Tag: Society and Science

Motivation

This session was part of “Is science systematic?” wherein, i presumed that, some aspects of the  structure of sciences as they are conducted today need to be discussed. In the same spirit was the last blog, how science research works and so on. It isn’t very apparent that its society that commands where science will go. This was brought to light in some ways from a discussion i had with Sumithra S. and Priyadarshini K. , and it struck me as new and interesting. Although a subject that could be very deep, philosophically as well as technically, i only skim through in here.

Content

1. The first thing to distinguish is the difference between science and technology. This was asked around and as expected, this is hard to distinguish between then, given that they have so intermingled over the past couple of centuries. So, in my naive point of view, technology is a soup that has many ingredients, of which one of them are the sciences. A relatively new one too. For all history, this tool making species (not the sole one though – Incredible tool use in the animal kingdom) has significantly lived with tools by the bedside. Technology, the art of making tools and achieving something more than one can do either in terms of access, processing and simply efficiency, is the foundation of development. But why certain things work better and certain do not, the why was not always been easy to access. Technology was driven by observation primarily, thinking and manipulating objects around. Why a wheel should be round was not an idea based on static, dynamic and rolling friction concepts but on observation of which design works best. Surprisingly, even today a lot of engineering does happen in this same way, the archaic but well proven way of Observation & Trial & Error (OTE). However only recently, the since the why was pursued (sciences), both technology and sciences developed so much so that we have been able to use the foresight from scientific understanding to cut down on the OTE and make significant disruptive advances in the technological domain. All this was kind of discussed in class, i am not sure how much of it got conveyed. Surely more examples could have done this job better, definitely better!
2. Then we discussed what are the core driving needs of sciences and tried to see who is willing to share “my precious” (money) for such causes. The ‘spiritual’ was an interesting point in this list. Many disagreed that science has anything to do with the spiritual business in the first place. PK and i were of the opinion that the questions of wonder, those that can be classified as not-practically-relevant, such as why we are here, what is beyond this universe, what is time, and this endless line of Qs – could be seen as similar to what a spiritual quest would also juggle about. The routes may be different, but nonetheless the directions may overlap. Truth, it seems, calls for many ways, one of which are definitely through the path of the sciences. Coming back to who can fund these? It is obvious that scientific yearnings which promise leading to utility and profit in the market economy, or political currency or address the common population’s immediate needs gets well funded. However, the ultimate quests, the whys of the universe or whys of the life and so on, could be a very tough thing to get funded. Earlier, in the Europe and India and probably elsewhere, astronomy and mathematics had a religious role of figuring out dates and help in doing the rituals right – so they had religious patrons. But now, these sciences have to search for secular funding. Science for the sake of science or for the sake of understanding human context does happen surprisingly! Example: the CERN experiments, all the astronomy we do, GMRT and Hubble and so on.  I think there is a significant overlap with spiritual quests and answering these neutral and innate ‘queryscape’ of the conscious human being. Maybe all this could have been more acceptable if ‘spiritual’ wasn’t used to describe the core questions – but hey it was to spark the discussion!
3. Next we talked about why patronage (money and social sanction) are required for sciences to develop and add to human society. The last bit, freedom from market pressures was not so easy for students to accept. More examples here could have helped rather than doling out abstract concepts such as job pressure, marked driven scientific direction, etc.
4. In the next few slides we discuss the funding trends in the US – a major source of scientific work for past 100 years! Social sciences (blue line at bottom) get one of the least of funding relatively as compared to the other sciences  – why? This doesn’t make sense if one can see that most of human civilization’s problems are due to the lack of understanding of the human being and its immensely complex network of collaboration (Y. Harari’s words) called the society. It maybe a very interesting and pertinent question and may lead to fantastic insights into our world! Other slides talked about other trends and India’s GDP marked out for sciences.
5. In slide #9 the breakup of R&D funding in India is very interesting. A significant portion goes into defense research expenses followed by department of space and then by atomic energy. Its not wonder that ISRO has been so successful – money does work! However could the same be said for DRDO the outcomes of which have not be spectacular. To be fair, DRDO, DoS and DAE need significant capital investments in often rare and exotic imported technologies at a significantly higher scale than those used by other divisions – so that could occupy a good portion of the assigned budget.
6. Again a summary of ‘why’ of funding from the funding body’s point of view.
7. We also discussed the various difficulties arising out of reduction or instability in funding. These points were discussed in brief, but i am sure much deeper could be explored.
8. And finally, a small look at the challenges scientific community faces now. The referred paper (see footnote on slide) studied some huge chunk of scientific literature published to come to the conclusion that large teams usually follow established lines of inquiry and improve on them, develop them further. However small groups tend to be more ambitious and have higher probability to create disruptive new science. The plot shown describes how different subjects perform under this lens of size of the team and amount of disruptive knowledge created. Interestingly computer sciences are oblivious to team science change – that maybe because they are of highly collaborative nature and the internet does make the communication extremely agile and free.
9. Another paper discussed the many issues with science not progressing as it was before the past 20-30 years. Here also the authors mention team size as an important factor. Scientific investments are high, but in terms of well defined discoveries the paper argued were not so many. They used the Nobel prizes as the yardstick, which could be an arguable point. Although i spoke with reference to the paper, in retrospect my stance could have been more realistic and proper. I could have read a bit more on this subject to give a better picture. Instead of giving the impression that sciences have ‘dried out’ – which was not intentional at all- i could have elaborated the differences in past ‘golden days’ and modern sciences harboring on the complexity modern sciences are dealing with and the consequent increase in team sizes and hence the lack of ‘spectacular’ single person discoveries and so on.
10. The last slide, we discussed the ‘cheating’ that is now becoming so hard to distinguish from unintentional mistakes, based on this article.
    1. Simply by the shear number of research papers published due to the ‘publish or perish’ model – it has become nearly a matter of luck if each of those works will be repeated by some other research group. This unverified work, evaluated through the well-intentioned checks of peer review, but significantly weak measure as compared to the timeless check of repeatability by unconnected groups,  is getting added into the body of scientific knowledge. When the luck strikes and someone tries to repeat the past published works, they simply don’t stand as claimed.
    2. Often the work published is not repeated by the same group itself to have sufficient statistical power to make conclusions. This measure is different for different experiments and needs to be implemented by the peer review process, but….
    3. A lot of researchers, as mentioned by the article, claimed that data that matches the agenda of the paper were reported in the paper to make all fit into a nice story. Francis Bacon’s line about it is especially stinging – “Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true”.
    4. And a recent example of a significant number of papers of a reputed institute in India that turned out to be either plagiarized or fraudulent.

