What science has
been all about so far,
and how it should
be done now
Vinod Kumar Wadhawan
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Advance
Praise for the Book
‘Most people think
that science is a body of knowledge which uses a lot of jargon and math.
Dr. Vinod Wadhawan makes it clear that science is, first and foremost, a method
for producing reliable knowledge. The book also serves as a ready reference for
a vast collection of scientific ideas. Not just ‘hard science’ but also ideas
like logical fallacies, the nature of evidence, and philosophical concepts like
falsifiability. All of these are invaluable for aspiring rationalists,
especially if they are (like myself) themselves not scientists. The author also
suggests ways in which science can go beyond reductionism to further the study
of complex systems’.
— Ambar Nag
Data scientist and rationalist
Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Ambar-Nag
Medium: https://atheistblogger101.medium.com/
‘The noted
particle-physicist Murray Gell-Mann was inspired by the grand Eightfold
Path of Buddhism when he invoked it for describing the
deep interlinkings among the fundamental particles. Vinod Wadhawan’s
book is comparable more to the Buddhist 8-fold way than to Gell-Mann’s material
and prosaic 8-fold way. This book is a profound inner view of not only science,
but also of history of science, philosophy, ontology, epistemology, partly
sociology, and overall about life itself.
‘The book contains not
just eight chapters about the methodology of science, but its reach is much
wider, as unfolded in six more chapters. Though the author is a noted
physicist, and has no hesitation in saying that he is an atheist, he is not
dogmatic like many other atheists. His atheism is no fashionable declaration to
announce “I am an intellectual”. His atheism is an outcome of honest pursuit of
scientific methodology which does not restrain him from delving into the golden
pots of the Vedas and the Upanishads, or quoting that “Pāṇini’s grammar, Aṣṭādhyāyī, is the only complete, explicit and rule-bound
grammar of any human language and as such has been appreciated as “the greatest
monument of human intelligence”. His mind is free from all prejudices and so is
the book.
‘Several chapters are
dedicated to important aspects of life, including how to live well and longer.
I am not exaggerating, this book has touched an epic character, and that too
not just any epic. The only epic I can compare it with is The
Mahabharata for the grandeur of the Scientific Method and for the “good life inspired by love and guided by
knowledge”’.
— Abhas Mitra
Astrophysicist
Author of The Rise and Fall of the Black Hole Paradigm (2021)
‘Whereas science has this geeky reputation and gives one a vision of a
mad scientist with wild hair in a dusty lab among books and beakers, one
doesn’t realize that the Scientific Method, which is a prerequisite for good
science, is ubiquitous. For example, not many people realize that our legal and
legislative systems are based on the Scientific Method or that the stock market
is designed using the Scientific Method.
‘Dr. Wadhawan has used the medium of this book to share his insights on
this less discussed but all-important subject. Coming from a real-life man of
science, the book explores the practice of science, transcending realms ranging
from philosophy to science with a uniquely Indian perspective. It answers real
questions ranging from those asked by a curious lay person to an academic
philosopher. In the knowledge economy that we find ourselves in, a book
like this should be made mandatory reading for all college courses, setting the
stage for real-world miracles, and ushering in a sustainable better quality of
life for our next generation’.
— Anjan Madhwesh
IT professional, science enthusiast, science vlogger
https://youtube.com/channel/UCCTJvufWrgHs6G41HoakhRw
‘A compelling read covering a wide range of everyday topics around
science. Emphasizes independent thinking and forming unbiased opinions based on
scientific facts, rather than going with blind faith. Dr.
Wadhawan also delves into how we can live well forever by adopting a yogic way
of living and following guidelines of good nutrition and regular exercise. Very fitting for a 21st century growth
mindset’.
— Namrata Joshi
IT professional
‘Dr. Vinod Wadhawan — an accomplished scientist — has distilled and
synthesised available published knowledge with rare insight, explored the
traditional wisdom of ancient Indian Rishis, and added new scholarly
interpretations in describing the 8-fold way of the Scientific Method for
attaining “intellectual nirvana”. And he has succeeded in doing this in a
user-friendly manner in this book. Homo sapiens — a geologically
insignificant and young entity — have evolved from an animal species of little
significance to ride the cognitive revolution since the last 70,000 years, and
are now leading the Anthropocene changes on planet Earth. The Scientific Method
has been a leading enabling factor in all this during the last few centuries.
‘Scientists with their Scientific Method should also serve society and
constructively guide its aspirational growth. It is my firm belief that this
book will ignite interest amongst student scholars and the general public about
scientific matters, and will motivate them to unlearn certain limiting
deficiencies like superstitions, blind faith, and other irrational belief
systems’.
