Western science as humbug

This refers to the letter to the editor by Prof. N. A. de Amaratunga on 11th April 2013, on the subject Science Vs. Humbug. It is not directed at a person in name, but I thought of replying to it whether the hat fits me or not. At the outset I must say I am not influenced by postmodernism and my relativity of knowledge is a result of Paticcasamuppada which is neither objective nor absolute. Bududahama consists of relative knowledge and in Sutta Pitaka one cannot find any reference to absolute objective knowledge.

If Prof. Amaratunga reads work on what is known as the EPR paradox and Aspect’s experiments in the original and not through popular writings he would know that there is no local reality as such, irrespective of the works of Kuhn and Feyerabend. Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, independent of Postmodernism claims that the observations are observer dependant, even if one forgets the Vidyalankara interpretation published as a so called peer reviewed paper at the invitation of the editor of “Kalyani”.

What Feyarabend says is that there is no scientific method as such, and not only he and Kuhn, but even Popper was for “democratizing” western science whose so called colleges control their disciplines with an iron hand that the Catholic Church could not dream of. In that respect the Catholic Church was more democratic than the present western science establishment.

Western science begins with sensory perceptions (it considers only five senses) but does not have “faith” in the observations. Thus they go on to construct kathandara called scientific theories and test the so called theories with nothing but sensory perceptions , in which western science does not have “faith”! Could Prof. Amaratunga resolve this paradox before discussing further on the “pattapal boru” that are called theories. In the meantime I have four questions for Prof. Amaratunga.(i) What is meant by truth (ii) Is the theory of gravitation a pattapal boruva or not. If not justify the answer. (iii) I presume that Prof. Amaratunga is a Buddhist and would he please state which scheme of evolution he believes in: Big Bang, Darwinian evolution and the associated body of knowledge or evolution according to Agganna Sutta? (iv) How did the ancient people in this part of the world come to know that the earth goes round the sun long before Copernicus or any other European knew? Prof. Amaratunga can follow any method to answer the above questions.(13/04/12)

Nalin De Silva

On Science and Culture

Prof. N. A. de S. Amaratunga in his letter to the opinion page on 17th September 2012 states: “Thomas Kuhn (and Michael Polyani) believed that scientists’ subjective experience made science a relativized discipline (see – "The Structure of Scientific Revolution", 1962). The subjective experience as we all know could be influenced by culture. Briefly speaking it is this idea that has made writers, both in the East and the West, say that science is based on culture.” Kuhn never said (western) science was a relativised discipline in “The Structure of Scientific Revolution”. Kuhn was neither a relativist nor Post modernist. He only opposed Popper’s Falsification Theory which said (western) science developed by the attempt of (western) scientists to falsify existing theories in western science. Kuhn challenged this theory and said western scientists almost all the time did some experiments to prove the existing theories and that only during what he called revolutionary times scientists came out with new paradigms. If Kuhn has said that (western) science is created relative to a culture or words to that effect Prof. de S. Amaratunga should quote the relevant passage(s) from “The Structure of Scientific Revolution” without quoting others without references on Kuhn and his so called relativism. After attributing to Kuhn a statement to the effect that science is a relativized discipline the Professor says subjective experience could be influenced by culture, as if it came from Kuhn. In any event western science is subjective like any other system of knowledge and even according to Prof. de S. Amaratunga subjective experience could be relative.

Some postmodernists may be realtivists but their main characteristics are deconstruction, claiming that there are no meta narratives, not mega narratives as one well known literary figure in Sri Lanka believed, but Kuhn does not subscribe to any of these. He was accepted as a conventional Philosopher of Science who taught at MIT though there may be a few around the world who think of Kuhn as a postmodernist and a relativist. If Prof. de S. Amaratunga refers to Feyerabend as a relativist I have no objection but I must say that Kuhn was never a relativist. His incommensurability simply said theories cannot be compared as they use different conceptual apparati and has not said that theories in western science are created relative to culture. As I have said I am not after recognition and I would be grateful to Prof. de S. Amaratunga to quote the relevant passage(s) of author(s) who have said that knowledge (not only western science) is created relative to the sense organs, mind and the culture based on a Chinthanya.