Critical analysis

It seems all this was ‘doled’ out with emphasis to accept since the instructor is telling them. Examples and student observations as a response to the examples and conclusions could have been the alternative and better way to conduct this session, but that amount of in-depth study didn’t exist in the instructor’s mind, neither could it cover so many aspects in a 2 hour session. As compared to previous session, less images were used to convey the idea and more text, that could have made this very boring as was evident from the sleepy faces of the poor souls. Also some of the conclusions seem to be shallow and say more about the instructor’s point of view (opinionated) than from general observation. Can this be changed for better?

As an instructor i realize the ‘goal’ in my preparing and delivering a session now has become more of conveying the session contents (and hence my ‘duty’) irrespective of if they simulate and excite the listener’s minds. That is a serious degradation and surprisingly so because i have complained the same about my teachers very vehemently! It has been noted in the hilarious paper: “Incidence of and risk factors for nodding off at scientific sessions”  where a lecture is “a means of transferring notes from the pages of the speaker to the pages of the audience, without going through the mind of either”.

Questions

1. UB
   1. How intertwined are science and spirituality? There would be a number of people who believe that spirituality is based on science and science is ‘responsible’ for (fulfilling) spiritual needs and beliefs. Is it true or even partially true?
   2. Can freedom from market pressure actually be possible (for scientific research)? The funds are dependent on market values and pressure and aren’t there market pressures enough to keep the funds being given on edge? as long as market forces are stable, the funds being supplied should be stable if the market becomes unstable will the economy and the government have enough to fund these scientific bodies/institutions?
   3. If our country starts importing material and instruments for scientific purposes illegally, will it be justified? If caught this could be bad for international relations. Should any country be denied funds or resources for these experiments while other countries are being allowed? (A: I guess this is with response to atomic energy developments?)
   4. As the rate of discoveries is decreasing, is this going to or already affecting science? Is this disruption going to cause problems for scientists as they spend their lives dedicated to finding more and knowing more but ultimately not making much progress?
   5. Does bad science not cause problems in funding and progrss in the field of sicnes? Are back sciences causing the slowing down of progress in science towards obtaining results and are they becoming reasons for problems in funding for these experiments? (A: Good tangent, didnt think of this angle. Must be explored…)
2. PK
   1. Do you think patronage for making science a public entity? I feel science to become for people’s body, government needs to build science parks, develop programs for science exhibitions and science fairs. (A: Interesting, but government is already doing that in someways. But one needs to be also aware of government’s agenda for this popularization of sciences, could it be to only feed the enlightened crowed again into the same old power consolidation game? For eg. see Kishore Darak’s article: Prescribed marginalization)
   2. Isnt it important to look at narratives that India built through mass-media around S&T since independence if we don’t have statistical data?
   3. Is entire social context of science limited to funding, people’s achievements and bad sciences? (A: It should not be, but i thought these are the most pressing forces in India now: money for a career in science, heros to inspire the scientists and avoiding doing bad science when many around are cutting corners.)
   4. When you talked about “breaking of community” (due to funding issues) you said that scientific knowledge is between the community – isn’t that the exact problem then – the nature of scientific community?
   5. What happens to caste/class/gender and others that determine social context in the age of science? How do they interact with science?
3. MM
   1. Can technology exist independent of sciences?
   2. Do you think science is purely derived out of human curiosity?
   3. Is science a mass appeal?
   4. Why do people/government dont fund social sciences? (A: wish i had the answer, but its a question worth studying very deeply).
   5. Does philosophy help in development of scientific attitude? (A: Great questions. In fact it does tremendously. But sadly i do not have much clear understanding of it or a good concise reference for this question.)
4. SD
   1. In an environment where the government and its representatives are believers of pseudo-science but funding for technology and research is good, what way science would develop? (A: Often, there are good visionary scientists and bureaucrats in-between the political powers and the common on-ground science work, so that cushions out such direct infringement to some extent i guess. But one never knows how well this performed and whats the future.)
   2. What is the main motivation for scientists? market or quest for knowledge?
   3. How is democracy related to the progress in science? (A: Interesting, should be studied.)
5. SV
   1. What is the absolute definition of science and technology?
   2. Science is about asking questions and finding answers. Doesn’t that mean science had begun since time immemorial?
   3. For a long time, we believer earth is flat and that atom was the smallest particle because scientists said so and we didn’t know better. How much can we trust scientists today?
   4. Why would people fund long term research with less possibility of successful outcome? so not, how do researchers face this obstacle? (A: As we saw in case of ISRO and DAE, funding pays and all these were very long term projects! So its a matter of vision by the top leaders ultimately and the conviction of the scientists to give sufficient reasons to fund long term work.)
   5. With so much fake news (pseudosciences) floating around, lots of chaos arises among laymen (non-experts). Are there ways to tackle this?
   6. Science has caused conflict, violence (maybe) and brought peace too. So discovery of science is it a boon or a bane? (We really underestimate the disadvantages and negative consequences). (A: Therefore we distinguished science and its use in technology in this session. That should more or less answer.)
6. KG
   1. When in the process of invention of particular object, something else gets invented – is the project then a failure or success? Can you give more examples such as the microwave?
   2. If science starts explaining spirituality, where do we draw the line between observed and experimented science and the theories that define human existence and psychology but have no scientific backing?
   3. If there is a huge capital invested in long term research and the experiment fails, then how is the funding behind science justified when same capital could be used for more productive activity?
   4. If science is to be protected from larger part of the society (market driven funding supply) then how do we expect science and society to integrate?
   5. How does India as a country expect to become one of the major powers in science if they invest such small part of national income in sciences? what can be done to increase india’s role in scientific developments internationally?
   6. if political forces impact scientific development in a country, how could scientific development and progress possibly be estimated in pure terms?
7. JP
   1. isnt science (just) a method of explanation?
   2. how does technology meet spiritual needs and how does it matter who funds S&T?
   3. is there a way to separate sciences and its funding from politics?
   4. How can government policies help to eradicate “publish or perish” ideology and mediocrity that it leads to ?
   5. Why aren’t the investors who fund ‘bad sciences’ concerned about the production of pure/accurate knowledge? (A: How will they know what is good and bad science if the next replication efforts by other groups take place 5-10 years later? No one funds bad science deliberately!)
8. MG
   1. Can you explain little more about spectral absorption (with reference to microwaves and water and cooking)?
   2. You mentioned space tourism. Do you think in a couple of decades normal people would be able to travel to space for a short trip. If yes, how?
   3. We saw certain graphs relating to the US government’s funding for sciences. Do you think more spending on space research as compared to environmental science and development of alternatives for non-renewable fossil fuels means that it is widely believed people would rather establish a new civilization if they find an inhabitable planet instead of trying to fix damage that we caused to our own?
   4. Why is research and development not good enough in India? What can be done to promote it?
   5. Do you think its always essential to have a ‘problem pressure’ for developing science and technology? why and why not?

