Science & society

Science and policy

In recent time so many conferences, meetings have taken place pertaining to climate issue. And at the same time I was reading about different policies in education.
Taken together it was making me think about the concept of science and policy. No doubt about the fact that scientist has a very pivotal role to play in deciding about the policy or framing the policy.
And ‘science’ the word itself is given such a sacrosanct existence and value in society. Right from beginning we get to hear very commonplace notions that science requires students to be ‘meritorious’; only ‘good’ students can opt for science for that matter.
And in school classroom dealing with science also it’s always an austere feeling that is put through. I remember in my school days it was time and again reinforced by the teacher that science laws (like that of Newtonian law) should be always written or mentioned in verbatim form without even changing any comma or semi colon. And it really helped (amongst other things) to buttress the feeling that ‘science’ itself as an entity is absolute, perhaps too grand to question or deviate from the rule underlying this (which leads to its status of being ‘grand’).
It’s really ironical and paradoxical too that presumably prime tenet of science is ‘to question’; but the way science is dealt in classroom situation does it lend that scope for questioning? Or honing that capacity for questioning?
Now, when it comes to issues related to science policy same thing applies. There also it gets a sacrosanct approval from laymen for whom science (and the verdicts scientists deliver for that matter) is something distant, unmistakable, unquestionable and on top of everything incomprehensible! This is perhaps the reason when Nehru declared damns as ‘temples of modern India’ right after independence when India was emerging as independent nation and as it was reinforced and justified by the scientists nobody dared to question it perhaps. And if I quote Jerome Bruner here who very pertinently mentioned that ‘questioning presupposes understanding’. The same understanding applies here; if we want laymen to ‘question’ a policy, decision, then the precondition is that they should be able to ‘understand’ that in the first place.
But science itself has created such a regimented identity for itself that it’s hard for common men to penetrate into it as it’s perceived by them something incomprehensible. And for that matter when prime minister announces river linking project, apart from some scientists’ platforms, civil society does not see itself questioning that. And here by ‘civil society’ I mean to say the people whom it would affect directly.
Hence, it’s my sincere concern that it requires a drastic consideration to revisit the way science is dealt in classroom.

Thanks
Devisree