Science and Fundamentalist's Illusions

Science and Delusion

by Awais Masood

Freak Stage Magician

They use Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to find out the direction of Kiblah. Their smart phones, priced hundreds of dollars, are equipped with all the necessary software they need to perform their religious duties. Their black berry devices are all too ready to send out emails containing lucrative material preaching the ideology of the school of thought they belong to. They use World Wide Web to watch streaming videos of hate-mongers, pseudo-scholars and so called security analysts spilling out the most profound lies in the name of history. They watch TV Channels dedicated to bring stage illusionists, presenting self-sustaining and cyclic arguments as rational proofs of what they want to believe. They cannot help but clapping, along with all the mindless spectators present at those TV “entertainment shows”, at the most ludicrous arguments that any college freshman, taking a course comprising of epistemology, can debunk in less than five minutes.

They belong to the urban educated middle class of Pakistan. They are one of the luckiest people in this country who are equipped with the necessary tools of language and basic understanding to grasp the reality of this universe and the way this world behaves with an open mind. But here comes the catch. The method that has assisted us in learning how this world behaves is termed as a human invention, a faulty tool created by all so incompetent and “evil” human species. The way science elegantly describes this universe and challenges our dogmatic notions is ignored and most of the time comically challenged with the utmost stubbornness. It has become a custom of these people to dig

DNA could be used to confirm paternity or convict criminals but not evolution?

deeper into its intellectual ignorance by rejecting natural sciences and at the same time using the technology developed (by infidels of course) upon the foundations of  science. It is therefore not strange to find a person rejecting Theory of Evolution, modern genetics or the Big Bang Model of the universe but it will not stop him from having a DNA test to confirm the paternity of his children (what else could one expect from male chauvinists) or play with the wireless inventions of the modern day that owe their existence to the underlying electromagnetic theory of Physics.
I can recall watching a discussion with Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg (who shared Nobel Prize for Physics with Abdul Salam and Glasshow). Weinberg narrated how Salam went to oil rich Gulf States, in order to convince them to develop universities in the Islamic world, where research in natural sciences would be given its due share. He was given a cold shoulder as most of the rulers of Muslim majority countries are interested in technology but consider natural sciences as corrosive to faith and hence to the hegemony of those monarchs who use religion as a tool of authoritarian rule and subjugation of their subjects.
What else could be more comical than a religious zealot using a computer connected to internet and within all his/her senses (if

Internet

he/she is left with any) denying the authenticity of science. What is more troubling is the fact that he/she does not even appear to understand the absurdity of that claim. One must need to realize that the GPS devices, desktops, laptops and the blackberries and all such computing devices are manifestations of elegant engineering achievements which are based upon the basic predictions and theories of natural sciences. Any powerful computing device of today consists of a large number of micro-processing devices. It is quite common these days for an average microprocessor, which itself is no large than a postage stamp, to contain millions of embedded electronic switches, turning on and off more than one billion times a second in a musical harmony which can easily disrupt a fundamentalist’s mind as it is usually unable to understand figures such as billions. It is quite natural because for most of the fundamentalists, planet earth is a few thousand years old (rather than four billion years, which is the actual age of the earth).

This state-of-the-art computing technology of today did not grow out of nowhere. It was not plucked from trees. It did not land from the heavens. It was not brought to us by extra-terrestrials traveling in U.F.O(s).  It was developed scientifically, systematically, meticulously and (most importantly) intelligently. It is based upon some of the most important discoveries of natural sciences that explain how a certain element of nature named Silicon shows a peculiar electronic behaviour under certain conditions. The electronic behaviour is itself explained by natural sciences as a phenomenon that exists due to the flow of an elementary particle of all matter, named as electron. If just for once, it is assumed that there exists no such particle named electron or that there exists no such phenomenon as the motion of electrons, the whole body of knowledge that was used to develop the world of today will collapse. There will be no foundations to support the sky scrapper of the modern day technology. Therefore whenever a fundamentalist uses his/her computer to post, on an online forum, an arrogant, ignorant and absolutist stance that science is not reliable, he/she actually exhibits a perfect example of self-contradiction, intellectual degeneration and cowardice.