The idea of this session was to give an overview of how scientific knowledge is generated, in a broad sense. Then in the forthcoming session, to expand up on how society effects science in terms of funding, driving questions, etc.

Here’s the presentation.

1. First a simplistic model of scientific exploration was laid out:
   1. We begin by coming across abnormal observations, and how we react to it.
   2. If it were interesting to us, we’d try to study it more using ‘thought-works’ or experimentally and get more details about the particular observation. I gave an example of how we react to mosquitoes. While most of us will shun the very thought about them or kill as many we can afford to spend our energy on, only a very few will be interested in studying them more. A lot of interesting stuff can be found if one digs in. For example, a 45 million year old mosquito with blood like content in it.
   3. We’d ask questions, refer to previous studies, do more experiments that verify the observation, some cause-effect systems, etc.
   4. Then, but this time we would have so much overwhelming information that it may seem to be interesting to form a judgement on what the observation could be a part of – a pattern or a model. This model is a hypothesis and this gives a benefit of creating more focus on what to study in deep. The most plausible hypothesis gets the biggest effort and others are not much studied. Through a hypothesis we could also begin to use it to ‘predict’ future related observations, and if we are correct, then it adds more credibility to the model hypothesis.
   5. However, sometimes an original hypothesis is often limited in the scope of ‘tweakability’, so much that it must be dropped in favor of a better hypothesis that encompasses or atleast has the scope to encompass as the reason behind the a larger set of available data.
   6. Then a joke, saying how scientist could feel once they have gone too deep into the subject 🙂
2. That was about how it works – knowledge generation. Following slides looked into how the teaching of science occurs in India, which we have a problem with. Students agreed mostly here, but all were first year students and MM was the only 2nd year student. The dissenting 4th year ones (PK and SD) were missing. It would have been interesting to have their views as well!
3. Then we touched up-on how science works in reality – a fascinating and often quoted work by T.S. Kuhn. And outline of his work can be found here but i didn’t read the whole thing, not presented the whole. Only a snapshot in the slides.
4. Then again a joke on how scientists see the world and an un-joke about how it really happens. I recounted an event while i was driving to SSLA that morning – it involved a girl driving in front of me with her long hair open and subject to air currents. The two branches of hair were counter-rotating as she sped through the wide road. This was so fascinating. My friends would sneer that i am following/stalking women, but in my defense i must say it was only for the sake of science (see Richard Feynman’s interview section on science and beauty)! By the way, these are called Von Kármán Vortices, after the scientist who described the physics of it. An example here: NASA image of cloud patterns formed on canary islands. Here’s A fantastic video showing how these are formed on aircraft wingtips.

Analysis

Here again there was not much discussion and discovery. It must have felt like a public lecture where there are some jokes, graphics on screen and so on and not so much as reflection and discussion on the subject. Also, i realize that the flow of the course has been very turbulent and that the students must be totally confused as to where this all is leading. Next time i must make a chart of what happened and where we have to go.

Student questions (see note from last blog post)

