Homo erectus, which
originated somewhere in Asia or Africa about two million years ago, travelled
to many corners of the world within the following million years. It is clear
that this was not just for the search for suitable habitat. Otherwise, all human
settlements would have been confined to the river valleys, which were very
suitable for habitation. But this ancient man had walked across fertile land and
some of them have settled even in steep terrains and barren lands with very harsh climates.
I see the only possible reason for this is the intrinsic curiosity of those
human beings.
Ancient human beings, who,
for several hundred thousand years slaughtered animals and ate raw meat, may
have experienced a softer, more palatable taste when they ate the flesh of an accidentally burnt animal. So when they saw a natural fire, the dead animal would have been
thrown into the fire and eaten the roasted soft flesh.
A forest fire does not occur
where and when it is needed for human beings. Thus, the mind of the
primitive man may have worked in finding a way of creating fire whenever it is
required. This idea, matured over nearly a couple of million years, led the man
to develop the technology of making fire.
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What you read above is the
birth of science and technology. Science was born and advanced because of the
human psychological quality of curiosity (inquisitive mind). The unquenchable
desire to meet one's own needs (inventive mind) is the mental quality that
drives the technology to move forward. These psychic properties perform
interdependent (i.e. interconnected) functions for science and technology to be
advanced.
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Two million years later,
these ancient human qualities are still written in every cell of the human body.
Thus, science and technology is not something new that emerged just four or
five hundred years ago.
It took mankind at least a
million years to understand fire and another similar period to come up with the
technology to make it artificially. It took tens of thousands of years to
understand the motion and produce the wheel. It took thousands of years to
understand the human body and develop Ayurvedic medical technology.
However, it takes human
beings less than only a century to understand the virus and develop vaccines
for many diseases. The story of computer technology is counted in decades, and
the drone, a new science a few years ago, is now a common technology that even
comes close to everyday life. Today, some people are blaming science for not
being able to find a vaccine for Covid-19 within a few months.
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Science and technology,
which have been around for more than a million years, have reached a critical
juncture a few centuries ago. Until that turning point, the science developed by
experience and experimentation (most often by trial & error). Then, people
discovered a fundamental way of approach, which is called Scientific Methodology. This
new approach converted millions, millennia, and centuries of scientific and
technological advancements into decades, years, and months.
Modern science, as we call
it today, is the science that works according to this methodology that is accepted
by everyone irrespective of his/her space and time. Other than that, in all aspects,
there is not much difference between the science of ancient man and the science
of modern man.
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“Have you seen the
electrons? "
"If haven't, how do you
believe that they exist?"
"Similarly, how can
you say that there are no gods or no reincarnation, or no athma just because
you have not seen them?"
I have met many people in
the past who ask such questions. They are mostly trying to prove a particular religious’
opinion. I almost always remain silent without answering these questions. But I
don’t think that it is a good response. This article is written especially for those who
really want to have an answer for that.
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From the beginning,
science has been based on curiosity, not belief. Belief is the coffin of
science. The journey of science stops on the day that the belief is
established.
By science, we mean
building a model based on the information that we have gathered over a period
of time, and also on our analytical power. That model is valid only for that
time frame. Once a scientific model is built up, we try to explain the
observations in nature and construct the technology to meet our needs, based on
the scientific model that is developed. Every scientific model works up to some
extent and then problems arise.
Then we change the model
we have built according to the accepted norms of scientific methodology. Then
we step into another domain in another time frame. The accepted truth in that frame of reference is
the modified model. In this line, Science changes at each moment passes by. It quenches
our curiosity and arouses new curiosity. Our needs are also renewed.
Accordingly, the technology that meets the requirements also changes. This is a
never-ending journey. The best example of this is the story of the atom.
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Man has been curious about
the building block of the universe for a long time. The first concept of the
building block of the universe is mentioned in Vedic texts about 4000 years ago. It
was called “Brahman” (not the Brahma, the Creator of the Universe as indicated in
the later Hindu scripts). We will discuss that in another article.
The earliest mention of
this in Europe was by the philosopher Democritus, a contemporary of Aristotle,
who lived some 2,400 years ago. He said that as the matter continues to separate,
it ends up with a very small particle.
However, Aristotle held
the opposite view. Aristotle was a very popular man at the time, thus,
Democritus' opinion was suppressed. Whatever the building block of matter, it
may not have aroused the interest of the society at that time. And, then for
the next two millennia, science was overshadowed by the belief system that
dominated the rationalism of the human mind.
The idea of Democritus
resurfaced about 2200 years later. John Dalton called the smallest building
block of matter “the atom”. He also modelled them as small spherical solid
objects. This allowed him to describe the behaviour of the gases to some
extent.
But over time, studies
of charges have shown that there are other smaller parts of the atom that are
considered to be even smaller spheres; protons and electrons. J. J. Thompson
gave the atom a new model, where the atom was represented as a tiny sphere of
electrons immersed in a positively charged uniform medium.
Soon, however, Lord
Rutherford’s experiments pointed out that most of the atom is empty and the
tiny electrons move around the positively charged protons in the centre. This
model helped to clarify many more observations and thereby develop
technological tools.
Over time, some
observations could not be explained by the above model so that newer concepts emerged.
This winds of change blow continuously to this day. It will go
on for many more millennia.
Despite the model of the atom
changed over time, each model paved the way to the discovery of electricity
and electromagnetic waves, which in turn produced a number of new inventions
that turned the lifestyles of the entire human race upside down.
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Thus, nothing in science is
based on eternal truth or a belief. Scientists try to define the world by
creating models as per the knowledge base and analytical skills available at a
given time. When that is not possible, they change the model. In addition, they
develop technology to meet human needs through the existing model at a given
time.
Have I seen the electron?
Do I believe that there is
such a thing as electrons?
This type of questions is
meaningless. Whether or not there is really a thing as an electron exists, it
does not have an impact on scientist's intentions. He builds a model of whatever
it is and tries to understand the world and meet the needs of man. He changes
the model when his desires are not met.
It is because of this
journey of science and technology, that you have a more comfortable life today than that of a person in the fifteenth century. We do not know whether it is a lie, an
illusion, or a fact, but we can see that it has many benefits.
In the two million years
of human history, the number of untimely deaths from viral diseases alone may exceed several billion. No divine power or supernatural force could stop
it. But thanks to this science, which some people call as a "blatant
lie", millions of lives that would have died so tragically in the last two
centuries, have been saved.
