Science, Scientist, and The People!!

Science is objective. Therefore, it has more predictive capacity of material world than common sense. Therefore, it is useful. Therefore, people has to pay attention to it. Therefore, society has to pay its bills. Science can be very useful tool for the society but if society doesn’t understand its nature then it can be totally ineffective tool. As it has become ineffective in environmental change debate.

The essential nature of science

Science is not so straightforward in practice. To gain a scientific knowledge, one has to go through following 3 challenges. Who is observing the objective reality?, How is the objective reality observed?, and What is concluded about the objective reality?

1. Who?

The objective reality can not manifest itself without an observer. A scientist along with some instruments is needed to observe the reality.  The integrity of the scientist and his instruments have to be assumed otherwise the reported observations have no value in scientific sense. This integrity can’t be fully verified. Moreover, one can say that it is impossible to fully verify the integrity of the scientist and his instruments.

2. How?

If a scientist embarks upon observing an objective reality then she has to make many decisions. She decides which experiments to conduct, which instruments to use, and which information about the objective reality to collect. The made choices are heavily depend on the person of the scientist. The difficulty is that all objective realities depend upon infinitely many factors. No matter how carefully the scientist design the experiments, it can’t take all those factors into account. So, it is impossible to fully observe the objective reality under investigation.

3. What?

After collecting those information about the objective reality. One has to make sense out of the information. At the final step, scientist has to supply considerably concise theory about the objective reality there is. For a given amount of information, there can be multiple explanation of the same objective reality. The scientist picks one explanation which makes most sense to her and reports it. So, it is quite likely that the produced explanation is not entirely correct.

How do in practice scientists deal with above 3 steps or 3 problem?

As we saw above that each of the 3 steps entails a kind of impossibility in achieving the desired goal. Following are the means using which  scientist deal with each of the problem.

1. Who?– Respect in the Community & Redundancy

It is fair assumption that if the scientist has high integrity then she will use the instrument with high integrity. One individual can’t deal with such a high standards of personal integrity all the time. It is human nature to get easily seduced to lose one’s integrity. Therefore, scientific work is done in the form of communities. For each distinguishable subject matter, e.g. Physics and Biology, communities are formed.  The individuals who belongs to the community observe an objective reality and report it back into the community. These reports are read by the community members and they critically assess the integrity of the report, i.e., assessing integrity of the observer. More often someone reports trustworthy facts, one becomes more respected. Meanwhile, other individuals of the community try to observe the same objective reality. This redundant work may verify the previous observations or some times they may show that previous work had mistakes. In result, we learn a set of observations which are correct ‘beyond reasonable doubt‘.

2. How?– Standardization

The community of scientist soon face the problem of the second step. They slowly achieve consensus among themselves that what and how much should be observed to gain confidence on collected observations. This standardized procedure is commonly referred as the accurate methodology of experiments. They refuse to accept reports which doesn’t comply with this minimum standard of methodology of experiments. Notice that this standardization of the observation procedure is not done by an individual but by some set of individuals. In result, we use a methodology which is useful ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

3. What?– Regress and endless discussions

Scientist carefully examine collected data and propose the potential theories to explain the reality. They debate endlessly about these theories. They refute most of the proposed theories in their course of discussion eventually they left with few contending theories. This provoke more need of collecting observations such that we can conclude at the final theory and refute other contending theories. As these new observations come in, more mysteries unfold and more discussions provoked. This process is summarized by the philosopher Hegel as Thesis, Anti-thesis, and synthesis (Dialectic). Observe that this can be endless process or may take very long time to synthesize the final theory. So at any movement of time, we have a set of potential theories which explains the reality ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

Perception of science in society

People in general are indifferent with how scientists work. They have seen significant benefit came out of scientific investigations therefore it is not a bad idea to pay for scientists. The problem comes on the surface when society demands actual advice on matters of the science. People in general demand definite answer from scientists with complete certainly. As we have observed, the scientist can only respond with a theory beyond reasonable doubt.

For example, people regularly go to Doctors and get advice for their health. A doctor can only tell his patient that if he takes this medicine then he may potentially get better. Unfortunately, most people take their doctor’s word as a word of certainly. If the patient doesn’t get better than he only curses the doctor and goes to another one.

Environmental change debate

People some times demand advice from scientists for public policies. Such as, up coming environmental disaster. People want to know how the environment is changing. How bad is the impact of human activity? How much time is left before this environmental change can’t be reversed? Is there any problem at all?

If really there is upcoming environmental disaster then people have to act collectively. This has triggered a great debate of environmental change. People ask scientist to come up with an advice. Some individual scientists produce articles which describes a potential theory which says that there are global events in environment which indicate significant change in Eco system of Earth.  The articles also suggest in controlling emission of green house gases, low exploitation of natural resources, and protecting wild life.