The purpose of above example is to relate how technology exists due to the accurate and precise explanations predictions of the natural sciences.The same argument could be based upon the examples of breakthroughs in applied sciences such as medical science, mechanical and structural engineering to name a few. Therefore whenever a Science-Rejecting-Arrogant-Fundamentalist visits a doctor to seek cure for an ailment affecting him/her or his/her children, undergoes a complicated surgical procedure, drives an automobile, boards an airplane, switches on an air conditioner, makes an electronic financial transaction to his/her favourite Jihadi outfit or simply switches on TV to watch the renowned stage magician from India, play tricks with his/her mind, in the name of religion, he/she implicitly acknowledges the accuracy of the scientific theories and their predictions that led to those technological achievements. Natural science is the firm, solid and essential foundation of all the luxuries that these confused arrogant fundamentalists use to preach their baseless hypocrisy to unsuspecting youth, caught in the vicious ford between modernity and tradition.
Scientific Method
Scientific method allows human species to expand the circumference of its knowledge. These techniques, employed by scientists, allow us to understand this universe as it is. Science is elegant and beautiful as it incorporates both the beauty and creativity of human consciousness and at the same time requires the accuracy and precision of observation and evidence. Scientific method involves:

1. Observation of natural phenomena.
2. Formulation of a hypothesis – an outcome of the creativity of human mind which could be artistically aesthetic – to explain the observed natural phenomena.
3. Usage of the formulated hypothesis to predict new phenomena or observable outcomes of the model, that are testable.
4. Testing those predictions through experiments and hence falsify the hypothesis if those predictions are wrong.

By continuously applying the above method, human species has been able to expand the sphere of its knowledge to a level where children of both Secularists and Fundamentalists alike have much higher chances of survival through infancy as compared to their ancestors. Science has beyond no doubt helped us in reducing infant mortality rates. It has allowed us to live longer and healthier by providing better health care services. It has served to raise our consciousness  by ridding us of the self-indulgent delusion of being the centre of a small pre-Galilean universe. It has saved us from indulging in the horrors of burning alive old women at stakes after declaring them as witches just because we had low yield of crops that year. It has freed us (or at least some of us) from the evil spirits and demons that ran amok during the times of our ancestors and caused great damage through storms, hurricanes and thunderstorms. It has allowed us to stop exorcising demons out of anguished psychological patients and instead provide them with proper medical care and finally it has enabled us to challenge the tyranny of those ruling in the name of divine rights. Science is a perpetual, systematic quest of seeking the unknown and turning it into the known. It requires respect towards facts, the ability and courage to shed already present notions of the world, when finally contradicted by evidence, no matter how dear and personal they are to the scientist.  Most importantly, science operates on the principle of methodological naturalism, that is; this universe, which is to be studied, is a closed, self-sustained system where we strive to explain the unknown. But whatever remains unknown in this system does not belong to the supernatural. It only remains “unknown” to be later explored, sought, explained and hence converted to the “known” by the systematic study of the world.

Had it been a habit of the scientists to attribute, what they could not understand- during the course of their work- to the supernatural, we would not have known this world as we now know it today. Had Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday used supernatural explanations, rather than conducting experiments, to study and explain the phenomena related to electric charges, our beloved fundamentalists would not have been able to appear on TV screens and shamelessly deny the discoveries of science. Had Galileo and all the following astronomers, made use of tradition instead of observation to explain a model of the solar system, these modern day stage acts would have been using their putrid arguments to explain how their scriptures prove that sun and everything else in the universe revolves around the planet Earth.  Had Newton (and every one else) attributed motion of objects and their fall towards the earth to a divine presence rather than the inherent laws of this ordered universe, we would not have even developed a basic theory of mechanics and hence pop-artists-turned-fundamentalists would not have been able to travel in Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV), priced millions, along with their fellows in order to preach what they thinks is right. In fact no fundamentalist would have been able to drive a car, board a plane (or crash those cars/ planes into buildings) because there would not have been any cars or planes.

Modern astronomy has shown us that this universe is extremely vast for our minds to fathom. We live on a a small sized planet, revolving around a middle sized star, located at an insignificant spiral of a galaxy, that contains billions of such stars and we are in an expanding universe that may contain billions of such galaxies. Not to forget the theoretical possibility, that there could be many, perhaps billions of such universes. To imagine such cosmic loneliness may turn out to be one of the most horrifying mental experiences by opening doors to an intolerable feeling of despair and hopelessness. But perhaps all is not that bleak as we expect. The same doors that can make a human mind plunge into despair, may lead a way towards the realization of the most cherished gift of nature to human species. The very same, not yet fully understood, human consciousness that allows us to realize the vastness of this cosmos, look at it, touch it, feel it and perhaps love it, is what makes us special. It is exactly when Descartes exclaims, “Cogito, ergo sum“, a human is defined. Our brain creates a visual model of this world inside us, which is then interpreted by our subjective consciousness as the world we see. This world is all what our mind shows us to be. It is, at the end, only our ability and capacity to think that differentiates us from lifeless matter and most of the other animal species. Being extremely insignificant creatures of this universe, the very thing that makes us special is the ability to realize, understand and explore this insignificance. Such a realization can open new doors towards appreciating the beauty of life, consciousness and last but not the least, every other being that can think, feel and understand like us. To develop a very humble feeling of pride in being a human  and to be able to feel and care for every other human being is perhaps not a bad deal at the end. Note: The example of electron is inspired from an audio recording of a Keynote address delivered by Pervez Hoodbhoy.