— Sudesh K. Wadhawan
Former Director General, Geological Survey of India
‘In this remarkable book the author has uniquely and thoroughly analysed
the ‘conventional’ way of doing science, namely the one based on experimental
observations, that has led scientists to make several fundamental discoveries
and great inventions. But in his opinion, we must now add another important
dimension to scientific investigations for understanding natural phenomena more
inclusively. This requires the use of direct experiential evidence as well, so
far excluded from the ambit of science. The author gives many examples to make
this point. His arguments are convincing and impressive. He also proposes that
the term ‘complexity science’ should now be used as a technical term for that
part of science which goes beyond reductionism, and which relaxes some of the
eight tenets of the very strict Scientific Method, so that even experiential
evidence can be used directly. The informed reader would almost certainly
accept his line of reasoning.
‘Exposure to the scientific approach to things will help eradicate, or
at least minimize, pseudoscientific practices that are fooling innocent people
all over the world. Wider and deeper prevalence of the much-desired scientific
temperament and science literacy in the general public is a must, and this book
will help promote that. The book is truly thought-provoking. The author’s
presentation of the facts and arguments is very powerful. It is a must-read
book by both scientific as well as enlightened non-scientific members of the
society’.
— Rakesh K. Bhandari
Former Director, Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre,
Kolkata
Distinguished Scientist, Department of Atomic Energy,
Govt. of India
‘I
liked the way the book brings out the importance of asking the right questions,
presents the role of subjective information in a field dominated by objective
information, highlights errors of reasoning such as confirmation bias,
and tells us about the importance of simplicity and parsimony of
assumptions in the form of Ockham’s razor. I also appreciate Dr. Wadhawan
pointing out how, through complexity-science research, science has been moving
beyond reductionism; that is, understanding the world through the interactions
of its parts and sub-parts, rather than just actions and reactions. I
hope the book inspires the young and the old in adopting scientific temperament
in daily life’.
— Vinay Dabholkar
Consultant, teacher, co-author of 8 Steps to Innovation
(2013),
and author of Mindfulness: Connecting with the Real You
(2019)
‘Vinod
Wadhawan in his book embarks on a noteworthy voyage to discover for us the
intricacies of the ‘Scientific Method’ — a catchphrase most of us take for
granted, but understand so little, and practise even less. The extent of our
ignorance about it, or at best our patchy understanding of it, dawns upon us
page after page, thanks to the lucid narrative achieved by the author by way of
expression as well as explanation. No
sacred cows here; only the guiding principles of cold logic and reason —
spurred by a passionate search for The Truth and a zest for enquiry into the
unknown. That is why the book is a voyage of discovery — perhaps as much for
the author as for the reader. The book addresses not only people in the
scientific community, but also those who have any interest in knowing about the
unknown and the barely known’.
— Upendra Rawat
Banker, poet, science enthusiast
‘The book concerns the science behind the Scientific Method itself — a
strict formalized prescription for how science has to be done. Under the
overarching umbrella of the Scientific Method a diverse range of topics has
been covered with great erudition. Nothing seems to have escaped the attention
of Vinod Wadhawan, be it astronomy, science, philosophy, religion, mathematics,
linguistics, grammar, health, medicine, neuroscience, quantum
physics, logic, computers, technology, education, and most
importantly the knowledge from pre-modern India, to name some. The
latter finds a place of pride in the book. Also, there is elaborate discussion
on esoteric complex phenomena like the emergence of consciousness that do not
seem to fit into the domain of the classical 8-fold way of the Scientific
Method. Vinod proposes a guarded relaxation of some of the tenets of this
method for making scientific studies more inclusive, so that experiential
evidence and other subjective information also finds direct use in science.
‘The achievements of ancient India were outstanding, yet not widely
known even today. There is good exposition in the book of this
profound wisdom and knowledge that came from pre-modern ascetics (who were
detached from the mundane!). Historically it has all but gone into oblivion, or
has been lost due to destruction by invaders. It is great that it is now
finding attention, exploration and scientific scrutiny by several
investigators. The very scientific presentation of all this in the book
is extremely valuable and should help ignite interest afresh, and lead to a
renaissance in re-discovering and understanding our past epochal
achievements.
‘The science of complex systems has been the forte of Vinod. In this
context he has aptly exploited the second law of thermodynamics in his
description of the emergence of complexity. As he said somewhere, the second
law for open thermodynamic systems is the mother of all organising principles.
And this is also an important component in the narrative of his present book.
The book undoubtedly is a culmination of long years of an intense thought
process, along with research, and collection, compilation and meticulous
organization of a large body of precious distilled knowledge from the past and
present. At the fundamental level, it was interesting to read about the
significance of simple rules, and how they can produce the complexity of a
system. The computational approach of Stephen Wolfram is very interesting in
the same context, as it shows graphically how a simple rule to begin with can
give rise to fascinatingly complex patterns.
‘There can be queries that go beyond the ambit of the Scientific Method.
The God question is one. Creator or no creator, super-being or none, etc.?