• UB
  • When one forms a hypothesis, how does one know if its true and worth investing time in verifying? Is it all trial and error after that? Does this approach not lead to waste of time? (A: There is no new discovery without taking risks, often much time is lost and could be considered waste, but in retrospect nothing is wasted but only built upon.)
  • By simply studying science in school, is it really going to awaken the scientific spirit? Is it taught the right way? seems to be driving people away from it more and more!
  • Are all phenomena in this universe interrelated in one way or the other? (A: wouldn’t it be fun to find one core physical law that can explain everything? See GUT)
  • Have we reached an irreversible stage on earth where there’s only natural disasters and catastrophes in future? We are searching for new planets and places to settle outside the earth, instead of trying to repair the mess we’v created.
  • When a new theory is discovered, is the old theory still relevant or is completely redundant? Does the new theory completely become the basis for all future explorations?  (A: see here for some explanation.)
• MG
  • In 2nd class we talked about traditions, how they govern large masses and why people conform to them. Is there any way to change people’s mentality? (A: If you read Harari’s ‘Sapiens’ you will see how important culture and traditions are to humans to become as strong and as dominant a species on the Earth. We also looked at how they are important in our lives. Only as times progress, traditions need to be replaced by new traditions better suited to the contemporary understanding of the world and universe. Its here that science and technology has been playing a big role for past few centuries.)
  • In the science model slide, there were multiple processes of gathering information. Can you explain how they are interrelated and go in parallel or series with one another?
  • Do you think science teaching can be changed in India? And what could be the opposition to this change? For example, wont the school authorities oppose conducting more experiments or giving students more ‘hands-on’ time? Are there better practical alternatives to teaching sciences?
  • Why are patterns essential to human thinking? Why is it that even when in places where there aren’t any patterns we imagine patterns there? Can you explain science again as an accumulation of patterns (bricks-building example)?
  • How is it that with every hypothesis scientists get closer to reality?
  • Do you think science fiction (books and movies) are a good way to generate interest in sciences?
• SV
  • Science is questioning things in front of us. At what point of time do you stop questioning?
  • We discussed about necessity and better ways to teach science. How to implement these obvious things in real life?
  • Is scientific temper/interest is something you are born with? Or it depends on the method through which you are introduced to the subject?
  • Is it fair to put science at a pedestal? Ans isolate that part of the society?
  • Everything has exceptions and grounds on which the theory will fail. So is there anything called absolute truth?
• RR
  • How do patterns help in understanding something? Wont it just be more confusion (because there will always be outlier data) ?
  • What is the line between prediction and affirmative bias? (A: See Taleb’s Black Swan or his video talk here.)  
  • Isn’t science teaching killing curiosity?
  • Doesn’t science need to be studied as a serious subject to be viewed as beautiful? Because you have to understand something for finding it beautiful! (A: But you also need to find it beautiful so as to take the pains to understand it further!)
  • If teachers and parents perpetuate that one needs to focus on math and science just so that one can have a cushy life, is that bad?
  • Isn’t science tough because it is taught to people who don’t wanna learn it (like having a mental block or things like it)?
• MM
  • Why is gravity a wave? (A: see this funny and light video here.)  
  • Is there anything useful about mosquitoes? (A: Do you mean to humans? A mosquito may ask the inverse, “Is there anything useful about humans? – except food ofcourse, but apart from that?” OK to answer-here’s one. But the question you pose is very interesting and hints at anthropocentric world view – this could be an interesting read!)
  • Do you think science has a solution for every societal problem? (A: No)
  • Do you think science itself will be replaced by another idea in coming future? (A: Fantastic idea, wait and watch!)
  • Is there any way to come up with scientific theories purely based on past theories but not experimentation?

I take a detour here. Instead of talking about what happened in a session, i talk about the mystery of knowledge, an analysis through a ‘fool’s way’ …

A question we discussed in previous sessions was – If what we ultimately do is believe, then does it matter if we believe in traditions or scientific theories? Since we could not get to any good clarity about it, i thought i will try to make a picture of the way i understand (subject to the ongoing evolution of the thinker) stuff. By the way, this is all ‘leading the witness‘ as the lawyers will complain.

As depicted above, emotional and material needs could probably be said with some confidence to be occupying the human mind’s resources to significant levels. What’s left, could be the curious parts, those which lead to wonder and wander. This curiosity part could be an exploration of what is there, how it is, why is it there, what has been its history, where is it going and so on. Once a question is asked, it often leads to more questioning and becomes difficult to stop. This could drain away resources from the dominant modes – emotional and material insecurities with which we are born with. Hence practical necessities demand that the questioning be stopped for the sake of practical needs. All this conflict between practical needs and our innate curiosity converts a child into an adult when the former wins over the latter. Additionally, holding on to a certain question, or keeping it aside without modulation is not easy.

Imagine a bucket of water as being the human mind’s need of understanding of this complicated world. The rate of true, versatile information could be seen as a tickle of water into the huge bucket. This is true as we have seen earlier or hinted upon that generation of knowledge is a very very slow process. What to do about the remaining empty bucket of hunger? Could imagination have evolved just to fill in this huge void?

As in the above image, a significant portion of human understanding about the world was filled with non-natural concepts, just because getting the natural reasons behind the everyday observations were just too difficult to happen just like that. With this context, the past 1000 years of the growth of science in Europe becomes more astonishing and significant. Coming back to curiosity vs practicality, the sufficing of curiosity of the pre-science years with sufficiently engaging stories was the mainstay of knowledge systems. Science, or its ancestors were just as an aid to the existing march of such knowledge systems as seen in the last session. This is where the current session adds into the stream of thought, more on it from the next session.

Finally could we also explore what do we mean by knowledge itself. Could it begin by facts, or observations that everyone agrees on? If such observations/facts could be draw on a paper as points (above picture), nothing much can be humanly inferred. However, due to the shear “curiosity” pressure in our minds, and in our desperation to fill in the void or understanding isn’t but obvious that we need to add in the red lines in between the facts? This relationship between facts, could be either created artificially, through imagination as a stop gap solution or through actual figuring out the cause-> consequence line of inquiry of the scientific domain. The former probably existed before the sciences came of maturity, and the latter is the current fashion of investigations. What about the blue curves above? Well, if it slightly resembles a pattern, we could as well predict how the unfolding pattern will eventually look. That could be a hypothesis?

In pre-science era, the linking between the facts/observations could be vague and so outliers (the black point in the above depiction) was OK, maybe someone had an extra horn. But not so in the exact sciences, which looks for outliers as indications of a flawed hypothesis.

And finally, what about the relationships between facts? Earlier, since the source of these facts were of non-natural nature, and also because of non-availability of data, the relationships were vague, and made to fit the general dominant narrative as imagined by the authorities. However, now that we cant afford to be so naive or innocent, the chronological linkages between facts as to when the events happened becomes important. Relationships also could be depicted by how much of a cause caused the consequence, linearly or non-linearly. What could be the effect of multiple causes in a single consequence inexplicable by individual causes alone? And so on and so forth.