Prof.de S. Amartunga is interested in finding out how people have come to the conclusion that (western) science is relative to the culture. I do not know about the authours whom Prof. de S. Amaratunga mentions including Kuhn who in the view of the learned Professor has come to that conclusion but I have justified in my works why I claim that knowledge (I emphasize knowledge and not merely western science) is relative to sense organs mind and culture based on a Chinthanya. It is by reading books and articles on theory of knowledge and related subjects, and contemplating on what I have read and of course creating my own theories in a consistent way that I have come to the above conclusion, which is a method that has been used by ordinary people such as me long before Galileo, Newton and other great scientists who are supposed to have discovered a so called scientific method. Agganna Sutta and Darwin’s Theory with Big Bang are poles apart and they are relative to different cultures based on different Chinthanayas. Interestingly Prof. de S. Amaratunga has said: “according to both theories, life starts in water. Perhaps in the future Western scientists like Richard Dawkins, due to the influence of Buddhism, may give up their adherence to the linear process of evolution despite their culture. Such metamorphoses have occurred in the minds of Western philosophers and scientists in the past e.g. Arthur Schopenhauer, Niels Bohr.” In one of the theories life has come to earth from Abhassara Brahma Lokaya while in the other theory life as evolved from inorganic matter going through organic matter then through a single cell. However Prof. de S. Amaratunga says one day western scientists due to the influence of Buddhism, may give up their adherence to the linear process of evolution despite their culture. This is something that I have tried to explain in my “theory”. When western scientists give up their adherence to linear processes they are no more in their culture. It is not despite their culture this “metamorphism” takes place but coming out from their culture. Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation is outside the western Chrtistian culture with its two valued Aristotelian Logic, and he was influenced by Ying Yang Philosophy of the Chinese, which has a three valued logic as I understand it. However he could not proceed much further and most of the western Physicists now have doubts about the Copenhagen Interpretation. This interpretation can be further developed in Sinhala Buddhist culture and already some work has been done in this regard.

In Theravada Buddhism there is no thithi and hence there is no existence. I as an entity does not exist and the ancient Buddhists had a tough time explaining to the Brahmins how karma effects a “person” who goes in to another Bhava. Thithi, Kshanavada were all created in order to explain some kind of existence. It is those who believe in some form of existence who have to explain how Nibbana is attained without annihilating (uchchedavada) an existing athma (soul). In Kacchayana Sutta Sammasambuddha says if A then B, and if not A then not B, and nothing else. I am definitely not a Sauthrathinka as I do not believe in thithi. If one assumes that things exist without being relative to something then one has to either assume that they last forever (shasvathavada) or are destroyed after some time (uchchhedavada). I am not only neither a shasvatavadin nor an uchchedavadin but I do not exist as such.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

On culture dependence of knowledge

Prof. N. A. de S. Amaratunga in his note published in the opinion page on the 13th of September 2012, claims that those “who say science is nothing but just another narrative are echoing the ideas of philosophers with a postmodernist bent such as Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994)  and Michael Polyani.” I am responding to Prof. de S. Amaratunga, as one who is of the opinion that western science is another story constructed by westerners based on their Greek Judaic Christian Chinthnaya relative to Judaic Christrain culture. However, I say that I am not echoing the ideas of Kuhn, Feyerabend or any other westerner.  Kuhn or Feyerabend is not considered as postmodernists and they have not said that western science is created relative to any culture. Kuhn is famous for his incommensurability  of  scientific theories and paradigm shifts, while Feyarabend wrote mainly on non existence of a scientific method. It is true that I was influenced to a certain extent by Feyarabend on non existence of a scientific method after reading his “Against Method” but I was more influenced by Ven. Katukurunde Nanananda Thero’s  “Concept and Reality”. Though I may have been influenced by some western sociologists of knowledge who have said that knowledge is a social construction without mentioning a culture in their stories I am more influenced by Avijja paccaya Sankara of Paticca Samuppada. I must also say that I do not believe in existence of objects as such as I am a Theravada Buddhist who does not believe in Thithi. I  am not a Sauththranthika Buddhist and I do not subscribe to Uppada Ththithi Bhanga.

