Dear J
The article What is Science is coincidentally a timely publication. You may have heard that a video of an IIT professor speaking recently went viral. He says that drinking cow’s urine cures various diseases in the body. But all he says are his own stories. He does not know that there is no such thing as physical proof in science.
Your introduction to Karl Popper in this video states that all these principles of science are known to those who have studied science, and you are saying that for the general reader. Long live your faith.
What we do not know to this day is that science has a philosophy for it. That philosophy is the base for its logic. You clearly state that philosophy has been divided into three stages. From Aristotle to Francis Bacon is one period. From Francis Bacon to Karl Popper is another period. The current period follows this one.
Here, all the sociological principles follow the induction-deduction method of Aristotle’s period. They call it a kind of science, i.e., social science. But today’s science does not accept that method. You explain that Karl Popper rejects it. Our Marxists say that Marxism is science, according to this old view.
Francis Bacon’s science presents empiricism as its basic methodology. This is the foundation upon which today’s technology and practical science typically revolve.But we cannot prove scientific theories in that way. Karl Popper presents the falsification method for that. Still, objective facts should be proven according to Francis Bacon’s empiricism. Examples include concepts related to medicines, machines, materials, and their respective applications.
According to Karl Popper’s falsification method, a theory presented in common must provide instructions on how to falsify that claim. If not, it is not a scientific theory. The potential of cow’s urine as a medicine remains unproven to this day, and no logical explanation was given to prove or disprove it. It is a personal belief of one person. It is a religious belief of a select few. Ayurveda is also a belief held by a small group of people. If they think it is a scientific fact, they should present it to public scrutiny. They should establish that it is a medicine through objective logic. If we reject those reasons, they should accept what we say. That is the way of science; if they can’t accept whatever we say, it is faith, not science.
They do not know the difference between personal experience and science. They make the difference between faith and science disappear. If we look at what they say, the faith that the spels that imams recite can cure illness, the belief that sorcerers cure diseases, the saying that Shiva lingams can erupt from the mouth of a godman, and the propaganda that priests exorcise demons all become ‘scientific facts.’.
Even though it is a brief introduction, you have made all the important points.
Jayakumar Parthasarathy
