God Particle

[Guest guest]

The God Particle was the subject of the expected media reportage last week.

However, it did not excite me too much because I knew that CERN has been working

on some of the most fundamental issues for the last so many years. Everyone

tried very hard to find some Indian connection with this discovery. It is true

SN Bose (hence Boson) was an Indian, but beyond that there is nothing more to

it. 

Today I saw a TV progamme discussing god and science. For a change, the

panelists were dignified men. The panel was composed of scientists, a

sociologist, the Head of Sri Ramakrishna Mission, a spiritualist and a Catholic

priest. It was a cordial debate. They were logical in their views and concise in

making their points. The two Hindu religious men exuded calm and were clear and

balanced in their views. The priest, however, held onto the belief in god more

strongly but without being confrontational.  

 One of the scientists was very impressive with his thoughts. He spoke out his

views with startling candidness. He said a true scientist does not believe

anything unless he understands it. To twist this remark, I feel he meant that a

true scientist believes in things only if he understands them to be true. With a

great deal of serenity, he said there was never any purpose or a design behind

the creation of life, as opposed to the believers who maintain life is the

ultimate divine reality. The beginning of life on the earth was just a chance.

Remarkably, other panelists listened to him with interest and patience.

There has been a

perpetual conflict between god and science. If god is really somewhere up

there, I do not think he would ever enter into a conflict with anybody.

Conflicts arise when the involved parties

are petty, petulant or parochial. God will surely not fall victim to these

negative

attributes. Therefore, it would be pertinent not to talk about the conflict

between

religion and science. A more charitable view of the whole matter would make it

appropriate to say that that there is lack of convergence in the

belief systems followed by religion and science.

   

Truth is arguably the most important virtue. Religion values truth, but this

truth is different. For

religion, god’s existence is the only truth and everything else is secondary

to

this truth. For science, truth is simply truth. You see something: you ask

questions why it is so; you postulate a number of possible hypotheses to explain

what you see; finally, you set out to prove the hypotheses one by one until you

get the right answer. Therefore, science is the knowledge based on experiments

the results of which can be reproduced.

There is another important difference between religion and science.  This

difference is rigidity (or flexibility,

if you put it differently). Religion believes in things in such a rigid manner

that there is very little scope for an honest discussion and reconsideration of

the stated position. Copernicus was persecuted in the worst possible manner for

his observations on the solar system. Now we know what the truth is. Similarly,

the Vatican’s position on contraception is laughable. We treated smallpox as a

curse of god. In contrast, science detected the causative virus and invented

the vaccine, which has kept the world free of this disease since the late

1970s. On the other hand, science gives up a theory if it cannot beproved. Men

of religion become rabid if their views are challenged; whereas scientists

reconcile themselves to new ideas if there presumptions are proved incorrect.

 

At the end, I would

simply like to say this: theories, which are proved, become facts; and facts,

which are not proved, remain as theories.

Bharat