 Prof.de S. Amaratunga says “Kuhn and Feyerabend vehemently criticize science and its methods. But, one could ask the question how they came to the conclusion that science was another narrative and that it was based on culture” . I am afraid the learned Professor has not got his facts correct as Kuhn did not vehemently criticize science and its methods. He only said that the ordinary scientists are not interested in falsifying science as such and that they only do what could be called as ordinary science applying existing theories to solve problems within existing paradigms. What he said was that there are times when scientific revolutions take place which are often associated with paradigm shifts. On the other hand Feyarabend did not have to criticize scientific method as he did not believe that there is a scientific method. In any event they never said science was another narrative based on culture. It was I who said all knowledge whether western science or anything else is created by human beings based on a chinthanaya relative to a culture. I am not after any credit for saying this first and I would be grateful if anybody gives me the reference to a statement that creation of knowledge is due to avidya of anatta, dukka, anatma, and that it is created relative to the sense organs, the mind and the culture based on a chinthanya.    

 I have been influenced by Thervada Buddhism and Ven. Nanananda Thero in coming to this conclusion and it is true that I have closely examined certain works of the western scientists, western sociologists and western philosophers as well. However I have not used any so called scientific method and if reading books is the scientific method then it had been there long before Galileo and others who came after him.

 Western science is nothing but the stories on Genesis Exodus and others found in the Bible said in a different language and though there is no creator as such in western science there is creation. I as a Sinhala Buddhist believe in Agganna Sutta and the evolution of universe and life stated there and not in Big Bang and Darwinian evolution. These two stories are culture dependent and based on two different Chinthanayas and Prof. de S. Amaratunga or anybody else  cannot believe in both.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

On so called scientific knowledge – XII

Feyerabend has shown in his “Against method” that there is no scientific method as such and that in fact anything goes as a so called method in western science. There is no method adopted by the paradigm shifters described in the previous instalment and very often they carry on without any experimental evidence as such. In Theoretical Physics there is no way to verify experimentally some of the predictions and it exemplifies how western science has progressed in the last four centuries after Galileo. The research methodologies taught to students in the Universities are good for those who have no insight or intuition and nothing more than lessons in cookery. The selection procedures, sampling techniques, so called testing, analysis statistical or otherwise do not create any new ideas as such and the teachers as well as the students just go on repeating statements without understanding what they talk about. The discussion among academics in the pages of this paper on the Z score at the GCE (A/L) examination provides ample testimony to this sad state of affairs. There are scholars who think that pooling is not for different populations, and if it is the case what is the use of pooling, and where would it be useful. On the other hand a formula has been introduced to pool different populations apparently without understanding the basic idea behind pooling. One would say that it is not an example that can be used against the existence of a scientific method, but I cannot see any of the scholars in Sri Lanka following a so called scientific method as such with respect to solving the Z score problem. Finally the problem would be “solved” in a court of law where very often a judge who is not familiar with science or “scientific method” would give the final word after listening to some so called expert opinions. In fact Feyerabend points out the example of judges without any formal training in science deciding on so called scientific matters only after listening to “expert opinions”, when the experts have different opinions. It is a funny situation where the experts differ, a non expert or a layman whether he/she is a judge or not, deciding which of the opinions should be applied in a particular case. If the experts in science can differ then there is no reason why the experts in law should agree on something and the “blindfolded” lady with the scales in her hand would not know even if the scales have been tilted one way or the other, or to make it worse whether the scales are bottomless or not.