Some powerful people don’t like their suggestion. These suggestion may change the public policies which might take away fortune of these powerful people(owner ship of coal mines, forest land, or low production of oil). They start a reverse campaign against those scientists. They say the proposed theories are not full and final. These theories are simply potential theories. They conclude that these theories have no more value than personal opinion of the scientist who is writing them.

As scientists observe this move in the debate. They say that our theories has more value  than opinion. The scientific community comes together and publish a common statement about the theory they believe in. As we have discussed before that a proposed theory has to be accepted by the scientific community at large to become a scientific theory(or a theory beyond reasonable doubt).

In public eye, this appears to be a political action taken by the scientist. These statements are dismissed on the ground that scientific truth can only be stated by a single person not a community.

In result, voice of scientist is lost in this squabble over who? how? what? is trustworthy.

Never make an unverified assertion!!

If you say that you never tell a lie then no one believe you. They don’t believe you not because they think that you are a deceitful person but they think that being truthful all the time is extremely hard job.

We carry billions of assertions(opinion) in our head and most of them are false. Many of them are formed because of some mis-observation, mis-information, or insufficient data. Some of them are self-illusions, that is,we think that we know some thing but there is no real observation corresponding to the opinion. Lets say I take up the task to verify all the opinion stored in my head. It is my personal observation that it is a very hard task to find out which set of the opinions stored in my head are not well verified.

Major problem in this task is that one is not consciously aware of all the one’s opinions. They are not enumerated inside one’s head where one can go and check them one after another. Somehow you have to bring them on the surface. Only means to bring any opinion at the level of conscience is to engage in an activity which force one to use the opinion.

Most obvious tool is to engage in discussions or arguments on various topics and don’t be ashamed of saying statements as the opinions say in the head. If other people point at some wrong opinion then check back the correct facts and fix the opinions.

I have observed people don’t appreciate the usefulness of serious discussions. They try to avoid it. They have certain conception for the negative effects of debate. Some of them are listed here:

• Some people are just afraid of saying something false and being laughed at.
• Sometimes difference of opinion in argumentation ends up offending other person.
• Argumentation doesn’t give you anything and it is just waste of time.
• Only the people who are smug about their knowledge like to engage in argumentation.

As I love to argue, I face above attitudes all the time. Here I just want to say that if you find me arguing somewhere just keep in mind why I love arguing.

Why are Creationists winning the battles?

Here is a YouTube video which shows the argumentation between a creationist and a evolutionist.

Creationist’s position is very safe in a setting of debate. There are very limited ways to disprove them. They build their theory on top of some set of holy scriptures. One can disprove them by finding a contradiction within those scriptures. Other way to disprove them is to find a wrong natural fact stated in the scriptures. A creationist doesn’t have to show any evidence for his theory. Absence of an alternative explanation makes him right.

Creationists had observed problems with their theory long before scientific methods can notice. They have developed detailed list of escape routes from the attack of science. If you think naively that I understand science so i can easily refute creationist claims then you haven’t engaged with creationists. They know better about science then you would know about religion. Creationist’s objective of debate is not to find a right answer but to make sure that arguments of the other side don’t reach to the audience. During the debate if scientist doesn’t see this happening, she will certainly fail to make a point.

How does creationist escape?

Holy scriptures has been a dominating source of knowledge for a quite long time. You are not the first person who is examining them critically. In medieval times, there has been lots of effort to re-interpret holy scriptures again and again as any reasonable objection had risen. There has been mutually contradictory interpretations of the same scripture at different times by different people. In essence, they fix some set of holy scriptures and try to come up with a sane interpretation. This whole interpretation business has evolved in last 2000 years such that all possible inconsistencies can be removed. It is not the case they have removed all of them. It will be very hard to find an inconsistency in holy scriptures which can’t be fixed by a little twist of interpretation of the holy scriptures.

One can also try to find a wrong claim about a natural fact in holy scriptures. Creationists have already prepared its answer. All the holy scriptures are written in poetry. So, it is hard to decide that which part of the scriptures is direct description or which part is metaphorical. Again, this freedom of choice is subject to ones interpretation. Creationist will say that scriptures are not wrong but the interpretation is wrong.

Why does scientist fail to win the battle?

Creationist use people’s week understanding of scientific methods as their main tool. He just want to show common people that science is not the answer of all their questions and problems. Science is incomplete. It doesn’t answer everything. He will push scientist to the point where she can’t answer any further. At this point, she has to say I don’t know. Creationist will catch up right at this point and provide religious explanation. He can always do it because religion explains everything.

