Plod

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ ” Indian theories of doubt range from the sceptical mode in some Buddhist schools to a pragmatic approach by philosophies such as Nyaya. Descartes’ methodology of doubt has been extremely influential in philosophy of science. The Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai characterizes the role Indian Logic can play in understanding the nature of Science- ” In recent times, there have been many claims about the relationship of modern science with ancient Indian traditions. In this Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai addresses the question of where logic is to be found in Science- “From the ancient Greek tradition to modern logic, logic is presumed to have certain characteristics: it is universal, is not related to Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai introduces logic to the reader in the following manner- ” We are endowed with sensory organs that allow us to experience the world. Our knowledge of the objects in the world is derived from Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai addresses what the work of an experimental scientist entails- “What do experimenters do in their everyday work? The paradigm of experiments must be the test tube experiments in schools, where students mix chemicals and Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai comments on another aspect of what scientists do- “Arguably the most important marker of science is this capacity to build institutions at all levels of the society. Science is primarily an activity of establishing Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai elucidates on the many things scientists do since it is often said that science is what scientists do. “Scientists go to office just like countless others. They have various tasks in their offices. They Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ ” What does a scientist do when she has solved a problem, derived a new result or made some new observations? Typically, if she is in an academic institution, she will write her result in the Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai explores the idea of science as a worldview- ” In an earlier section, I had mentioned Feynman’s description of science as a capacity to think critically. In the same talk, he also talks about Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s book, ‘What is Science?’ Dr. Sarukkai addresses the relationship between Science and Truth- “Science has an intrinsic engagement with truth. It is based on the belief that what is says about the world are the truths about the world. Scientists Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s Book, ‘What is Science?’ We now continue from the last post, and summarize further points from the book. Dr Sarukkai elaborates on the idea of science that Karl Popper, a famous philosopher used in his attempts to demarcate scientific hypotheses Read more…

Part of a Series of Excerpts from Prof. Sundar Sarukkai’s book,’What is Science?’ Dr Sarukkai offers some perspectives prevalent in the 19th century, relevant to science – “…the ‘scientist’ of those times moved between science, theology, political economy and even literature.” “Before the use of the word ‘science’ to refer Read more…