It is well known that people had experimented before Galileo and from the day we are born in this world each and every one of us has experimented in many a field. As we have said Galileo did not “discover” anything new at Pisa but only demonstrated what he had been thinking on what are called freely falling objects. On the other hand it is wrong to say that Aristotle or whoever responsible had said that the massive particle falls to the ground before the light particle without doing any experiment. It is not merely speculation but is based on day to day experience or what may be called observations. It is well known that if a feather and a stone are dropped (released from rest in the jargon of Western Physics) from the same height at the same time then the stone falls to the ground before the feather. There may be feathers heavier than some stones but I am referring to what may be called standard feathers and stones. Of course one would say it is due to air resistance that the feather does not fall to the ground as quickly as the stone but Galileo (or his friend) did not carry out the experiment in a vacuum in Pisa. Neither did he experiment with feathers and stones, but with balls though of different masses, and it is clear that he did his experiments in order to demonstrate that objects dropped from the same height at the same time fall to the ground simultaneously. Had he dropped feathers and stones he would not have been able to demonstrate that his “theory” was correct. At least Aristotle or whoever it was responsible had been honest and had accepted what had been “demonstrated” by nature. People had been observing and experimenting from time immemorial and what Galileo had done was to add an element of cheating to this process.

People had been “theorizing” before Newton and even in the western world Aristotle (most probably like Euclid Aristotle put down in writing what he had known at that time) had so many theories to his credit. The Athma theory is a theory that had been accepted both in the west and the east before it was denied in Buddhism. However Buddhism has not been successful in dispelling the Athma theory even after two thousand six hundred years most probably due to the fact it offers no alternative theory as such. Denying an existing theory without replacing it by a new theory is very difficult in a culture that is used to some kind of theories. There are no theories as such in Buddhism, and one of the reasons that Buddhism has taken roots in the Sinhala society is that Sinhala culture is somewhat immune to general theories. The Sinhalas are fond of concrete “theories” applicable to individual cases but not of abstract concrete theories.

If the people had been observing, experimenting and even theorizing somewhat abstractly as in the case of Vedic culture culminating with Advaitha Vedantha of Sankaracharaya the question may be asked as to how western science differs from other systems of knowledge. There is a school of thought that is of the opinion that western science originated by copying or borrowing knowledge from the others especially in the east whether it is from Bharath, the Arab world, China, Western Asia and North Africa. It is true that the west since the days of Copernicus and Galileo had absorbed knowledge from the other parts of the world, but that does not mean that the western science is merely a continuation of the other systems of knowledge. When the west absorbed knowledge from other parts of the world it was not a case of imitating those systems. They assimilated the knowledge of the others into their culture and constructed a new system which is identified as western science today. We on the other hand having contributed to the initiation of western science merely imitate the west when we want to use their knowledge. We do not absorb western science or any western knowledge for that matter into our culture but are satisfied with mere imitation. One of the reasons why western science remains outside the Asian and African cultures is our inability to absorb that knowledge into our cultures. Even India which had produced some abstract theories in the past has not been able to absorb abstract thinking in western science into their cultures. Though India boasts of the third largest community of western scientists, they have not produced a single paradigm shifter, and have come up with only a handful of Nobel Prize winners. Vedic Mathematics is more concrete than abstract and though they knew the result of the Pythagoras Theorem, and had methods of calculating the length of the hypotenuse in suthras they could not generalize those results into an abstract theorem as such. Even our carpenters are masons (basunnehes) know how to construct right angles though they have no idea of the Pythagoras Theorem. The essence of the work of Galileo and Newton which paved the way for western science was neither an experimental method nor scientific method but abstract thinking that was borrowed from the ancient Greeks and the Jews into a new Chinthanaya that had revolutionized Europe with the beginning of the sixteenth century. Michelangelo, Martin Luther, Galileo, Newton, Shakespeare had been pioneers of this Chinthanaya which I call the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya and it is this Chinthanaya much broader than a paradigm that created not only western science but non Roman Catholic Christianity (Reformation), so called enlightenment and Capitalism. In that sense Michelangelo, Luther, Galileo, Newton, and Shakespeare may be called Chinthana shifters.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

