Dr. Abhas Mitra, author of the bestseller book The Rise and Fall of the Blackhole Paradigm (2021), has published an Amazon-India review of my book, which I reproduce below. This is followed by my clarification of some of the points made by him. The points I respond to are marked with superscripts (i), (ii), etc.
Dr. Mitra’s review reads as follows:
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* * * * * One of the most valued books I have ever read, though the
cheapest one
It may sound disappointing that many scientists practising science do so as
a routine profession without worrying too much about “Scientific Methods”. Of
course good scientists and good science students do possess some ideas about
the scientific methods to be employed while doing science. However even the
good scientists may not feel the requirement to delve into various latent dimensions
of correct scientific methods and might occasionally be tempted to arrive at
wrong scientific conclusions. For instance, many physicists now think that
String Theory, one of the most hyped topics of theoretical physics ever, might
have been degenerated into some sort of pseudo science even when most brilliant
theoretical physicists have struggled to develop it over past four decades. And
of course general public is liable to be enamored by even pseudo-sciences, for
instance by astrology.
To the best of my knowledge, the present book might be the only one on the
science and philosophy of scientific methods after the publication of The
Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), a book about the philosophy of
science by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author argued that science
should adopt a methodology based on falsifiability. This is so because no
number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a reproducible experiment or
observation can refute one. In his book, the author first dwells on the eight
tenets of the Scientific Method, namely, (1) Right questions, (2) Right
(objective or empirical) observations, (3) Right hypothesis to explain the
observations, (4) Right testing of predictions of the hypothesis, (5) Right
theory, (6) Right language and logic, (7) Right (minimum number of) axioms and
(8) Rightly worded (falsifiable) statements. And the author asserts that these
eight tenets are someway analogous to the eight steps to Nirvana emphasized by
Buddha: (1) Right beliefs, (2) Right intentions, (3) Right speech, (4) Right
conduct, (5) Right livelihood, (6) Right effort, (7) Right mindfulness and
finally (8) Right concentration.
As the author succinctly puts it: A crucial aspect of science is systematizing
the knowledge acquired and, even more importantly, of making the knowledge
available to everybody for scrutiny. Thus at least in principle, science is
always self-correcting. For instance, in 2020, all top scientists believed that
Covid-19 virus does not float in air for too long and hence the disease does
not propagate through air. But by May 2021, it appears that Covid-19 viruses
are likely to freely propagate through air. Such a logical virtue of science
might however be dishonored by the intellectual arrogance of the proponents of
hypotheses which are not verifiable by observations and experimentations, as is
the case with several aspects of Theoretical Physics and in particular the
String Theory.
But this book goes much beyond such mundane aspects as the author points out
that all phenomena are natural and there is really nothing “supernatural”. If
so, in some way religion and mysticism too come under the purview of science in
a broader sense. Simultaneously, he delves deeper into some complex issues of
scientific interest. Accordingly, the 2nd part of this book explores newer
dimensions. For instance, there are small chapters entitled “How to Live Well
Forever” and “Reversal of Chronic Diseases”. However, I have not yet gone
through these chapters and feel that such topics do not gel well with the
general character of this great book and were avoidable (they could be
published separately).(i)
The author is bold and his book even contains a subsection “The
end of theoretical physics as we know it?”. Unfortunately this subsection is
based entirely on a recent popular physics book by the German theoretical
physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. And though I personally like this content, I
feel it has (not) been organically connected with his overall book.(ii) The
2nd part also contains insightful long discussions on works of Stephan Wolfram
on complexity. I am afraid, such sections though highly valuable in their own
rights, look like add-ons and have been some sort of distraction from the
central theme of the book.(iii)
On the other hand, I feel that the section entitled “Which is the
most scientific natural language?” is important for a comprehensive
appreciation of scientific methods because computer science has started
aiding science in a major way. The author points out that for artificial
intelligence, and computational linguistics, there is a subfield called natural
language processing (NLP), or computer linguistics, which is about using
computational techniques to learn, understand and produce human language
content. Here the author highlights that Sanskrit language whose literal
meaning is ‘sculpted to perfection’ is the most scientific natural language. In
this context, he explains why long ago, Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871), who is
sometimes called as “father of computers’’ mentioned that “The structure of Pāṇinian
Grammar is nothing but a computer program.”
The author is an atheist and rationalist in the true sense and not as an
intellectual fashion statement so prevalent in modern India. Accordingly, the
author has no inhibition in highlighting the ‘thought and philosophy’ behind
Vedas the same way Ernest Schrodinger had no hesitation in comparing the
weirdness of Quantum Mechanics to some of the oriental mysticism. In
particular, the author points out that the ancient Indian school of philosophy,
Nyāya, considers the five elements essential to correct reasoning, beginning
with the statement that “The reason (evidence) must be present in the case under
consideration.’