Science depends on experimental data. If an hypothesis is supported by enough data then it becomes a theory. Creationist will ask scientist what if all of your data is wrong. An honest scientist will say that it is quite possible. Creationist will immediately claim, “See! these scientists are not sure of their own theory. So, How can we believe them?”

All human knowledge, including science, is axiomatic. Creationist will show you that religion has axioms. Science also has axioms. Hence both are same. No one has an advantage over another. At this point of argument scientist feels lost. She doesn’t want to actually say the right answer to creationist’s claim because the difference between scientific axioms and religious axioms is subtle.* If she tries to explain then people may not listen.

The essence of science and its power can’t be explained in an hour long debate. Someone has to spend time and learn the ideas of science. Only after spending some time one can make sense of it.

How to do science?(2)

“A talk is advertisement of your work. A good presentation is full of little lies!”

[ Here, my objection is not an argument but an opinion. ]
Presentations should be fluent, simple and clear. One should try to make them as easy to understand as possible. One shouldn’t throw many ideas on listeners face. One should try to use as simple language as possible. It is hard to follow these guidelines even if you know them.

But, I am against this “Advertisement” view of scientific presentations. Science in essence boring and it excites only boring people. Science is attractive only to a person who likes flow or reason across arguments. Packaging science in superficial exciting look doesn’t help science anyway. This can only attract people who don’t appreciate the rude and sharp nature of science. I have a feeling that there is a certain percentage of PhD students who do not really understand essence of science. They undermine the process of scientific reasoning.* Someone said that,

“Things should be made simple but not simpler!”

There is no science for layman. Either you understand it or you don’t. There is no simple explanation of complex ideas. An idea should be presented simply only if it can be simply presented without loosing soundness.

“A good presentation is full of little lies!”
This act of pretension, hand-waving can only mislead people. I hate when i see people doing this in their presentations. Some times these ones are considered the best.

It is presenter’s choice how he wants to do it. I will not say some presentation is bad until I understand what is presented. No matter how boring or flashy way it is done. If advice like above are advocated then i will stand to reject it.

* I don’t claim that i understand best about science. I am in process of learning and this is an attempt to tell what i think. Feel free to counter my opinion as blatantly as possible.

How to do science?

This summer i did a course about, “how to do research in computer science?” offered by a great prof. It gave me a good overview about how scientific community in computer science behave. I learned many good things in the course but some things seems directly contradicts with the basics of science. One of them is:

“Cite others respectfully. Don’t reject others ideas in flat words. Otherwise you will make bad relations with co-researchers.”

My objection:

Science has three specific objectives for crediting somebody for discovering some knowledge.

a) To motivate people to do more and quality research such that they can become famous.

b) Nobody has tested all the scientific knowledge by oneself. We just assume many facts. In this way of dealing with knowledge, It is quite possible that some wrong mythical facts creep in as scientific knowledge. If we hold responsible somebody for each fact then this effect can be avoided. Whenever, someone wants to write a book on some subject then one can directly go to the experts of the subject and hold their neck for their claims. If the founder of the particular fact is already dead than well indexed papers can be used to authenticate. If in future some one shows that a paper has a wrong fact then this paper can be tagged for being wrong. In essence, credit system provide a bug prevention mechanism.

c) This credit system keeps the history and chronological order of discovery of knowledge. By studying evolution of science a researcher can learn how it has been done and what excited the earlier scientists. It can provide intuition of scientific methodology. What observations actually led to the solutions? What can mislead a researcher ?

Now back to the class, The proposed wisdom was that we should treat our fellow researchers nicely when they make wrong claims. If you have to disagree then articulate it in such a way such that you wouldn’t hurt her ego. This approach may serve reason(a) very well but reason(b) will be defeated. Reason(b) is much more important than reason(a). If mistakes are not pointed ruthlessly then correctness of science can be in danger. Researchers will not feel pressure to make correct and exact statements.

It seems asking point-blank questions is considered bad behavior. You can’t say on someone’s face, “You are wrong”. As Richard Dawkins noted as “Nineteenth century taunt” in his book “The God Delusion”:

“My whole world-view was condemned as ‘nineteenth century’. This is such a bad argument that I almost omitted it. But, regrettably I encounter it rather frequently……..
… What ,then, is coded meaning of ‘you are so nineteenth century’ in the context of religion? It is code for: ‘you are so crude and unsubtle, how could be you are so insensitive as to ask me a direct, point-blank question like “Do you believe in miracles?” or “Do you believe Jesus was born of a virgin?” Don’t you know that in the polite society we don’t ask such questions? That sort of question went out in the nineteenth century.’ But think about why it is impolite to ask such a direct, factual questions of religious people today. It is because it is embarrassing! But it is the answer that is embarrassing, if it is yes.”