This has occupied many minds. The arguments in support are circular and do not
as such stand the scrutiny of the Scientific Method. The book gives a lot of
coverage to this. The question remains unanswered, though. The mind-body
question and consciousness are all relevant questions that the author addresses
in an eloquent manner. He has coined the term ‘mindbody’ as an improvement over
‘mind-body’ to connote a single entity, and I believe he hence also subscribes
to the notion of consciousness as contained in the mindbody, and not distinct
from it. There is a wealth of information in the book to relish and to
learn from’.
— Veer Chand Rakhecha
Former senior physicist, Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre, Mumbai
Contents
Foreword 1
Foreword 2
Preface
Part I. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD SO FAR
1. Introduction
and Overview
1.1 The Scientific Method
1.2 The
nature of reality
1.3 Scientific
pantheism
1.4 The
first and the second laws of thermodynamics
1.5 Probability,
statistics
1.6 Information
theory
1.7 Complex
systems
1.8 Evolution
1.9 Cognitive
science
1.10 Does
the Scientific Method have limitations?
1.11 Childhood
conditioning and scientific temper in society
1.12 Organisation
of the book
2.
Asking the Right Question
2.1 Some famous right questions
2.2 Asking scientific questions
2.3 Cutting-edge science, protoscience
2.4 Non-scientific questions
2.5 Science
and pseudoscience
3.
Objective Observation of the World
3.1 Empirical
vs. rational evidence
3.2 Quantitative
vs. qualitative data
3.3 Empirical,
experiential, and anecdotal information
3.4 Double-blind,
randomized, placebo-controlled
clinical trials
3.5 Correlation
is not necessarily causation also
3.6 Objective
vs. subjective information
3.7 The nature of evidence
3.8 Thought experiments
4.
Coming up with Hypotheses for Understanding the Data
4.1 Hypothesis in science
4.2 Hypothesis in formal logic
4.3 Working hypothesis
4.4 The creative aspect of coming up with a
hypothesis
4.5 The God hypothesis
4.6 Vedas
and the hypotheses of quantum mechanics
5.
Reproducible Verification of Predictions of Hypotheses
5.1 The
rigours of verification of scientific hypotheses
5.2 Hempel’s and Popper’s approaches to
verification of hypotheses
6. A
Theory for Explaining the Hypothesis
6.1 What
is a theory?
6.2 Good theories and bad theories
6.3 Distinction between hypothesis, theory, and law
6.4 Has
physics gone off the rails in the 21st century?
7. The
Language and Logic of Science
7.1 Language and humans
7.2 The role of language in
science
7.3 Which is the most scientific natural
language?
7.4 Logical systems
7.5 Logic in Vedic thought
and philosophy
7.6 Roots of modern logic
7.7 Logical fallacies
7.8 What is a good
argument?
8.
Choice of the Smallest Necessary Set of Axioms
8.1 The
principle of maximum parsimony
8.2 Ockham’s
razor and the Copenhagen interpretation
9. The Falsifiability Requirement
9.1 Falsifiability and
inductive reasoning
9.2 Hempel’s raven paradox
Part II. MY VIEWS
ON SOME COMPLEX ISSUES
OF SCIENTIFIC INTEREST
10. Going Beyond Reductionism in Science
10.1 Complex
adaptive systems
10.2 ‘A
New Kind of Science’ (NKS)
10.3 Universal cellular
automata
10.4 Wolfram’s
principle of computational equivalence
10.5 Fifteen years after the
NKS book
10.6 The end of theoretical
physics as we know it?
10.7 Our mindbody, the
quintessential
complex adaptive system
11. How to Live
Well Forever
11.1 The
problem with modern health sciences
11.2 A
matter of hardware-software incompatibility
11.3 Nine
steps to living well forever
12.
Reversal of Chronic Diseases
12.1 The Ornish way of
reversing chronic diseases
12.2 Eat
well
12.3 Move
more
12.4 Stress
less
12.5 Love
more
13.
The 8-Fold Yogic Way of Living
13.1 Ashtanga yoga
13.2 Ayurveda, the science of longevity
14.
Historical
14.1 The
philosophy of science after the 10th century
14.2 Epistemology: empiricism, rationalism, skepticism, and constructivism
after the 10th century
14.3 The Vedas and the Upanishads
14.4 The Sarasvati civilisation
14.5 Philosophy,
science, mathematics, and technology before the 10th century
14.6 Astrology
14.7 The
educational system in ancient India
15. Science is What Scientists Do
15.1 Why so much difference of opinion
even among the
experts?
15.2 Health
sciences
15.3 The scientist as role model, influencer, hero
16. The
Scientific Method Needs to be Revisited
16.1 Consciousness
16.2 Proposals for making the Scientific Method more inclusive
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Foreword
1
Have you ever
wondered what the scientific method is all about? Ask a scientist and
you will probably get many different answers, none of them utterly
satisfactory. Ask a member of the public, and you will probably gain no more
insight into the question. The standard answer is something to do with the
notion of objectivity, namely that a scientific discovery or result should be
testable, reproducible and arrived at without the personal influence of the
scientist who made the discovery. In practice, in my experience, this high
ideal is rarely met, if ever.