On so called scientific knowledge – XI

A paradigm in the sense of Kuhn and not in the sense of Sri Lankan academia and NGO establishment is a base in which theories are constructed. It should be mentioned that according to the western sociologists of knowledge, knowledge is constructed and not discovered and moreover it is done in a social context. It is clear that Einstein, if born in Continental Europe in the eighteenth century would not have come up with the theory of relativity nor would he have constructed his theory if he was born in England in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He would have been out of space and time or space - time to construct his theory in either case. Incidentally Kalaya, Deshaya and Dveepaya are among the pasmaha belum or five great observations that the Bodhisatva was interested in before he was born as Prince Siddhartha Gauthama. If he was born as an Eskimo he would not have attained Buddhathva. When Einstein was born in general the whole of Western Europe was deeply immersed in the notions of absolute space and absolute time which may be called part of Newtonian paradigm and most of the theories from Astronomy to Zoology had been constructed in that paradigm. Einstein essentially changed the paradigm and introduced the space – time paradigm which was given a Mathematical formulation by Minkowski. Another paradigm shift which is even more revolutionary than Einsteinian paradigm shift has been the Quantum paradigm shift. Though many people would not have realized it then the Thermodynamics paradigm shift had been another paradigm shift in the history of western science. What we have essentially done is to claim that knowledge is constructed in a Chinthanaya, which could have several paradigms, and is created relative to the sense organs, the mind and the culture of the creator. The creator could be a western scientist, a Sinhala Buddhist or any sathva (living being).

It is clear that Kuhn does not recognize even construction of ordinary theories or “discoveries” as revolutionary science. Not all Nobel Prize winners have been paradigm shifters but sometimes would have revolutionized western science. For example Perlmutter and Reiss who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011 for “discovering” the acceleration of the universe were only working within the Einsteinian paradigm, though they have revolutionized western cosmology that had believed that the universe expanded with a deceleration. Since 1998, the western cosmologists believe that the universe expands with an acceleration following Perlmutter and Reiss having recognized the work of the latter with a Nobel Prize. If the theoretical work carried out by my students at the University of Kelaniya is correct the universe has to enter into a decelerating phase again if it has not already done so, but I doubt very much that their work will be recognized even by the Physicists in Sri Lanka, even if they are proved to be correct, due to academic politics, which appears to be the worst type of politics. In any event Kuhn thought of paradigm shifts when he talked of revolutions in western science. Following Kuhn we may categorize western science under four headings. They are (i) the paradigm shifting science, (ii) new theories and discoveries within existing paradigms (iii) very ordinary science involved with problem solving usually in the periphery using established theories and finally (iv) the undergraduate and school children science which is very often involved with verification of already known results.

Is there a so called method adopted by paradigm shifters? Unfortunately for the philosophers of western science there is no such method. What is the so called scientific method that Einstein used? Apparently he did not know the results of the Michelson Morley experiment which was finally explained by his special theory of relativity. He was thinking of a different problem in electrodynamics. The dynamo can be looked at as resulting from either the movement of a static magnet surrounded by a revolving circuit or the movement of a magnet in a static circuit. Though the results are the same the Maxwell’s equation of electromagnetism had to be used in two different ways to obtain the results. Einstein who was interested in symmetries did not like this two tongue approach so to say, shifted the paradigm from space and time to space - time and also showed that Maxwell’s equations took the same form (or invariant) with respect to observers moving relative to one another under his relativistic transformations which are also known as Lorentz Transformations. Incidentally Maxwell’s Equations were not invariant in the Newtonian paradigm and hence needed two methods in that paradigm to explain the dynamo problem. Einstein was interested in a fundamental problem that could not be solved in the then existing paradigms. There was no method that he could follow and it was left to his remarkable insight to come out with a solution. It is the insight and intuition that is involved with creation or construction whether in western science, art, music, mathematics or any other field western or eastern. It appears that creation of paradigms or even theories within a paradigm in what may be called shastra is rare than creations in shilpa. What is the method of creating a work of art? There is no method as such and what helps one to create in Art or Music is one’s intuition and insight, which of course is relative to one’s culture. It is said that there is an underline relationship between the works of Dostoevsky, Einstein and Picasso as far as abstractness is concerned. They represented a European abstract chinthanaya and were more or less contemporaries.

