What if no scientist read Philosophy?
Sarwar Kamal
While I was living in a banglow on the coast of Bangladesh and coping
with officer’s type of life, there lived two healthy men, of whom one was
awarded with PhD in agriculture and another with MS in economics from the west.
It was the time when political hatred and hate speech yet to be taken place in
public discourse and every one could speak of his heart without fear. Officers
from different organizations, cohabited there often liked to share tit bits of
foods and experiences. Relishing of foods and exchange of views often converged
at dining adda. At the time most of the officers would have come to dine, agriculturist appeared with stock of
stories to tell where the economist always remained to be a critic. The story
teller’s psyche was completely saturated with
satisfaction for his achievements, prime of which he took pride in, was
invention of HYV of rice. So, none did mind that he had relished sea fishes in
full dishes of rice as much as four members could digest combined. Once there
fall short of stories of the sort he used to tell, so, not to be remain idle he
promptly poked his nose into the matter for which he was not trained enough. As high winds blow on high
hills, he struck me finding unbending to his scientific and religious dogmas. I
did find fallacy in his conclusive remarks drawn from dogmatic premises, he argued
for many things without logic, sometimes went to the extent of wishing elimination
of logic from academia as it was anything but a productive subject, quite
worthless in regards to producing rice or fishes, to meet common needs of
Bengali folks. In an auspicious moment of poking, he said me, what if Philosophy was stopped in academia in
Bangladesh as it had little contribution to the nation comparing subjects like
economics and agriculture? I replied that the first casualty, surely, would be
his PhD. Had there been no philosophy there wouldn't have been a doctorate (for
him) of Philosophy in agriculture. I posed him counter questions, asking him
of paradigm he employed, whether he verified his findings, and measured degree
of certainty of his new discovery or invention in the light of epistemological methods.
Then, again I asked of his perspective of value judgment, on the basis of which
he came to such a conclusion. To both of the questions, he was dumbfounded.
Though he had firm belief in empiricism and utilitarianism, never did he dive
deep into the matter at philosophical level. My ultimate question was to know
if he had read any text in Philosophy, alas! I was appalled at his orthodoxy of
scienticism not considering philosophy worth reading lest his religious belief
might have been shaken.
Many of us may agree that, science is modern-day religion. Please don’t
get me wrong since it is not what I am going to argue for. Scientific knowledge
is empirical, true, but what we know in science is an outcome of complex
process, of experiments and observations. From sense data to instrumental
perception to paradigmatic constitution of experience, all are phenomenal
knowledge, certainty of which depends on every component of the process.
Knowledge of same thing may vary depending on paradigms. That scientific
knowledge is a social construct, is attributed to subjection of phenomena,
intentionality of knowledge and scientific agenda, where the very agenda are
shaped by and prioritized by political and corporate agenda. So, science should
be looked upon by philosophers, keeping detachment from corporate agenda, to
save humankind and the Earth, as scientific events may turn into violence for
species when scientists surrender to corporate agenda. Add to this, there are
cases of injustice of knowledge and research, for manipulation of knowledge and
prioritization of research agenda, are done not heeding to global outcry. It is
the reason why 5% of global research budget goes to solve hair receding
problems and skin care product development for few people in the world while
.1% budget goes to malaria research which most of the African nations suffering
from.
Now, I would like to back to the point of invention of HYV of rice. With
population explosion in a land hungry country we are at the great risk of
poverty and famine. There were cases of repeated famines in the historical past
for more reasons than one. So, it is of great satisfaction that HYV of rice
helped us graduating from hunger nation to rice-sufficient-nation. Now questions
may arise, is it right to develop high yielding variety of rice, deforming
molecular setup of an organic rice? Is it quite innocent to intervene in nature
to develop new species out of existing rice? Does the HYV of rice benign for
health or what impact would it incur to the human body? What will be fate of
mother species which it stemmed from? How much water and fertilizer does it
need to produce targeted level of crops and how much it incurs threat to other
species and fishes in the paddy field? Answers to these questions should be
considered before evaluating comparative goodness of having HYV of rice or not
having it. In terms of total production, a single crop of rice is not such
profitable as holistic production of rice, fishes and other vegetables in a
particular unit of field. Besides, a modified food may incur allergy, diseases
or other health hazards.
In the history of civilization, philosophy and science advanced through
dialectical method, keeping hand in hand. There are few areas where science and
philosophy overlapped. Philosophy brought beacon to the science, providing new
light of realizations and new ideas. Science doesn't make sense without
philosophy.
The greatest of all scientists, Newton
wrote his famous Principia Mathematica in response to Descarte’s exposition on
meditation. Becoming of a scientist for Newton owes much to the Philosophy than
science. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists the world ever
produced, started reading philosophy after he was awarded with the Nobel Prize
in Physics, not that his country of origin was called the Mecca of Philosophy,
to which he was supposed to do justice, rather exigency of learning of
Philosophy occurred when he wanted to evaluate his contribution and its
consequences to the mankind. Very little did he consider of human folly and of
scientific perspective when he was engaged in exploration and leading to the zenith
of fame. His dialogue with Rabindranath Thakur is of good philosophical insights.
Now, we can mention of Stephen Hawking, who wrote many things of
scientific concern and Philosophical despair, only to prove that he is going to
be a Philosopher. Study of Science is always empirical and there, remain scope
to predict the outcome, forecast the future. Such scientific precision is quite
blind to the value of subjection. Richard Dawkins a populist of atheist stock juxtaposed
many things of sciences to prove that there is no God, one of the core concerns
of Philosophy. Of course he was not much concerned of his own existence while
searching for scientific prove of existence of The God. Most of the
philosophers had science background, in their earlier education, what
philosophy offers to the scientists, is a vision, wisdom and maturity.
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