Vinod
Wadhawan, in this new book, sets out to dispel many of the myths about the
scientific method and about the notion of science itself. It will come as no
surprise to the reader that, like me, he does not believe in a God that rules
the world we live in. Instead, rational arguments have to be made, with no
recourse to the mystic universe, paranormal and pseudoscience.
Vinod
begins with the concept of the scientific method and exposes some of its
triumphs and weaknesses as practiced by real scientists. All scientists are
human beings, of course, and so are liable to be led astray, no matter how
strictly they try to follow a rigorously objective route. I know from my own
work as a scientist working in the field of crystallography, how tempting it is
to come to a conclusion based on slender, and possibly even questionable,
evidence, and then go on to defend it, even when evidence is later produced to
refute the original conclusion. We do not like to be proved wrong: a human
frailty with which I think we all suffer. Also, we scientists tend to see
ourselves as being apart from the general masses, with some justification
because we have knowledge that others do not. Despite this, one of the problems
today is the scientific illiteracy that pervades the general public and the
political classes who rule us.
You
can see an example of this with the antivaxxer movements around the world.
Despite the horrors of the current pandemic, irrational notions are strong
enough to prevent people from realising that vaccination is a good thing to
have. This is despite its long history of success (for example the complete
elimination of small pox). Such pseudoscientific notions are harmful to
society. To some extent this comes from
skepticism and distrust of experts, rather in the way we tend to distrust the
political class, but also to a general ignorance of science and what it means.
As Vinod explains, the answer to this is to go out and explain science to the
public, but do it in a way that makes them feel that they are part of the
discussion. The other day, I heard a medical expert explaining to a group of
people how the SARS-Cov2 virus attacks the human cells. He made no attempt at
talking down to them, and was using fairly technical language about spike
proteins, messenger RNA, ACE1 on the surface of cells, and so on. When it came
to questions, it became clear that the audience, despite never having had any
scientific training, had taken it all on board and enthusiastically began to
ask rather advanced questions such as one might expect from scientifically
literate persons. It shows that if you do not dumb down your scientific
presentation, there is a good chance that you will be listened to and
understood. This notion is one of the objectives of the book. I recall a similar
experience many years ago when I explained some ideas about quantum theory and
relativity to a few people gathered together in a pub. They became really
interested, despite not having much educational background, and from their
comments it was clear that they had followed the main arguments, and best of
all, they were fascinated by the concepts.
Scientific
illiteracy in my view is a curse. It gets in the way of proper understanding of
the world and can even impede progress. My own bugbear is with the crystal
healing community. Just type the word crystal into Google and immediately you
find thousands of websites talking about crystals, not in order for you to
study, but for you to use in some mystic ceremony that will influence your
wellbeing. Thus you find something called a “Positive mind” set of crystals. Or
what to do with a quartz crystal in order to find peace of mind. There are many
books published on the healing powers of crystals. Some of them begin
rationally enough, explaining what is meant by a crystal and even using the
correct jargon that we crystallographers use. But the cat is out of the bag
pretty soon when they start talking about “energy levels”, as if the author has
the faintest notion of quantum mechanics. But it gets worse when you read
instructions on how to treat your crystal, talk to it in the right way, pray to
it and how to use the energy emanating from the crystal. This reminds me that a
few years ago I saw a beautiful crystal of calcite in a shop window, and so I
went in and bought it. The shop assistant instructed me to place it beside my
bed and that this would ensure a harmonious night’s sleep. I tried it. It
didn’t. I usually upset such people when
I explain to them that crystals are the “deadest” objects in the universe. No energy
is emitted, no auras, nothing — absolutely cold stone; lifeless. I once even
had my life threatened when I explained this to a believer. People do not like
having their beliefs attacked. So, from my perspective, I am pleased to read a
book in which scientific rationality is championed. It is vital that we
scientists explain to the public what we are doing, what excites us and, most
importantly of all, how to discriminate between scientific and unscientific
“fake news”.
The
belief in the supernatural is a feature of humankind and has a long history.
For example, it has been discovered that at the sites of ancient hominids, homo
erectus, living over one million years ago, there are collections of quartz
crystals. Interestingly, they are not modified in any way, and have not been
used as tools. It seems that the ancient hominids found some value in the
quartz crystals, and possibly this was the beginning of magical thinking. It
has been pointed out that in their world, they hardly ever saw any straight lines
(rivers, trees, mountains – all curves). The discovery of crystals must have
seemed especially striking to them, and like the monolith in the film 2001 A
Space Odyssey, this may have awakened in them the first ideas to
investigate the world around them. Since
then, of course, magical thinking has pervaded human history, but gradually as
rational thinking began to dominate, the scientific revolutions became
possible. Nonetheless, it is surprising that in the 21st century
there is still so much belief in magic. One can excuse the uneducated, I
suppose, but for me it is difficult to understand educated scientists who still
hold on to these ancient ideas. There are many physicists who still believe in
the notion of God, and attend religious ceremonies. Yet, when they publish
their scientific work, they never include in their conclusions the notion of
divine intervention as one of the possible explanations of their observations.