Truth

What is truth? Why do we want truth? Difference between truth and fact. An event and a pattern. Facts can about a certain event that has occurred, but pattern becomes more relevant because it helps decrease uncertainty in time and space, because then we know if a certain event will happen again. We can estimate and anticipate better. We can get over it, avoid the event, tackle the event and so much more. Such a powerful thing, to be able to anticipate. So here truth becomes directly relevant to security or certainty. Knowledge is clubbing the patterns under names and hierarchies with relationships between, bigger, smaller, more or less powerful, forming from, leading to etc. And variations in patterns, and evolving patterns.

But pattern discovery is not so easy. It takes detailed observations, painstaking work and needless to say expose oneself to sever peer rebuke, all this while overriding practical needs and responsibilities. So obviously not many people would like to do this. So, monks and scientists, sanctioned by culture and traditions of the day are allowed to do this. Earlier however only monks, saints, did that. Probably studied human patterns, and given the limited knowledge, life span of observations, susceptibility to biases, ego, and all human factors, ‘best guesses’ could be generated. Something is better than nothing. And that something was absorbed into the minds and cultures of the remaining people. It may not be complete but its something. But how can those pseudo-patterns last if they were repeatedly proven to not match the reality? Either change it or create exceptions to it (extra horns?). Changing it could be rather costly as one would have to undo then the whole process of getting monks at one place or into remote places, putting them through (called voluntary) long years of penance, etc and then costly dissemination to the layman. But before that doing the most difficult and costly process of unlearning so that the layman’s mind may have some free space for new info! So instead exceptions could be used – if it did not rain as predicted, something was not done right or the right conditions in which the original observation on which the prediction was based were not repeated, the gods were not pleased and so on. But then the right conditions themselves could make it very difficult to follow, or could they be deliberately made difficult to follow so that it could always be blamed on “not well prepared enough”? Quite possibly, keeping the preparations vague could have helped immensely to the ‘knowledge’ authorities as well as to the surprised public, there’s more to do that’s just known, even if they lead to failures…

And fiction, myths and stories, why they?

Carrying forward from MG’s question in a previous session (to which i still wonder) and extending to the common activity we all are concerned now – about why rumors spread? So if truth is all that one ultimately needs, why are we surrounded mostly with epics, drama and fictitious stories?

• Why science conspiracies become popular?
• Why any rumor becomes popular as compared to facts?
• If we look at TV, most of the stuff on it, the sitcoms, movies are all fictional. Could it be 90% of the content? Remaining could be news, but even if we analyze news on TV, there’s a lot of drama. What does it say about us? Interesting article: Reeling the Reality: A study on contemporary Reality Shows and their Influence on other Entertainment Program Genres
• Communicating science through entertainment television: How the sitcom The Big Bang Theory influences audience perceptions of science and scientists – Pei-ying Rashel Li, PhD thesis, ANU, Australia. Excerpts from the abstract:
  • Overall the program made science seem less dry and more interesting to the participants, and made scientists seem less socially isolated, humanising them.
  • Participants felt the scientist characters in The Big Bang Theory both conformed to and contradicted their preconceived images of scientists and their understanding of scientist stereotypes.
  • People had mixed feelings about them being mainly in the biological sciences (rather than being physicists and engineers, like the main male characters), but indicated that on television, good value entertainment was more important than portraying gender balance in science.

Since space is free and this chap has more time (imagined vs real) on hands why not open another door for the fool?

Humor and tragedy – why are they popular ?

Why we laugh? why do we find something funny? Could it be because we have a pleasant mismatch of expectations. Expecting a fall, or failing, or a certain direction to a story and being surprised that it was not so and the outcome was instead more pleasantly surprising! Is there a study on humor and the brain?

How about tragedy? Why tragedy and drama is part of entertainment from times immemorial? Tragedy makes no one happy, and yet its popular. Why? Is it because its relatable? is it kind of a mirror? but is a mirror to our lives always welcome? Is tragedy viewed from a third-person perspective kind of makes it relatable but not too first-hand way, not too close for comfort. Tragedy has a boundary of reality, a play in the imaginations of the viewers, safe and sound but nonetheless profoundly involving. Could it be said that with comfortable distance, tragedy is entertainment – its like expecting a fall by mistakenly stepping on a banana but somehow recovering from it. You can feel, but you will not fall = comfort and surprise. Its all simulation that causes the same stimulation as if it were real.

Could humor be seen as short term twists, fast and with jolts that are better than the bad or boring expectations the viewer simulates the situation to turn out to be? Probably we are always trying to anticipate, what next, what next…. If that were not there then there could be no comedy, as comedy could be all about better than anticipated. 

The above all true for fictitious stuff. What about reality TV and modern news broadcasts? Added degree of freedom, unpredictable-ness?

Understanding stuff vs knowing stuff

Often students recount what they have learnt. For example when asked about lenses they blurted out some terms and terminologies, by a very evident act of recollection. That’s OK if its just a language word that they must ascribe a common meaning. But suppose i ask about “what is humor?” i am sure they will jump to definitions they have learnt in their psychology class or read somewhere. I am also sure a lot of times I myself am doing all that. Matching patterns. However, what if we don’t go the path of recollecting from memory, what if we do not react, but repeat the question to really understand what is being asked. After enough pondering, reflection on our own lives, around us, trying to articulate what probably we kind of understand, we may land-up with a bold understanding of it. It may be narrow and incomplete and does not encompass the breadth and depth and scope of a knowledge body about humor generated by deep study over many years and centuries by focused minds, but what we have just done is walked on the similar short term version of what the experts did. Chinese proverb (read somewhere, heard many times) “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you, feed him for a lifetime”. THAT, must be the method. A practice of :

• Pondering hard and long on things that one wishes to know about, even if all about it has already been discovered and written = ‘reinventing the wheel’ as used and abused in technology. But one who can reinvent the wheel has more chance to invent something else as compared to who skipped the whole practice and skill of discovery. There are no shortcuts.
• Then when one takes to reading, or other sources, one is ready to receive. Many questions extending their arms, shouting to be given, yearning to be filled! The grounds are fertile for seeds to grow into magnificent plants. A prepared mind, right for the germination of new information!

