Science and beyond..

What is Science ?

Science is the system of knowledge for understanding the universe we live in.

One may also say its our universal model to explain and then predict the behaviour of universe. Newton’s law enhanced the model to explain how and why things move, Darwin’s theory allowed it to explain how species are created incrementally from one generation to another and so on.

Each scientific theory, hypothesis and law forms a smaller part of our overall understanding of the universe, thus acting as fabrics that build up our universal model.

Can science contradict itself ?

Science has an eternal obligation of contradicting itself and allowing itself to be redefined by the contradiction.

Few centuries ago, our scientific models believed that earth was centre of universe, heat was a substance, coal was lighting up the sun and that we would fall off the earth if we stepped over its edge.

Every now and then we discover faults and incompleteness in our universal model. New theories, laws and hypothesis’s keep coming up to fix and evolve it. There is always an appreciation for dramatic changes in known universal model and we celebrate them as ground-breaking discoveries.

What is beyond Science ?

Everything that we haven’t studied so far and our current universal model can not explain and predict, is beyond science.

Recently while trying to explain extreme starvation of a monk an expert on TV said ‘this is beyond science, there has to be some other kind of force involved’. I was agitated at the remark, especially because it was deceivingly coming from someone wearing a lab-coat, sitting in a laboratory with sophisticated machines, presented as an expert of science.

There was a time when a piece of rock that emits Devil’s energy and kills all form of life in its vicinity would be considered to be beyond science. But then a few curious people studied the phenomenon, named it radioactivity and enhanced the known model of atomic structures to explain and predict its effects.

Can you imagine what would have been our conclusions if the first and only radioactive rock was found in Mecca or Vatican city, deprived of any experiments and scientific studies ?

Is Science an enemy of Religion ?

If religion is the way of living life, then it is impossible for it to remain unaffected by our knowledge and understanding of reality.

In a debate being conducted in the prestigious Oxford union an Oxford educated, rockstar journalist of Aljazeera said he truly believes the story of a prophet taking a flight while riding a cattle. He got offended at counter arguments and went further to talk about how science was causing more harm than good in his part of the world.

Someone who seeks his identity in miraculous events of the past, will always find discomfort and annoyance in science.

Why can he not see the truth ? Why he sees science as something hostile towards his way of living his life ? He was clearly trying to defend a deep seeded insecurity.

If knowing how world really works comes in the way of religion, science does become an enemy.