The category (ii) mentioned above is more creative than category (iii) with which almost all so called research done is involved with. There is both a method and intuition involved with (ii), which I might add are not “rational”, and those who are adherents of methods without an insight or intuition are bound to end up in category (iii). However, this so called method is not at all creative and it is only a set of rules not different from what is found in cookery. It is all about selection of samples, testing and analysing and is similar to selecting 10 eggs, 500 grams of flour etc. making a mixture heating to a certain temperature, maintaining at that temperature for so many minutes and of course writing a report if necessary. One has an intuition and an insight in one’s culture and the main reason that non western scientists cannot do category (ii) western science is that western science works in a culture that is different from the cultures of non western scientists. As far as the western scientists in the non western cultures are concerned category (i) western science is a non starter. In category (iii) western science very often scientists in their research proposals have to write down testing of what is known as a hypothesis. There are no hypotheses that western scientists in Sri Lanka are testing and very often the hypothesis amounts to something such as oxygen is present in air. One can write a so called research paper irrespective of whether oxygen is found in air or not provided the scientist manages to survive through and after testing.

It has to be mentioned that Kuhn did not emphasize on a method, and neither did he deny the existence of a so called scientific method. It was left to Feyerabend to finally demolish this myth of a scientific method, and he did so beautifully in his “Against Method”. He wrote a number of papers and books after the publication of Against Method, including “Farewell to Reason”. The western scientists are not different from other mortals in other fields such as Art and Music and also from other people involved with different shastras in other parts of the world. Western science is creation by a few without adhering to a so called method but depending on insight and intuition in Judaic Christian culture, and very ordinary problem solving by the vast majority who have neither intuition nor insight using a method not very much different from that is practised in cookery. Incidentally it should be noted that tuition kills intuition. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

On so called scientific knowledge – X

Karl Popper was able to add something of his own to Western Philosophy of Science. This branch of western epistemology is in effect concerned with making theories in order to show that Western Science is unique and is in general approaching the truth, Popper was of the view that Western science differs from other systems of knowledge in that Western Science develops trying to show the theories in general are falsifiable. In other words western scientific theories are formulated in such a way that they could be falsified. A theory that is falsified is thrown out according to Popper, and it is the business of Science to see that theories are not stagnant and replaced by other theories.

Now it was known that almost from the very beginning Newton’s Theory of Gravitation did not end up with “correct conclusions”. According to the theory the planets should be moving along fixed ellipses with Sun at one of the foci. The theory was falsifiable to a certain extent but no one knew which section or constituent of the theory had to be discarded and replaced with a new theory. The theoretical prediction was not observed as the planets did not move along fixed ellipses. They moved with an advance of the perihelion (the point on the ellipse closest to the Sun) and it was clear that the theory was not quite correct. However there was a problem as there were more than one constituent of the theory, one of them being the inverse square law, which said that particles in the universe attracted each other with a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Then another part of the theory said that the force between the particles is directly proportional to the product of the masses. The most important of the constituents of the Newtonian Theory of Gravitation was of course that the particles attract each other universally. This was beyond comprehension as it meant that a particle would exert a force on another particle instantaneously even if the particles were light years away.