In the current era, the amount of time a question remains as a question in the mind is diminishing further and further. Google and forums and the internet give responses as soon as a sentence is half written. There’s no life of wonder here. Or if there is that’s only at the frontiers of knowledge. But then frontiers are difficult and one has never learnt to ponder because convenience was at stake. There go a billion Einsteins down the drain!

So, the way this course is, it could be seen as ponder-based. How bad could it be, the outcomes of pondered directions? Naive and stupid at worst? But the minds, hopefully will carry forward feeling that pondering can also help in self-discovery and learning stuff through observations and so on. The organic way of learning. Inside to outside.

Disclaimer: All the above banter was not discussed with students (thank god or the powers of the unknown) so please don’t jump on me (metaphorically). I know the above is totally unverified, probably has no place in an educational transaction where i must take responsibility of accuracy and depth. The above could as well be fiction of my mind and i wouldn’t be even aware of such. However, in all these thoughts i had invested much time, and it would be sad to loose them, so they are parked here.

We now conclude our inquiries into human nature, need of society and needs of science as a way to navigate through the complexities of both to figure out truth. And begin on some history of science as it begins in Europe. Why Europe? A very interesting question! Hopefully we will get some insight in the following sessions.

Few questions come to one’s mind: What led to science as we know it? What was the situation around, the society, the social dynamics and drama that asked some people to venture as ask peculiar questions? Why was science not developed before, why that range of centuries?

So one must ask what is science or scientific knowledge? Not the textbook definition, which most members easily blurted out, but its a question of the highest quality, question of wonder! However, not enough time or space or readiness for the wonder zone. So, for practical reasons, i must force a rather narrow and incomplete perspective on the helpless souls that populate the class:

Dull, dry and totally killing any wonder one might be wandering towards. But hey, practical requirement i guess. Also I say helpless because they were not given a just time & space to develop their own take on what is science. And there was no revolt, sadly to this mention. Maybe no one saw how bold, or limited or narrow the above viewpoint could be.

Anyhow, since we now ‘know’ what we mean by scientific knowledge, we must also question a little our own authority, participation, stake or presence in the line of inquiry towards a history of science. We, the 10.5 students of this subject (remaining 0.5 is the instructor), must debate and wonder, that isn’t what we do is believe in something, either from a ‘traditional’ source or from scientific sources? Why do we argue that the latter is more reliable, if all we are doing is ultimately believing. Does this not go counter to the scientific spirit of “find first-hand information”? Again a short debate to stir up the already muddy waters… This question never ceases to put everyone in a spot (metaphoric devil’s laugh).

So now that the stage is set, with enough confusion around …

Brief history of modern science

As a preparation, I was searching for a nice essay that could sum up all. Wonderful pages, nice blogs, etc – there are plenty. For example,

• A fantastic resource from a  certain Prof. Robert A. Hatch here . One should definitely read it to understand the background of science. This prof’s website has many pages, a treasure trove of info, among with is a slightly concise chronology of scientific developments – which again is fabulous. A small excerpt: “The learned view of things in 16th-century thought was that the world was composed of Four Qualities (Aristotle’s Earth, Water, Air, Fire). By contrast, Newton’s learned contemporaries believed that the world was made of atoms or corpuscles (small material bodies). By Newton’s day most of learned Europe believed the earth moved, that there was no such thing as demonic possession, that claims to knowledge (so the story goes) should be based on the authority of our individual experience, that is, on argument and sensory evidence. The motto of the Royal Society of London was: Nullius in Verba, roughly, Accept nothing on the basis of words (or someone else’s authority).” Fantastic.
• Medieval science and mathematics – Taylor McCall – A fantastic article that describes the times and needs of the populace and education systems in the middle ages. The story is, that after the 6th century, most of the previous ways of thought and knowledge that had a secular but investigative edge into workings of nature died down with the classical languages like Greek. Then only those pieces of knowledge (origin of word science) were of use that were of utility in architecture, placing of religious dates with astronomical observations, and so on.
• Another article is by one Volker Hoffknecht  here – Science and Technology in the Middle Ages – Although i could not find where this has been published, either as a paper or as a chapter in a book. The content is exactly what i was looking for the class- a longish essay, with good number of details, some analysis and covering the topic of science in the middle ages.

Since i would be a huge cheat if i read a couple of essays a day before and went to the session as an instructor claiming i knew stuff, i proposed a game as an alternative. So i took up the last essay above, tore it up in sections. Then these pieces of paper were mixed up as chits and the students were asked to pick one each, read and put them back in order as a jig-saw puzzle. Talking, and discussing were encouraged. I hoped in this way, they will do the necessary reading, collaborate with each other and make a concise story – effectively doing what i would have done anyways. This did pass on well and the original was recreated. Some contribution to this was also due to the instructor being a novice in such a game formation – cutting the papers in recognizable ways, forgetting to tear off line numbers/page, keeping section headings with the torn pieces and so on – not very intelligent!

So here’s the gist:

• With degradation of the Greko-Roman empire, all important thought literature within Europe is lost as Greek looses its popularity and is replaced by Latin as the language of learning.
• However, early Greek works that were exported out to other lands through Arabian traders and so on survive, outside of Europe.
• After a few centuries gap, these early works find their way back into the main centers of learning in the Europe where they are translated into Latin.
• However, the applications of these works are mostly in architecture and building of Church-related buildings, mathematics is used to compute religious dates and so on – all for religious purposes.

That’s it, of course this is explained and elaborated very well in the essay.