Overall, it’s a rich and exotic concoction of conventional studies on
methodologies of science, history, philosophy both western and Indian. Though
it is no easy read, this is one of most valuable books I have ever read.
However, I have a complaint against the author. Such a unique and precocious
book ought to be published through some reputable international publisher in
order that it would garner real international traction that it deserves.
Unfortunately, it has been self-published.(iv) Yet I
strongly recommend that all science lovers should enrich their collection by
this gem whose e-version is available almost free (Rs. 149 or US $2.0).
==========
I am thankful to Dr. Mitra for his kind words about the book. Here
is my response to some of the points raised by him (marked above with
superscripts).
(i) Why are there as many as three chapters on human health and
longevity in a book on the Scientific Method? There are at least two reasons
for this:
(a) One underlying thought that influenced my entire planning and writing of
this book was that science has to now find ways to go beyond its conventional
reductionistic approach, so as to be able to investigate even complex systems
effectively. The present century will be the century of complexity science. To
bring home to the lay reader the fact that complex systems are all around us, I
picked up the example of the human mindbody, which has consciousness as one of
its ‘emergent’ properties. Our health and longevity issues are something that
interest everybody. The chapter ‘How to Live Well Forever’ provides a powerful
example of how modern science and technology (an outcome of the Scientific
Method) enables us to realistically cherish the hope of living well forever, if
we wish to. Similarly, the chapter ‘Reversal of Chronic Diseases’ serves to
hold the hope that so many chronic diseases can indeed the reversed, thanks to
the fruits of the application of the Scientific Method to the health sciences.
(b) By now it is well established that ancient Indian science and technology,
as also philosophy and mathematics, got very bad treatment at the hands of
Western historians of science, as also their misguided and/or politically
motivated Indian cohorts (see, e.g., Kak (2021): ‘A Brief History of Indian Science’, (99+) (PDF) A Brief History of Indian Science | Subhash Kak
- Academia.edu). In this book I have done my bit to restore the
balance to some extent by including a chapter on the history of science. But
the achievements of pre-modern India were so prolific that I had trouble
keeping that chapter reasonably brief. One thing I have done is to move some
part of the material to a chapter on the ‘The 8-Fold Yogic Way of Living’. So
this is the third chapter on the health sciences. The three chapter together
also served to enable me to compare the three approaches to human health and
longevity. It goes without saying that the yogic way of living is the best: for
the individual, for society, for world peace, and for living in complete
harmony with Nature.
(ii) ‘The end of theoretical physics as we know it?’ is a section
in the chapter ‘Going Beyond Reductionism in Science’. Dr. Mitra would agree
with me readily that we have all been pining for long for the next golden age
in theoretical physics. There has been a stalemate of sorts for the last
several decades. No fundamental breakthroughs have come. People have been
wondering why. Sabine Hossenfelder (2018) in her book has opined that perhaps
it is because of our excessive obsession with the beauty and symmetry of the
equations that embody our theories. That is one opinion. In fact I myself
highlighted the crucial role played by conservation theorems in the discoveries
of hidden (broken) symmetries (Wadhawan (2018): Latent, Manifest, and
Broken Symmetry). So this approach has paid rich dividends. But perhaps we
have already milked this cow too much. Other approaches are needed. The same
chapter in the book gives a lot of space to the work of Stephen Wolfram, who
has been advocating the use of cellular automata and local interactions for
getting the hang of all sorts of research problems, including those in
theoretical physics. I think theoretical physicists should take Wolfram’s
claims more seriously. Who knows, they may end up getting the breakthrough
ideas so sorely needed at the present juncture in the history of theoretical
science.
(iii) Giving so much space to Wolfram’s work is also because of my
agenda to highlight every possible approach that can help make progress in
complexity science. So much so that I end up making some suggestions for
relaxing the very strict Scientific Method a bit so as to bring the study of
even highly complex systems (like the consciousness aspect of the human
mindbody) into mainstream science.
(iv) This is perhaps the first and the only comprehensive book on
the scientific method. And availability of such a book in high-school and
college libraries can go a long way in promoting scientific temper in society.
But there may well be scope for improvement of the book. For this I keep
inviting suggestions and critical comments. Since I am also the publisher of
the book, it is very easy for me to make corrections and improvements
continuously. What is more, it would take me just a day or two to bring out a
corrected / improved version, or even a new edition: All I have to do for this is to
upload a revised pdf file. So please keep giving me your feedback.
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