as great as other world leaders or philosophers of the humanities’ standards. In this presentation style session, sleeping in class has become very normal and achieved a status of being socially sanctioned. Of course there’t the ‘preaching’ one-way delivery mode at fault, but also that my pressure to complete the 10 slides and content by the end of 2 hours with a small break inbetween makes it very rigid with no place for the flowers (discussions) to bloom.

Submitted Student questions

  • SD
  • PK
    • Why morality has to be understood through scientists?
    • Can one reflect on morality in society directed by sciences?
    • Does popularity of Einstein also has logic of fame of what gets picked up by society?
  • MG
    • Scientific discoveries and inventions progressed at a very fast pace in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Compared to that these days its relatively slow. Why is it so?
    • What will happen if a new theory comes up which invalidates the existence of a former theory that has been into existence for a long time?
    • Why are people usually afraid of talking about the notion of a multiverse?
    • Why do scientists mostly stick to their scientific domains rather than stepping out and addressing social issues? Do you think, given their position of power, their opinions and political standing might have more impact on the general population?
    • Why is it that despite a large number of scientists working towards finding alternatives to non-renewable resources (including Stephen Hawking proposing nuclear energy to curb pollution and climate change) no concrete solution has come up? And if it has why has no change been made?
  • RR
    • Maybe Einstein was famous because of luck, circumstances in his times made him the center of conversation?
    • E=mc^2 is the stereotypical expression used to represent scientists in mass media, could that contribute to his fame?
    • He helped invent the nuclear bomb so maybe that’s why?
    • Isn’t a scientist more powerful than a schoolteacher? He/She can shape opinions that schoolteachers teach?
    • Wont scientific progress be hindered by morals?
  • SV
    • How was the first ever classification of science created? Who decided this classification?
    • How does one account for the heat emitting from the sun? Is it just unlimited energy or will it one day loose its energy emitting power?
    • Whats the 1st question? How do you approach something that we don’t know, ‘scientifically’?
    • In order to prove and discover something, things and even people are sacrificed. How moral is that? Is it justified?
    • The aim of finding our own identity and understanding where we come from – is it more of a boon or bane?
  • KG
    • What does vacuum contain inside it? It must be composed on something but what?
    • Are there waves that can be described through observations or are all of them light waves?
    • While one is discovering something, do they think of the negative consequences of its usage such as the scientists who discovered the use of infra-red rays for defense?
    • Why is a period of the time in science always defined by the most famous/popular discovery?
    • Some scientists do not follow ethical and moral manner of a monk, how do they become ambassadors of human rights such as Einstein?
    • Can ownership of highly advanced technology make someone powerful and in what sense?
  • JP
    • Is the power of a person rooted in his/her ability make decisions? or is it more than that?
    • Does power of media dominate the power of a scientist?
    • Why does the scientist have as much power as a politician?
  • MM