And so, after all the tearing up and joining back story, we discussed and analysed the essay. Due to lack of time, not many questions were asked by either the instructor or the students. I wonder what kind of questions/thoughts one could ask with this limited reading? Here’s some from my lil’ brain:

• Why did Greek drop in popularity and Latin came up? could be an interesting story.
• Its very interesting how just in a couple of centuries significant learnings of previous generations can be lost due to disuse. Was there any intention by the church to do so? Or could it be natural?
• I could as-well be analogous to the lack of science in India? Sanskrit being the language of the learning and that not being popular must have kept so many potential thinkers and wondering souls in dark.
• The way architects used ancient Greek techniques for construction of buildings in Medieval Europe could be akin to the way Indian engineers are trained to think and use knowledge – use these formula to get past the post, the post being an exam or a building, with no pause for thinking why, where, how. Too far-fetched?

This session could have been an advanced session, discussing “Birth of science in Europe”. But i felt that “What is science?” is deserves more pondering than was done in the previous session. Sadly, since i am writing this 3-4 days after the session (procrastination), not all of the wonderful details could be recalled.

Recap

We started by each one (except the instructor) recounting the work submitted as Assignment #1 – Identify 3 controversial issues circulating on WhatsApp/Facebook/Twitter and analyze them. It was very exciting to see the topics they found out and wrote about. More on this in a later post.

A recap followed, and it was further asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does each one agree with whats been going on in the class. One mentioned that individual sessions make more logical sense than the whole thing put together. While another one said the opposite was true. Someone also said that no session was really conclusive over what we are doing, trying to go to, achieve. I too wonder, is this discovery thing going on too long? Is it the right way to approach such a complicated subject with little or no domain knowledge (speaking of the facilitator) and only using this ‘frugal discovery’ technique? I don’t know. I also worry keeping students in this ‘grey area’ too much might make them loose all interest.

As of the original question of 1-10 scale, no answers. Poor souls were so confused they seem to have forgotten the in-between numbers!

What is science?

Again, the elusive question that was asked before but didn’t evolve much. An interesting discussion began. We were lucky that an new student V popped in just then! And in no time joined in the lively discussion (hope the spirit remains for the remaining of the course by someone’s god’s grace). This fresh soul dropped a bomb within the discussion which was bantering around the usual – ‘science is a tool to find truth’, ‘pseudoscience is so because there’s no proof’, ‘asking questions is science’, and so on.

V mentioned that he saw a video by a cult in Gujarat which had ‘proven’ (V’s words) that earth was not round or flat but was a mountain with slopes on either sides. It was so damn interesting but sadly i forget the remaining description. He drew what the cult claimed on the whiteboard. Now how do you handle that – i asked about. It was dumbfounding, but we in some ways needed this – a shake up. What is science if you cant talk logically your way through to the other person, and none of us could in that moment. All it shows is that we are still very naive in that area.

The question, coming back from fantasy, was – how do you know if something is true unless you have done it yourself? MG mentioned Faraday’s experiments proved somethings, but it was countered by asking if she had herself either witnessed it or done it first hand? Aren’t we in the believing business again? The only question remains then that we either believe in things written in scriptures or passed down as non-mistakable concepts or we believe in people who have written books/media/talks/teaching about some remote others (scientists) who claim to have done experiments to ‘prove‘ some concepts. So is it not interesting that all of the current knowledge of science is based on hardly a fraction percentage of human population’s efforts (scientists), same as how scriptures and traditions were made/initiated (by sages, saints, etc) ? What could be the difference then between science and traditional knowledge?

So what is the nature of science? RR mentioned that F=ma is proven to work on earth, but as a counter doesn’t Einstein modify this formula at speeds approaching that of light? SV expressed that the biggest surprise to her was when she came into 11th standard and was told in science that there are no orbits in an atom, but orbitals in 3D space. Everyone somehow thundered with a ‘yes’ to it, as if a universal truth always known but never articulated was mentioned for the first time. I realized i had no memory about the difference between orbits and orbitals (because this was probably from a mugged up chapter designed to be forgotten after exams), so i kept mum, trying to appear wise and all. I thought why not wrestle the discussion to show off my science edge, so i mentioned a little about the confusing Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which in layman terms says that one can’t get a fixed picturesque description of a subatomic particle because, by due to the wave-particle dual nature of particles it will always be a blur! So all the illustrations of atoms in their textbooks were not true, who knows if they are spheres or cones, they might as well be sticks and knots of strings! It was a great discussion.

So, if everything is updated and previous theories are dropped what are we doing? Can we be 100% certain about anything science says? So are we ‘best-guessing’ our way through the world and life and the universe? Here’s an interesting little clip from a sitcom in the US (and famous world over):

https://youtu.be/cXr2kF0zEgI

Wish we could continue it more, rev up the wonder engine. So we took a break with the lingering question – What to believe in if everything is an evolving belief after all?

Break

Unhappy that my last session’s pin hole image experiment failed, i had decided to do another experiment for the class. Ambitious (and crazy) as i am, i choose to do a Schlieren imaging setup. And needless to say, I had never done this before 😉 Here’s the inspiration:

But i didn’t have a parabolic mirror! So what to do? I figured out (through shear logic and some googling) that one can create an easy setup using 2 magnifying glasses. So just a day before the session, i got 2 magnifying glasses, put in some battery and LED connections as a small light source, arranged a rusted blade from an old pen knife and used my Pentax K-5 with Tamron 100mm Macro lens to make the following setup (bad drawing).

It seemed to work well the first time in my workshop and i was super delighted. I spent the remaining working day and night preparing a better rigid setup. Thought a webcam would be better than a camera, bought that but that didn’t work. Did a lot of prep, lens mounts and so on.