The
book describes what Vinod calls the 8-fold way of the scientific method, which
is roughly what we have been doing up till now. Now, while there is still much
to be discovered through the standard scientific methods, it is becoming
clearer, as Vinod points out, that we need to adjust our way of thinking to
deal with ever more complex situations. In science, we have a tendency to
reduce complicated problems to simpler situations which we can solve, and then
expect that the results apply more broadly. There is that famous joke about a
group of veterinary surgeons, statisticians and theoretical physicists being
commissioned by a race-horse owners association to determine how to breed
faster race-horses. After a year they went back to learn about the results. The
veterinary surgeons said that they had dissected one hundred horses and discovered
that to breed better horses, one should concentrate on those with strong back
legs. The statisticians said that they had studied the statistics of all the
races since 1900 and found a small, but significant, correlation between the
winners and the colour of the horses. It seems that chestnut horses have a
slight edge over all others. The theoretical physicists reported that they had
managed to solve the spherical horse model, but now needed further funding to
go on to the ellipsoidal horse case! The fact is that we humans look for
simplicity even when encountering difficult subjects. But there is increasing
evidence that simple, apparently beautiful interpretations actually can mislead
us from understanding the true nature of the world.
So,
in conclusion, Vinod’s latest book is a fascinating collection of ideas and
philosophy of science, which certainly made me reassess my own thoughts on what
science actually means. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
A. Mike Glazer
Oxford
Emeritus Professor of Physics and Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford
Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick
Crystallographer
Editor of the Newsletter of the International Union of
Crystallography
https://www.iucr.org/news/newsletter
February
2021
Foreword
2
Vinod Wadhawan and I have been friends for
more than half a century. We started our career in the Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre at the same time, and I have seen him grow in stature as a researcher in
his professional career, and later as an author of some outstanding books. I am
an admirer of his capabilities in crystallography, and in expressing his
thoughts, often on complex subjects, lucidly and accurately. A few years back I
was attending a session in an international conference on materials science,
where a renowned Professor from the Carnegie Mellon University, sitting next to
me, asked whether I knew Vinod Wadhawan. On my affirmative answer he commented
on Wadhawan’s book entitled ‘Introduction to Ferroic Materials’. He made a
categorical statement that this book is undoubtedly the best book on the
subject. That was indeed a proud moment for me to let him know that I have a
long and close association with Vinod.
When Vinod asked me to write my impressions on
this book, I was thrilled. As I received the final version about two weeks
back, I started reading it and I realised that the task was not so easy. This
is not a book which one can read fast, as there is a lot to digest. Let me
admit that I am writing my comments without fully digesting all the messages
which he has communicated in this book after spending considerable time in deep
thinking on subjects which are of fundamental importance, not just in science
but also in philosophy and in our existence. When I received an ultimatum from
him for giving my views within 48 hours, and knowing how tough a task master he
is, I started penning down these ‘first impressions’.
Vinod’s research career has been in
experimental solid-state physics, with a clear emphasis on crystallography and
crystal physics. What I enjoyed most in this book is that he has treated the
complex subject of the nature of science itself from the perspective of an
experimental physicist. He is totally sincere in expressing his thoughts and
has not tempered with anything to suit commonly prevailing views. There is no
dispute on the eight tenets of the Scientific Method, namely, Right questions —
Right (objective or empirical) observations — Right hypothesis to explain the
observations — Right testing of predictions of the hypothesis — Right theory —
Right language and logic — Right (minimum number of) axioms – and Rightly
worded (falsifiable) statements. These are generally accepted in the scientific
literature. What I find novel is his assertion that they have an analogy with
the eight steps to Nirvana as taught by Buddha: Right beliefs — Right
intentions — Right speech —Right conduct — Right livelihood — Right effort —
Right mindfulness — Right concentration.
There is no doubt that both in science and
philosophy our understanding gets enriched by the ‘courage of our questions and
the depth of our answers’. Extending such discussions, Vinod takes us to the
question of the existence of God. He has picked up many quotable quotes from
great thinkers, primarily from the realm of science. The fundamental questions
which have been arising in our minds from times immemorial are: Who is the
creator of all that we see around us in nature happening with clockwork
precision? ‘If there is watch there must be a watchmaker’; who is it? When all
the things and phenomena came into being? What is our destiny? Is there any
deeper meaning to all that is happening in the universe? Or is it that all that
we see is meaningless? Just maya? Science has attempted answering a few
of these questions. There has been a fairly universal agreement on the Big Bang
theory which says that the universe we live in started about 14 billion years
back, and provides a time line of significant events for the evolution of the
universe. The evolution of living beings on our planet has also been charted by
detailed scientific work. Still, many of the questions mentioned above remain
unanswered. Wherever we find no answer, we resort to God. But there is no
unique concept of God, as the human mind has conceptualised it in multiple
variants. As of today, our knowledge of the human mind itself is abysmally poor
and so is the case with our feelings and sentiments. There is no escape but to
rely on poets, philosophers and thinkers for dealing with these issues.