The sentence I want to pick is “it is embarrassing!”. What is the equivalent in academia? In academia, If someone proves that you are wrong then it is embarrassing movement for you. It is totally opposite to what scientific methodology asks you to behave. Let me quote Dawkins again,

“I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said–with passion–”My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal–unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping.”

That is the highest ideal of science. If someone claims that you are wrong then, after understanding your mistake, you should accept it and enjoy the correct knowledge you have learned.

[Somewhere i had read that one shouldn't write post longer than 1.5 page long otherwise no one will read. So,
To be continued....]

Have you ever felt this way?

I recently recalled an evening of my life while talking to a friend. I should say it was one of my first encounters with the nature.

It was a summer evening of 1999. I was preparing for 12th board exams. Next exam was about Hindi language Prose. I hated all those beautiful and waste of time texts. I was reading this chapter “Description of morning by the great poet Maagh” (may be this was not the exact chapter name). This piece of text is about a poem written by Maagh in Sanskrit thousands of years back. Text was translation from the poem as a poetic prose. Exam point of view this kind of texts were hard. My all in all goal in language courses exams was to somehow pass them.

The original poem was about a beautiful winter morning somewhere in India. The poem was translated to this text about 100 years back. Somewhere in the text, one paragraph was talking about some child and a bullock-cart which was going to fall on the child. I was suddenly puzzled. What the hell? A falling bullock-cart was part of a beautiful morning. I went over and over that passage and then i realized that it was symbolizing stars. The scene it was talking about, Sun was about to rise from the east. Sky was still dark with little haze. Only the bright star were clearly visible in the sky. In north, this bullock-cart(without bull) is going to fall on the child??

After reading few times it cracked across my mind. I ran to the upstairs. It was one hour after sunset. I looked at Northern sky. Pole star was right there as child and the “Great Bear” (Sapt-rishi) hanging over it as falling bullock-cart. I felt the imagination of the poet. If you know hindu mythology then the child was Krisha and the scene was about when a demon was trying to kill him using bullock-cart.

It was the time when i was starting to learn observing sky. I had learned few days earlier that sky after sunset in summer looks same as the sky in winter just before sunrise.

And, There was a poem written thousands year back which was translated 100 years back. It describes winter morning sky in some cryptic way. Then, I was reading it and observed the description of sky in summer night sky which was consistent with the fact which i learned few days back. It felt like a cosmic dance. I was amazed with the consistency of the universe for a while. I immediately fell in love with the Nature and decided to be a Physicist. As no first love ends up in marriage. So, i am trying to do PhD in Computer Science.

I guess it takes a while for a child to observe the links between the facts of nature and feel the consistency of it. At least, first few times it amazed me and it still happens with me now.

-Ashutosh K Gupta

Which one is more intuitive?

“There exists a null set.” –First axiom of mathematics.

“There exists a GOD” –First axiom of any religion.

Can you find any difference in nature of them?

Are there reason of some things?

Law of force:

Newton found that force is proportional to acceleration. Acceleration is second derivative of position. It seems so obvious result that it is very hard to doubt further. My query is:
“Why nature chose second derivative of position to be proportional to Force? Why not third derivative of position? Can we develop a consistent physical world in theory with force proportional to third derivative of position?”

If there is a very obvious explanation for it please let me know.

Uncertainty principle

Nature contains particle. And particle can’t exist without certain properties such as position, movementum, energy and mass. And these properties have interdependencies. If you fix one property then automatically others get a constraint over their values.
One of these dependency is uncertainty principle. It says there are interdependent pair of properties in the nature. If you are certain about one property then other get loose its certainty in its value. Mathematically speaking, product of uncertainty of the pair of properties can’t be less then a known value. Such pair of properties are (position, monument am) or (Energy,Time).

My feeling asks: “ Why there are exactly two quantities whose uncertainty product should be lower bounded? Why not product of three quantities?”

If you play with the equations of the quantum physics you will feel that this uncertainty principle is implication of 2-dimensions of imaginary number space. If you tight your solution in one dimension it will set loose in other dimension.
The reason behind why quantum physicist chose imaginary number as base of quantum equations seems to me is completeness of the imaginary number space.

Does completeness of imaginary number space imply uncertainty principle with only two components?

Or

Nature has some master plan which implied uncertainty principle and also completeness of imaginary number. We humans just got a chance to put them together.
All mathematician are invited to answer my confusion.

Engineering Vs ……..

en·gi·neer·ing (nj-nîrng)
1. The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.

