The one-day State-level gathering of rationalists and science-promoters held in Thrissur on Sunday (November 20, 2011) under the aegis of the Science Trust was the beginning of the effort to forge a forum of like-minded people committed to exposing irrational as well as pseudo-scientific belief systems ranging from alternative medicines to dogmas of all varieties including political and religious.
The inaugural speech by Babu Gogineni, the Executive Director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, set the tone for the day-long proceedings of the gathering. He said at the outset that when we defend science we are defending civilisation. As far as India is concerned, the retreat from reason and rejection of science have been costly, he said emphasising that the stupidity will endanger our democracy. Practitioners of pseudo-scientific systems such as homeopathy also talk the language of science without any fear of being caught by law, he noted.
Mr. Gogineni also said that religion and religious orthodoxy are a major threat to human rights. The stronger the religious orthodoxy in a society, the worse the human rights records in that society, he said adding that the human rights and democracy could not prevail without the support of science. The higher superstition of belief in ideology is no less harmful than the baser superstition of religious faith in supernatural powers and belief in pseudo-scientific ideas, Mr. Gogineni pointed out. Observing that the objections to scientific mindset comes from different sources, he said that the major objection was that science does not talk about values. This is nonsense since there is the value of honesty in the very method of science as it is open to question and ready to correct if proved wrong, he said noting that science always updates our knowledge and convictions. According to Mr. Gogineni, those who defend science need not feel obliged to answer all frivolous arguments.
The presentation by Dr. C. Viswanathan on "'Pure rationalism and pre-scientific modes of thought" at the gathering was thought-provoking as he delineated the evolution of the concept of dialectics propounded by Heraclitus into dialectical materialism central to the Marxist ideology. He began his presentation with a quote from Michael Shermer that human beings are pattern-seeking primates. Differentiating rationalism from 'pure' rationalism, Dr. Viswanathan said that while 'pure' rationalism proceeds from concepts and axioms to phenomena, rationalism proceeds from phenomena to concepts and axioms. Science is rational because it examines phenomena to arrive at concepts and axioms.
Quoting Karl Popper's description of Hegelian dialectics as "real physical rabbits out of purely metaphysical silk hats," Dr. Viswanathan demonstrated examples of axiomatic pre-scientific thoughts as found in ancient Greek idea of the balance among 'four humours' being key to good health and similar concepts in Ayurveda. The idea of four humours was taken as an axiomatic knowledge and "pure" rational debates were held on this idea which, however, was not the result of any conclusion on the basis of evidence (it did not proceed from phenomena to axioms).
Dr. Viswanathan applied this distinction between rational and 'pure' rational approaches to demonstrate that dialectical materialism was axiomatic and therefore not rational. Here is my understanding of his explication of the concept of dialectic:
Heraclitus was the founder of dialectics as he propounded the idea that everything is in constant change as a result of inner strife and opposition. The concept of dialectics was given new life by Hegel. Union of opposites is the basis of the Hegelian concept of dialectics. "Dialectic" in Hegel is the method by which human history unravels as, in Hegel's view, history progresses as a dialectical process. Marx and Engels borrowed the three laws of dialectics codified by Hegel. For Engels, these three laws are discovered within nature. Engels just copied the Hegelian laws which are:
1. Law of unity of opposites
2. Law of transformation
3. Law of negation of negation
1. Marx and Engels observed that everything in existence is a unity of opposites. Electricity, for example, is characterised by a positive and negative charge and atoms consists of protons and electrons. Even humans are a unity of opposites of, say, life and death as every living humn being is also dying. Marxism says that everything contains two mutually incompatible but equally essential and indispensable parts or aspects. This is borrowed from Hegelian notion that unity of opposites in nature is the source of movement and change. But, according to Dr. Viswanathan, nature defies dialectician. Take the case of bacteria, for example. Death is not at all an essential part of bacteria. There is also no life and death for hydra. He says that dialecticians are superimposing a pattern on nature which does not have one.
2. The law of transformation states that continuous quantitative development results in qualitative "leaps" in nature whereby a completely new form or entity is produced. This is how quantitative development becomes qualitative change. Insignificant quantitative changes lead to fundamental qualitative changes in the form of a leap from one state to another. For example, while heating water, a one degree increase in temperature is a small quantitative change, but between 99 and 100 degrees there is a qualitative change when water becomes steam. Again nature defies the dialectical law, as Dr. Viswanathan shows. He says that water becoming steam is a continuous process in nature without any increase in temperature.
3. The law of negation accounts for the tendency in nature to constantly increase the numerical quantity of all things. Marx and Engels demonstrated that entities tend to negate themselves in order to advance or reproduce a higher quantity. Engels often cited the case of the barley seed which, in its natural state, germinates and out of its own negation produces a plant and the plant, in turn, grows to maturity, and is itself negated after bearing many barley seeds. Can we apply this barely example of the law of negation to a jack fruit tree, for example, asks Dr. Viswanathan. There are trees that continue to exist thousands of years refusing to be negated by its seeds, he shows.
Dialectical materialism, like homeopathic principle of 'like cures like' or Ayurvedic theory of 'dosas', is only an armchair enterprise, an exercise that proceeds from axioms to phenomena, he says. The true rationalism, that is, Enlightenment rationalism, proceeds from phenomena to axioms. The Enlightenment Project includes revolt against superstition, attack on dogmas and secularisation of institutions and ideas, among others. It is, as Diderot says, to change the way people think.
I came back from the gathering more enlightened.
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