As far as my understanding goes, there is one
point of convergence in the views of scientists and philosophers:
Astrophysicists confirm today that not all the elements present in our planet
and in our body were generated in our solar system. Nucleosynthesis of several
heavy elements required an event like a merger of neutron stars or a supernova
explosion. Therefore all of us, living and nonliving, carry a part, howsoever
small it is, of the products that resulted from such big events. Therefore we
all are directly connected with this big universe. In the same manner the
billions of micro-organisms residing in our bodies are responsible for
important functions such as digestion of food and production of vitamins.
Scientists are in full agreement that the harmonious presence of the entire
biota, not only of a local region but of the whole planet, is essential for our
very existence. A cruel illustration of this fact is getting revealed in recent
times in the occurrence of the present pandemic. This important fact of our
links with the whole universe from both macroscopic and microscopic dimensions
had been sensed by poets and philosophers, even of ancient times. They also
raised the question ‘Where from come the creative traits of the human mind?’.
In Einstein’s words ‘the intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.
Often there comes a leap in your
consciousness, call it intuition ……. The solution comes to you and you don’t
know why’. The great mathematician Ramanujan believed that much of his original
work was due to divine grace. This totality of nature encompasses everything,
material and mental, in the universe, and we as individuals are connected in a
cosmic web. Tagore narrates this concept of unison of individuals and nature as
a whole in a beautiful way in many of his poems and songs. Indian philosophy
goes one step further. The monist view proclaims that an individual and the
whole of the nature are not just linked, but they are indeed one and
indivisible. I don’t think we can design an experiment to prove or disprove
this hypothesis. But this concept has no contradictions with the scientific
knowledge of today. Vinod in his book describes this viewpoint as scientific
pantheism, or the naturalistic worldview. The science of complexity has been
discussed in this book and in his previous book, with a number of illustrations
and plenty of quotations. Vinod has been working in this area for a while, and
the depth of his understanding is reflected in the lucidity of his presentation
on this ‘complex’ subject.
The thermodynamic basis of the process of
evolution has been quite enjoyable for me to read. Conceptually the process of
crystallisation from a liquid or an amorphous structure can very well be
considered as building up a three-dimensional edifice with a periodic
arrangement of units or motifs using a given algorithm. If a translational
periodicity is invoked one generates an infinitely large perfect crystal. With
two or more units and a set of rules, defining translational periodicity, a
three-dimensional space, expanding to infinity, can as well be created. The
result is a quasi-crystalline structure, which was initially conceived as a
result of a mathematical game and later proved to occur in real systems. The
concept of infinity which is difficult to visualise, but encountered in
irrational numbers and infinite series, can thus be illustrated in real terms.
The two basic principles, one of lowering of the free energy of the system, and
the other of increasing of the entropy of the assembly of the system and its
surroundings, govern the processes of evolution in nature. Vinod has explained
this with the help of first and second laws of thermodynamics. This part is not
just enjoyable reading for those who are familiar with these concepts, but are
extremely valuable for those who are getting introduced to this subject. In these
discussions I can easily identify the author who has extensive experience in
the field of phase transitions. The issues connected with stability,
metastability and un-stability, elaborated in the book with the help of a
figure of a Mexican-hat shaped potential, are definitely of importance from
pedagogic considerations.
The book, as I have scanned through so far, is
not something that you read up in a continuous stretch. You need to take a
pause, spend time to think, often go back to earlier pages, jump some pages and
read a new chapter, and so on. It is a companion book which provides you food
for thought. It is a storehouse of valuable quotes. It makes you think, it
helps you inculcate the habit of objective and rational decision-making in
complex situations. It gives some useful health tips and even gives solace in
difficult circumstances. The book goes much beyond what its title may convey.
This is a book written by an experimental scientist with an Indian mind, who is
trying to understand things in nature and events happening around him with his
personal scientific insights. I welcome this valuable addition to literature in
the domain bordering science and philosophy, and I congratulate the author.
Srikumar Banerjee
Chancellor, Homi
Bhabha National Institute (DAE), Mumbai
Former Chairman,
Atomic Energy Commission of India
February 21, 2021
Preface to the First Edition
This book celebrates
science and the Scientific Method. It takes you into the world of science and scientists, and explains how
natural phenomena are investigated. The term ‘Nature’ means all that there is,
so there is nothing outside or ‘above’ Nature. Therefore, all phenomena are
natural phenomena; nothing is ‘supernatural’. In science we investigate all natural phenomena; with varying
degrees of success, of course.