Next day arranged everything in class. Finally when it came to demonstrate in the class i realized that there was no soldering gun to show the streaks (English for the German word ‘Schlieren’). UB was kind enough to get hot coffee for the experiment (science has its costs but luckily it also has its patrons) but the vapors from it weren’t visible on the camera screen. KG tried to warm her hands by friction and placed it the path of light, that didn’t work either. All was total popat (Parrot in Hindi, slang equivalent to a flop show). Although the writing is short here, it took a full 1 hour to get to this stage in the class, while the students waited anxiously to see some science in action. It was a sad day for science education.

Conclusion

I somehow demonstrated that not only the facilitator didn’t have domain knowledge of ‘Society and Science’ (and hence preferred the ridiculous ‘frugal discovery’ method), he also couldn’t science properly. In retrospect, i know from my work at Small Design, whenever something is to be demonstrated, shyness overcomes the setup and it just refuses to work. So, need to better it and try again in some forthcoming session. Hope it wont be another disappointment. Fingers crossed (What a superstitious bugger?).

As of an understanding and appreciation of science, maybe this course falls way away from this essential foundation stone. Unfortunately one must turn towards the syllabus designed, on the interaction of science and society, despite an incomplete experience in basic sciencing.

Homework

Only SV and JP seemed to be serious enough to go through the homework assignment:

Discussion on Assignment 1: Find and analyze 5 rumors floating on social media. 

SV had a nice list of 6 rumors/controversies that were very relevant to the world and class. Rohan added more 5. Others just noted the rumors/controversies that were already taken up. Lets see how it will turn out on 13th when they have to submit.

Science, what is it?

The idea was to introduce science and discuss on it. Some basic questions were asked, starting from what is science? Someone said its a method of thought, of thinking through. Someone said its a filter. I agreed and passed on to next question. In retrospect this is not how it should have been. The answers were partially honest, but majorly ‘learned’ in previous discussions or in school. An honest question was not asked, and so a honest answer could not be heard. What is science could be a very deep question, the thoughts surrounding it, the sub questions to that question, the contemplation and yearning for going into deeper questions – that would have arrived at a honest, truely felt question. A question that would make one profoundly aware of the lack of knowledge. To seek an answer then would imply missing the point. Maybe this could be explored in next class.

Class recollected how they did science in school, titrations, microscopes. It seems almost all are from NCERT schools with one or two from IB. The texts they were describing seemed well intended, but the teaching was rushed and typical. Fantastic explanations, detailing and depth were discussed as contained in the texts. All this while, I realized that i am the only one from Maharashtra board, so i kept mum for good reason. JP mentioned her IB education where they could choose to pursue a question of their choice, using experiments and reading to get an answer. She described she studied the effect of different colors on germination of seeds, and that was very beautiful to hear. We all in the class thought that this kind of science exploration and learning was unheard of. I went more mum.

On further probing how they felt about science, there was a kind of unfathomable silence in the class. Only a voice here or there fought a desperate lull to leave its source and travel to my ears, someone said he liked it. But the rest searched. It seemed clear they didn’t know how to describe. I put in some expression with my hands in the air, shaking behind the head – and they nodded. Sometimes words cant help. Sad to see such a beautiful subject not being conveyed in all the years of education that these bright active minds went through.

A science experiment

I thought why not use the method of ‘frugal discovery’ on the way to understand science. The method is the one that we’v been using all through now which is simple: ask questions and with whatever little knowledge we have as inputs, try to build up a logical structure through arguments and refinements.

I had thought about a pin hole effect in the class room. The students were just conveyed that we’ll do an experiment, nothing more. Now we are ‘blessed’ with room number 310 which has no windows, but some below the ceiling vents. Thankfully the transparent glass on them was covered with opaque chart paper, except one pane. PK was kind enough to led the class his shawl for covering that pane. Next the door has a small glass window. A cardboard with a small hole into it was used to cover it. Now all bright sources of light were taken care off, so we thought. The moment the lights in the room were switched off, it seemed we had only scratched the surface – there were many light entries and given the less time we could not have possibly covered them all. So, i proceeded anyways. A small screen brought in front of the tiny pin hole revealed an inverted image of the corridor on the other side of the classroom door. Unfortunately only a few students could see the image, or even realize that its an image.

We put on the lights and i asked around what had happened. It was sad that this experiment could not be done to its fullest. I have seen a pinhole image and it looks very surrealistic, inverted and all that. So by now they had figured out that it was a pin hole. PK came on board to sketch how a pinhole forms an image, which was very interesting. Everyone got it – light travels in straight lines and so an image is formed through the hole. We talked about light intensity and how hole size could change that and the blurring of image as a consequence. Then, the topic of lens came around – a confusion between convex and concave ensued. It was clear that there was a lot of ‘learned’ terminology going around, but hardly anyone know what a lens does to its full extent.

I now know that the above experiment’s impact could have been far far more had i planned and executed it fully, what a shame. Hope i will learn and do better next time.

That was that for this session.

Extra Notes

What it means to science? I wish to nudge the students through the following path, but given this is not a science course and each of these will take significant time, i only write it here for reference. Just in case there is time…

1. What do you understand by science so far?
   1. What you remember in science?
   2. The fun parts, the boring parts? why not the dull parts?
   3. Why do we learn science anyways? why was it taught to us in school? Of course it didn’t have this tradition and society backing we have developed now (in this course)?
   4. What fascinates you about the universe?
2. The idea that there is a natural reason rather than an extra-natural cause of things around. That through sequential reasoning we can build up the end-effect we see.
3. That questioning does not necessarily mean challenging, it can also mean better foundation of things we need to believe in.
4. How to science, How do we test for truth ourselves? – discover the following –
   1. How to science: Observation → Hypothesis → Experimentation → Eliminations → Encore → Scientific facts
   2. Repeatibility – across time, space and the doer
   3. The pursuit of Outliers – the real gods of science
   4. Documenting Vs oral traditions
   5. How science looks without the math ?
   6. “Hey it works, even if your science can’t get it !!” – science as an evolving human understanding of things around us.

Eventually we must also touch upon the difference between science and technology!