Synthesis and Analysis ( Excerpted) by Shrii P R Sarkar-The Great Universe

Synthesis and Analysis ( Excerpted) by Shrii P R Sarkar-The Great Universe

Nowadays a group of people allege that science is the root of all evils and that new scientific inventions have created dissention in human society, pushing human civilization along the path of destruction. It is necessary to cautiously and persistently analyse this opinion with an open mind. The moment human beings see the possibility of defeat in war in the physical sphere they evolve new weapons to meet the challenge. The role of physical science is to discover new formulae and to assist in the development of weapons. Had there been no physical clash and cohesion, subtle human intellect would have remained totally unknown to us. Such conflict and evolution occurs in every unit or organism. Thus all organisms develop scientific thought processes according to their respective mental proclivities and capabilities. For instance, the building of nests by bats, the constructing of pathways by white ants and the weaving of webs by spiders proves that these undeveloped creatures have a knowledge of science.

Some people seem to enjoy making useless criticisms against science all the time. Such criticisms, of course, come from those who have lost their vitality and capacity to adjust to new situations, and from those who, due to their physical inertia, have accepted some dogmatic notion as established fact.

The momentum of the past can easily prevent people from adapting to new innovations and circumstances, causing them to deliberately reject the contributions of science. As long as these people are unable to establish psychic parallelism with new scientific discoveries, they vehemently criticize those very things which they themselves are often compelled to utilize. For example, those who are bitter critics of modern medical science and eloquently praise primitive medical methods, do not object to using bandages approved and prescribed by modern allopathy. Even staunch advocates of Khadi or hand spun cloth wear mill made clothes, the protagonists of “molasses philosophy” take sugared tea, and the blind supporters of bullock carts travel by airplanes to deliver hot, fiery speeches in anti-science meetings. But after some time, when they become used to new applications of modern technology, they stop their criticism and hatred of science. Things which they initially criticized now become easy for them to use. The non-availability and short supply of old things gradually forces them to adapt to new innovations.

From this it is evident that those who criticize science in reality want to turn the onward current of the Ganges backwards towards it source, which totally contradicts the principles of dynamics. Such an endeavour indicates a negative mentality. No amounts of shaking the world upside down will ever bring back the era of Rśi hermitages or hermits’ groves. The general mass will never wear the bark of trees instead of mill made clothing or eat raw flesh in preference to cooked food. Nor will they go back to the molasses era from the sugar age. Perhaps those who have never tasted sugar would like to live in the molasses age, but once people have come in contact with sugar they will never fully subscribe to molasses, even by mistake. The reason for this is that their enjoyment of sugared tea has become common and natural. Of course, to enter into such a controversy over molasses and sugar is meaningless because molasses too was once discovered through scientific endeavour.

Shrii P R Sarkar

The Great Universe