As Brian Cox said, ‘science is too important
not to be a part of popular culture’. Our collective intelligence has enabled
us to evolve the all-important Scientific Method for investigating natural
phenomena. But science is not just about investigations. It also has the
crucial feature of systematizing the knowledge acquired and, even more
importantly, of making the knowledge available to everybody for scrutiny.
Scientists do further research based on what is known and published in journals
of science. This leads to continual progress in our quest for knowledge and
understanding. Newton put it very aptly: ‘If I have seen further it is by
standing on the shoulders of Giants’. The cumulative (and exponentially rapid)
growth in our knowledge would not have been possible in the absence of
knowledge-sharing.
A great feature of the Scientific Method is
that it is self-correcting. This makes science a dependable and exciting
venture. In fact, the (empirical-evidence based) Scientific Method is the only
method we have for arriving at objective knowledge that we can trust with a
high degree of confidence. ‘The good thing about science is that it’s true
whether or not you believe in it’ (Neil deGrasse Tyson).
Just imagine what our lives would be like
without all the science and technology at our disposal today. And there is
promise of exponentially increasing rates of progress in the days to come. All
this has become possible because we humans have invented and perfected what I
call the 8-fold way of the Scientific Method for understanding natural phenomena. Here is a
glimpse of what it is all about:
Suppose we are curious about some natural
phenomenon and we have made some observations about it. We want to understand
it, and to generalize the conclusions if possible. Here is how we go about
doing this in science: We begin by asking a well-formulated question we
want to answer. Then we make observations and measurements that we
believe will help answer the question. The next thing to do is to make a guess,
i.e., formulate a hypothesis, that can explain what we have
observed and measured. The fourth step is to argue that if our guess is
correct, we should also observe in Nature certain consequences of our guess,
apart from understanding our initial set of observations. That is, we make predictions
and verify them. If the verification is not satisfactory, we go back to
modifying the guess, or even coming up with a different one. We may also have
to go back to making more extensive and accurate observations of what we want
to understand. Finally, if the hypothesis and the predictions made by it stand
verified, we gain confidence in it. It may turn out that another related set of
observations or phenomena can be explained by another good hypothesis. One or
more good and related hypotheses in a scientific discipline of enquiry deserve
a logical explanation as to why they work. This is done by formulating a theory. A classic example is Newton’s
theory of gravity for explaining Kepler’s analysis and generalisation of
observations about planetary motion.
But is that all there is to the scientific
process? No. The above five steps of the Scientific Method for arriving at
objective truths are actually embedded in an ecosystem defined by the following
three additional stipulations or tenets:
1. For describing anything we need a language. The language used in science
must always have a strict and unambiguous logical structure. In
science we impose the severe restriction that each word used must be defined so
unambiguously that it means the same thing to everybody. Moreover the rules of
logic must be self-consistent, and universally acceptable.
2. For formulating a hypothesis or a theory,
and for other discourse on the subject, we should work with only a minimum necessary set of axioms. The
axioms may be
truths already established, or they may be something just presumed to be
tentatively valid. And the litmus test for the presumed axioms is that the
conclusions drawn from them must agree with objectively obtained experimental
data (or empirical evidence).
3. Finally we have the so-called falsifiability (or refutability) requirement.
It says that only those claims or conclusions are permitted in science that are
so worded that it should be possible to prove them false by a suitable
experiment or argument.
This 8-fold way (the set of eight tenets) of
the Scientific Method has
been assisting humanity in attaining progressively a kind of intellectual Nirvana, by conquering ignorance bit by bit. We are
mortals, but the Scientific Method enables us to achieve a kind of immortality
in the ever-expanding and self-correcting edifice of scientific knowledge we
create in common; that is, by acquiring, interpreting, sharing and recording
(for ourselves and for posterity) empirical information and tentative
conclusions about natural phenomena.
A common perception, particularly among those
exposed entirely to what is called ‘Western science’, is that the Scientific
Method for investigating natural phenomena is about 400 years old only, if not
less. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the Scientific Method
is ‘a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th
century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and
the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses’. Science has indeed made
very rapid strides in the last 400 years. But it would be wrong to think that
there was no scientific activity before this period. This issue is also
examined in this book. I am an Indian brought up in India. Therefore I am in a
somewhat better position to empathise with the Indian claims about the
philosophic, scientific, technological, and mathematical achievements in our
hoary past.
Here is an English translation (by A. L.
Basham) of the Nasadiya Sukta, also known as the Hymn of Creation; it is from the Rigveda (10:129) and is about
cosmology and the question of the origin of the universe:
Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There
was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What
covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was
there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
Then
there was neither death nor immortality
nor
was there then the torch of night and day.
The
One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There
was that One then, and there was no other.
At
first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All
this was only unillumined cosmic water.
That
One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose
at last, born of the power of heat.
In
the beginning desire descended on it -
that
was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The
sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know
that which is kin to that which is not.