2. The profession of or the work performed by an engineer.

Above is the meaning of the word Engineering from Dictionary.com. My opinion is that it is not a correct OR it does not reflect what actually is engineering?

When I first heard about IITs and decided to go for its entrance exam, I was able to understand any other word better then Engineering. I was completely ignorant of What would I be after being an engineer? Now! I am an Engineer and want to know, Who am I?

Which kind of activity we would like to term as engineering? Above definition of Engineering is fairly good but it does not separate it with “Research in Science/Mathematics for practical purposes”. It can be said that all kind of research, which is done in practical ends, is Engineering. Whatever way, we like to define in theory but lets see what does it actually mean in practical world.

In this world, we see Engineers who do engineering. These guys do lots of things such as playing games all night, or drinking coffee in work time or solving few scientific problems when they got some spare time. We can’t just go by their activities. We have to observe that when they are called good engineers. When they meet deadline,when they deliver thing with given specifications,when they able to complete the job in limited resources. An Engineer can’t be called a good engineer who delays his project,or over budget his project, even if he is very knowledgeable and he would deliver better if would be given more time or resource. For a research activity a goal is chosen but for engineering a specification is set.
“You have to build this bridge,which should be able to carry this much payload, with the help of these many men and with this much money in this much time.”
At the end there may be the case that a better bridge could have been made but if the bridge has been made by the specification then he is the best engineer. He don’t have to fight for better solution. One more thing, Specification should not be vague. They should not carry superlative degree. i.e write best optimal compression scheme for video. Then this problem would change from Engineering to a field of research.

Obviously this view is only an extension of the first definition of the word Engineering. Otherwise lots of kind of people do their job under constraints. But, Special thing about Engineering is that there is no direct and visible connection between problem and the solution. An Engineer have to work it out.

In last century we have seen lots of Engineering miracles. An Industry grows like any thing if It got good engineers who deliver solutions in time and meet specification according to needs. There can be a better solution then what is produced but its of no need until previous solves your problem.

Now I wish to discuss that what happend with me , what is going on in my college ,what is happening in India?

We all say we haven’t grown in engineering as fast as we should have in last fifty years. We have institutes like IITs which have genrated so bright people but still progress was slow. Here, I will not try to claim that IITs haven’t ever produced any good engineers. But, my thesis is that all good engineers coming out from IITs are not interested in working in INDIA. They might have have their personal reasons but lets talk about a large chunk of IITians, who are not so good engineer and not interest in being engineer.

I claim that we haven’t trained right set of people to be engineer. Instead of that we have chosen people who were able to score more in an exam. They could be a good problem solver in exams or they have good understanding of basic sciences but they might not have essential quality of being Engineer. Everybody asks the kids in 12th if she is planning to be Engineer or Doctor. Nobody really guides then. Eventually, Students choose something in between of of the two. Some of them attend JEE and get selected. The student never knew what is Engineering and if he gonna like it or not.

So, What happens after 4 years of engineering, out of 400, 200 students eying for CAT, around 50 students are looking for IAS. Around 100 students choose not to do anything further and go software Job, which most of them don’t like. They are doing it because they don’t have energy to fight for other options. They are doing Engineering but they just don’t have that passion to solve problems. They just keep switching jobs to get paid more. They pretend to do programming for 5-6 years and then they try to be manager as soon as possible and then no engineering simply talking and filling excel-sheets.

Around, 50-60 students who went for higher studies. They are simply gone. They went to US and never came back. I don’t say most but many of them went for higher studies just because it was window to US. I would say we got only 30-40 students at the end who would be doing real engineering and have that love and passion for it and very few out of them would be in India. This is very inefficient system.

I am not saying rest of the students have wasted all their education and they are doing nothing. They are serving in their own way. No! money of this country got wasted. As an education system IITs are successful, but I am talking about the concept of Engineering, Technology and Science. That suffered a great loss. Many other students who would have loved to be an engineer wasn’t able to enter in good engineering college. They could have served science and technology better.

I guess you can’t design an accurate test which can test real engineers or scientist out of student of 12th class. Admissions in engineering college should be done in a different way. Students, who only love science ,should apply for admission in IIT, not any damn poet who thinks that IITs are the best college and i should be in. It should not be fortune making place but it should be about loving science and technology.

This can’t happen in this country. Your fortune is tightly associated with fortune of your family. Engineering is not about being Engineer but its about getting paid well. Guys have to arrange money for their sisters marriage. Most of the prime time of people’s life get wasted in just reaching to a position. Family comes first before any thing.

Science and Technology can’t thrive until this basic structure of Indian society doesn’t not change.