During the time of Newton a force was supposed to be exerted on a particle or an object when it was either pulled or pushed. In other words in order to apply a force on a particle or an object one had to touch it either directly or indirectly with the help of a pole or a rope or some such object. Now in the case of Newtonian Gravitation a particle exerted a force (the so called gravitational force) on another particle without touching it. As we all know the Sun does not touch the Earth though there is supposed to be Gravitational Force between them. Newton’s contemporaries not surprisingly wanted to find the “rope” that connected the Sun and the Earth. Newton had no answer to this problem and all that he could say was it was action at a distance!

If Popper was correct in the sense that a falsified theory was discarded in western science then the scientists at the time of Newton or even after should have done away with the theory of gravitation and said that there was no gravitational force acting between particles. However, they did not do so until Einstein arrived in the patent office and not in a University at first and were interested in modifying other components of the theory. For example they toyed with the idea of modifying the inverse square law and said that the gravitational force between two particles is inversely proportional not to the power of 2 (inverse square) of the distance between them but to some other power such as 2.0000001 or 1.9999999. Modifying the inverse square law in that manner the scientists obtained a nasty differential equation that had to be solved but they managed to explain the advance of the perihelion.

Now the scientists should have adopted the modified theory discarding Newton’s theory as the former “explained” the “facts” better than the latter. However “rational” the scientists may claim to be they did not do so on aesthetic grounds! The original theory of Newton was beautiful than the modified theory with ugly powers such as 2.0000001. Feyerabend in his book Against Method gives a good account of this, and it should be interesting to know that western scientists are guided by aesthetics as well, and not confined to logic and observations of so called facts. Even today the symmetrical properties guide the western scientists in constructing new theories. Einstein was one of the best “beauticians” who did “facials” on theories. He was attracted to beautiful faces and he knew how to appreciate such faces at very close distances. He was interested in close action and never liked action at a distance, which he called spooky action at a distance and was ready to discard the so called Cosmological Constant which he had introduced and considered as a blunder, from the Theory of General Relativity the moment he got an opportunity. In his view the Cosmological Constant he had to introduce to make the Universe static destroyed the beauty (beautiful face or the expression) of the Theory of General Relativity. At Kelaniya we have been able to rescue the Cosmological Constant in a way, make it a cosmological parameter (variable) and make it a measure of the energy due to space (space-time if you wish) and bring the fifth “bhutha” “akasa” in line with the other four “bhuthas” “apo, thejo, vayo and pathavi”, in spite of great scientists, senior professors, so called academic heads of departments who would not touch a concept in Sinhala Buddhist culture, not to mention a “bhutha”, with a barge. (A paper making akasa and other bhuthas equivalent has been published in the Journal of Physical Science and Applications in its latest issue)

Thus the “rational” scientists in the west carried on with Newton’s Gravitation Theory even though they knew that the conclusions of the theory did not agree with the observations and that there was no way to explain a “force” between two objects at a distance apart. It implies that even if we are prepared to accept that “scientific theories” are falsifiable unlike other knowledge following Popper, it serves no purpose as the scientists are reluctant to discard falsified theories. If science carry on with falsified theories what is the big idea of constructing falsifiable theories in a Popperian sense? The irony is that while the scientists carry on with falsified theories most of them even today consider Popper’s falsifiable theory as the last word on Philosophy of Science. Peter Medawar, the Brazilian born English Immunologist was one of the better known scientists who adhered to Popper’s theory when the theory itself had been “falsified” in a way.

It was left to Thomas Kuhn who wrote his “The structure of Scientific Revolution” in 1962 to deviate somewhat from this Philosophy of Science. However, it has to be emphasised that he did not say that western science was not unique. All that he said was that western science progressed not by discarding falsified theories but through what he called revolutions. According to Kuhn in western science there are normal periods and revolutionary periods in science. Most of the scientists are no better than undergraduates who do experiments to verify existing theories and they are involved with normal science. Normal Science is not very exciting and it is problem solving within the same paradigm. According to Kuhn, it is during the Revolutionary periods that paradigms are shifted and theories are constructed within paradigms. The most famous paradigm shift is the Einsteinian paradigm that changed the views of the westerners on space and time. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva