9 highlights
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One of the enduring anecdotes about Sir C V Raman’s Nobel Prize winning (1930) ‘scattering of light” experiments (which led to the discovery of the “Raman effect”) is that the experiments did cost only 27 rupees.
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However, for the dissemination of science, building a scientific temper (a phrase which Pandit Nehru was in love with) and stimulating curiosity for knowledge, society has to deal with the worldly and not-so-cerebral issues. Communication and scientific discourse through mass media could be one of them.
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The veritable absence of pure science from public discourse in general, and media discourse in particular, should concern us. It should concern us because it is a sign of a society which is showing reluctance to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
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It only breeds a kind of hypocrisy that was evident in Amit Chaudhuri’s piece in The Guardian (The God of the Particles, July 3, 2012) in which he lambasted the West for being indifferent to the scientific contributions of the Indian mind.
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Despite being a mainstream newsmagazine primarily concerned with international politics, economy and trends, The Economist has very in-depth reports on science, as have Time and Newsweek (though a tad less)
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The stark facts are: none of the news channels has a “science correspondent” (let alone “science” beats), and except The Hindu none of the major English newspapers have a regular page for “science” (even a weekly one, The Indian Express has it quite erratically).
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Dilettantism rules news channels in their rare encounters with pure science.
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Science is confused with technology and technology with consumerism – the segment is called “science and technology”.
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Purposefulness has its limits and doesn’t gel with some of the purest pursuits of the human mind. Pure science has no place for it.