New Delhi [India], September 11: This is an age of Technology, there is huge storage of data, information are the statements we hear very often today. There are a few questions; are we interpreting progress of technology as progress in science? Are we considering that origin and progress of social media is progress or development of science? Progress in technology is merely an application of science and certainly not development in science. Progress in technology is not progress in science. Scientific perspective is the way to find out cause and impact of an incident, when this will happen on large scale in people, then that will be progress in science in true sense. Science is a very extensive concept. 

In twenty-first century, expansion of technology is spreading with great speed. Entire human race has been captured with the way the technology is spreading. The entire world is in awe of the instruments and gadgets developed with the help of technology. This entire picture is very inspiring. While this is one side of the picture  the other side is of blind faith in town fairs, following traditions based on blind faith. 

If you recollect, few days ago, a school, situated in Education capital of state of Maharashtra, a pooja was performed which was a topic of debate. 

It is a big riddle that it happened in the city where an institution like Satyashodhak Samaj was established. The point is it’s not the question of blind faith, faith, belief or satisfaction but it shows where we in terms of development of scientific inquiry are. 

Few days ago I was a part of crowd proceeding towards a crematorium. One of them was laying food packets while walking on the road. I was quite surprised and when enquired about it, I was told that they were following an age old tradition. They were unaware of why it is being done. This clearly shows that impact of traditions is very strong on people’s mind. People never try to analyse the cause behind it and follow it blindly. This is very common in rural areas especially during fairs that are held. Sacrificing animals for some deities is very common tradition which people follow meticulously. It often raises doubts if we are truly living in the modern age. This is the biggest obstacle in creating a society that believes in science and scientific approach and further curtails the growth of progress in science.

The world is following modernism, but we are caught up in conflicts, blind faith, casteism and ethnicity. While some people are dominated by religion some are stuck in casteism. Backward thinking, religious dominance and ruling party with ulterior motifs are against scientific approach because science is associated with analyzing and truth. Curiosity about an incident and it’s analysis will put a full stop to ghost stories, sacred threads, evil traditions and untouchability. It is often seen that few people are always for following such traditions instead of uprooting them. 

People who follow such traditions or still are living in the past, they do use gadgets and machines based on technology.  In short they want world full of technology but just to prove their dominance they don’t want scientific approach towards things.

UNESCO celebrated first Science Day on 10th November 2002 and have given following objectives.

·         to Strengthen public awareness on the role of science for peaceful and sustainable societies; 

·         to Promote national and international solidarity for shared science between countries;

·         to Renew national and international commitment for the use of science for the benefit of societies 

·         to Draw attention to the challenges faced by science and raising support for the scientific endeavour to Investing in Science. 

These objectives are very important to for spreading and promoting science. We have not been able to saw the seeds of scientific temperament despite claiming to be modern and progressive country. This might lead to deceiving ourselves. An illness can be treated if diagnosed correctly. We can apply the same principle to create scientific temperament among people with the help of abovementioned objectives. This will be helpful in creating a balanced thinking society. Adam Smith says,” Science is an effective medicine for blind faith” this in true sense will be able to irradicate blind faith in our society.

Indian Constitution in 51 – (A) mentions – Citizens should have scientific temperament and should spread and promote Science is every citizen’s responsibility. Post-independence India has progressed remarkably in science and reached moon and as an Indian citizen I am proud of this achievement. Today when we see educated young people going barefoot around a hillock or a mountain, they fast, take a vow   and completing the said pledge, it feels that we want world created by science but have we been successful in developing scientific temperament I them? For balanced progress of society, we need to accept unison of scientific world and scientific temperament together is the need of an hour. If this happens then we can say that we want world created by science and right perspective about science. 

Written By :- Ajay Kale