And
they have stretched their cord across the void,
and
know what was above, and what below.
Seminal
powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below
was strength, and over it was impulse.
But,
after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence
it all came, and how creation happened?
The
Devas (minor gods) themselves are later than creation,
so
who knows truly whence it has arisen?
Whence
all creation had its origin,
he,
whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he,
who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he
knows - or maybe even he does not know.
I love that last line: ‘he knows - or maybe even he
does not know’ (emphasis added). That is the essence of what the
Scientific Method is all about. An open mind. A rational approach. Skepticism.
Willingness to change one’s views in the light of new information, making it a self-correcting
venture.
This book has four main objectives. The first
is to describe the methodology used in science for investigating natural
phenomena objectively. The fairly detailed account of the process is intended
to give the reader a feel for the pains scientists take for ensuring that the
empirical knowledge so gained has the highest attainable degree of credibility.
The self-correcting feature of the Scientific Method is highlighted, as also
the high degree of skepticism adopted by scientists in their quest for
knowledge. The level of presentation is designed to take the message of science
to as many people as possible, but without dumbing down the narrative
unnecessarily.
The second objective is to emphasize why the
scientific approach should not be confined to the laboratory alone, but should
be applied to all human dealings and discourses. Scientific temper in society
is a must, and this book is one more effort for promoting that.
My
third objective is to highlight the empowering effect of science literacy on
all of us. After all, science is done by humans, and the human mindbody is a
highly complex system. This fact of life colours just about every aspect of the
world of science and scientists. Science literacy in the public at large is a must
for distinguishing between the scientific and the unscientific (or
pseudoscientific). Science literacy is also important for your physical and
mental wellbeing: Your very choice of proper doctors and other health and
nutrition experts depends on how well you are already informed about the basics
of the health sciences, as also of the machinations of some big pharma
companies for increasing the sales of their merchandise.
Fourthly
I make a case that there is now a need to make scientific investigations more
inclusive by guardedly relaxing some of the tenets of the very strict 8-fold
way of the Scientific Method that we have been following so far (with
astounding successes, no doubt). This has become necessary for making headway
in the science of what are technically called ‘complex systems’. The
human mindbody is among the most complex of them all, and many people,
including several eminent mainstream scientists, take the concept of human
consciousness very seriously. At present, experiential knowledge, so
characteristic of a sentient being, is largely kept outside the purview of
science because of our insistence that any statement or claim in science must
be reproducible by everybody, everywhere, any time. Some proposals are made in
this book as to how we could possibly enlarge the scope of the Scientific
Method by including for investigation in mainstream science certain esoteric
phenomena occurring in complex systems, rather than letting studies on them
continue to lurk in the shadows. Science should aim at investigating all
natural phenomena, including those occurring in the experiential domain. New
nomenclature is proposed in this context, assigning distinct technical meanings
to the terms ‘science’ and ‘complexity science’. The former will continue to have
the meaning it has at present, along with strict adherence to the Scientific
Method applied till date. And the technical term ‘complexity science’ should
henceforth be used for that science in which some of the eight tenets of the
present Scientific Method are relaxed a bit to give ‘complexity science’ a more
inclusive scope for bringing concepts like consciousness into mainstream
science. All this calls for a debate, though.
Vinod Wadhawan
New Delhi
February 2021
Preface to the Second Edition
An effort has been made to factor-in the
feedback obtained on the first edition of the book. Some less relevant material has been removed
to make space for new information. A section ‘Ayurveda, the science of
longevity’ has been added in the chapter ‘The 8-Fold Yogic Way of Living’. I
decided to do this after reading a recently published book by Gangadharan
(2021): Ayurveda: The True Way to Restore Your Health and Happiness. Dr.
Gangadharan talks like a real scientist; in fact, he is one. It was through his
book that I learnt about an extensive study by Govindaraj et al., the
results of which were published in a paper in Nature in 2015; title:
‘Genome-wide analysis correlates Ayurveda Prakriti’. The study identified 52
genes that determine the prakriti of a person, meaning that the ancient
Ayurvedic concept of prakriti has a scientific rationalisation, and that it can
now be identified by studying these genes also. Another development in modern science
that has had a counterpart in Ayurveda is that of the field of epigenetics. Our
genes cannot be changed readily, but their expression or otherwise is in
our hands to a substantial extent. This resonates well with the Ayurvedic premise
that nurture can overrule Nature to a very significant extent. This means that
even the seemingly ‘incurable’ diseases can generally be overcome through
adequate lifestyle-changes, aided by holistic Ayurvedic medication. Another
addition to the book is a brief discussion of some implications of the rather
recent discovery that the mighty river Sarasvati was a reality, and not a myth.
Evidence indicates that the land around this now extinct river was probably the
primary cradle of the entire human civilisation — and of ancient Indian science.
Vinod Wadhawan
New Delhi
December 2021
