We leave our mark on earth not as a species that is afraid to grow, but as a civilization that has the courage to ask questions. Nobody ever made sense of life, nobody can; what matters however is that we explored it the best way we could. Rajit Roy
“Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.” Jacob Bronowski in his epic work The Ascent of Man (a book and a TV series) dedicated an entire chapter to his own skeptical approach in epistemology. He argues for the validity of knowledge over belief despite the uncertainty and fuzziness that exists in the former’s pursuit. That knowledge is preferable to any reassuring tale of human worth in a seemingly infinite cosmos was one of Carl Sagan’s favorite anecdotes. Yes, knowledge is flawed. Since the dawn of human history, uncertainty about the universe is what has driven us forward in our curious endeavors. Quantum theory made it quite evident that any form of perceptive knowledge, the knowledge of physics and matter, always has a degree of non-conformity. However, the human quest for absolute answers has plunged us into the nadirs of pseudoscience and mythology. We have learnt to shield our ignorance with a pretension of knowledge. Even the modern concept of science in an industrial setup has chosen to divert from the quest to a mere application of knowledge, which is a tragic trend. We have grown intolerant of our own fallacies, afraid that our skepticism may lead us to reproach. What appeals to us is power and absolute control, and look what it has done to us. Contemporary science needs to be set free. We must realize that what Galileo and Darwin achieved in their lonely quests was invaluable to human empowerment. Despite the flaws that are unavoidable in any scientific pursuit, the very nature of human imagination is to be challenged. Applied science can do us as much good as religion or mythology has done, and they are important to human survival, but it is the desperation to know, to understand what seems incomprehensible, to be able to question established facts and beliefs, that ultimately leads to a liberation of the human spirit. Remember that ending scene from Jacob Bronowski’s documentary series where he stands at the Auschwitz concentration camp and makes a compelling observation on the human condition: “It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.” Despite the darkness that seems unconquerable, despite our fallacies which is only human, despite the uncertainty in our knowledge, it is our continuing quest for a reasoned, rational perspective of the world that makes human intellect worth a million years of evolution. We leave our mark on earth not as a species that is afraid to grow, but as a civilization that has the courage to ask questions. Nobody ever made sense of life, nobody can; what matters however is that we explored it the best way we could.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About Me
Rajit Roy
An existential romantic, an agnostic and a prospective biologist. Archives
September 2018
Categories |