Popularising Science

We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.                 

                                                                                          – Carl Sagan

The present century is witnessing a paradigm shift from an agricultural and industrial society to a knowledge-based society. And the above words from Carl Sagan profoundly bring out the gross disservice that the scientific community is doing to mankind by restricting scientific know-how to a selected few. Scientists have to take responsibility and be honest in their efforts, both towards science and towards the public, to popularise science.

Popularisation of science is an endeavour to image scientific ideas in such a way that everyone (especially non-scientists) can grasp the fundamental concepts and have an idea of what science in essence is. The public’s quest for knowledge about science and technology is increasing. People often expect to read or see something more than mere scientific developments, e.g., the implications of developments, including the opportunities available to them and the challenges awaiting them in the field.

Over the past few decades, there has been an appreciable increase in efforts at popularising science by media personalities as well as professional scientists. This principally involves efforts in two directions: the first is to make scientific ideas accessible to a layperson, and the second is to develop a scientific attitude in him. The first goal, popularising science, has been enormously successful. The plethora of books and articles in newspapers and magazines and the unprecedented impact of television have made it possible today for one to talk about the Pathfinder mission to Mars or the cloning of sheep in almost any company without committing a faux pas. But it is in the second aim that the efforts have failed miserably, the scientific temperament still eludes the common man.

Why Spread the Light of Science

Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown- there are always new worlds to conquer.

  – Sir Humphry Davy

At a time when resources are scarce, the public has the right to know how the money is spent by science and technology organisations and what benefits they can expect from projects in terms of improved technology and better health. The achievements of many scientific projects do not come to the public’s attention, as scientists rarely communicate. The understanding of science by the common man can eradicate social myths, social evils, and superstitions. Popular science plays a key role in eliciting public cooperation for programmes based on science. There are several examples. Adoption of family planning methods, breastfeeding, vaccination, and the eradication of malaria are all programmes that require a great deal of public understanding.

Science Popularisation : A Daunting Task

Science communicators in the developing world, especially in the South Asia region, are confronted with a tremendous challenge faced as they are with problems of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, health, hygiene, unemployment, housing, environmental degradation, and the increasing rural-urban divide. The financial support that is required to spread science by opening science libraries, and museums, and organising conferences is also lacking. While developed countries like the US and Japan spend around 2.5 percent and 3 percent, respectively, of their GDP on research, India lags far behind with a paltry 0.6 percent. To further complicate matters, there are myths and superstitions that are prevalent in Indian society. The science infrastructure is crumbling: the libraries have redundant books, the laboratories are ill-equipped, the curriculum is obsolete, most of the talented people are becoming engineers and doctors, the research is not of world-standard quality, and so on.

Popularising Science by Humanising Science

Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.

                                                                                          – Karl Popper

What is taught at the school level does not get registered unless the relationship between what is taught and real life is brought out during the studies. Efforts must be made to highlight the scientific reasons for many of the natural phenomena that we observe in our day-to-day lives.

While the pursuit of science and technology has been and will be the privilege of a few, there can be no doubt that general awareness of them has to be universal. The face-to-face approach, or dialogue with the people, is one of the strategies adopted by many developing countries. The voluntary science movement started in Kerala in 1962 by the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) illustrated how public understanding of science can be enhanced by grassroots participation. The movement was able to involve the participation of scientists, science writers, teachers, and social workers in its activities, which included the publication of popular science books, magazines, health care, and adult (science) literary programmes. A “science march” in 1977, with volunteers traversing over 10,000 km in 37 days, established contact with over 500,000 people through 900 public meetings. The movement was also highly successful in eradicating social evils, social myths, and superstitions through scientific explanation. In recent times, the year 2004 was observed as the Year of Scientific Awareness (YSA), and it saw the involvement of the general public in seminars and science fairs.

To further take science to where it belongs – to the people – requires concerted efforts on a mass scale. Science symposiums and training programmes should be organised at the village, block, tehsil, district, state, and national levels. Museums showing scientific phenomena can generate the interest of children and adults alike. More planetariums can be opened that can draw large crowds and invoke interest in astronomy. NGOs can be roped in to start science awareness campaigns involving rallies and padyatras that offer solutions to public problems related to science. The anniversaries of scientists and scientific organisations should see more public celebrations, discussions, and debates with the concerned scientists organised, and the doors of laboratories like DRDO, ISRO, and atomic energy thrown open to the masses and media.

Sowing the Early Seeds

Science is a subject that cannot be taught in the conventional desk-and-blackboard ambience alone, but ideally through hands-on practical experiments. Unfortunately, these days, the excitement of science is being denied to students, especially those in government-run schools. Often science is taught on the same lines as English and History; the teachers just read out the books, and the students are expected to cram the formulae, and equations without giving any thought to the rationale behind them. The axiom ‘We forget when we read, we understand when we see, and we remember when we do with a true spirit’ suggests that models must be developed to make subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Geography, and chemistry easily understandable and interesting. Science teachers need to be trained in contemporary teaching techniques so that they can generate interest in the subject and seek student participation. To start with, science subjects can be taught in vernacular languages so that the language barrier can be surpassed. The school laboratories should be well-equipped, and the libraries should have the latest science books and magazines.

Just like the scientists need conferences to present their research, young minds can be simulated by participation in science fairs and exhibitions where they can exhibit their ideas and models. Illiteracy and poverty often stop parents from sending their wards to schools and this deprives science of its fair share of child prodigies. Scholarships for pursuing science at the primary and secondary levels can go a long way in eliciting the interest of parents and children alike. The students can be provided a forum to interact with scientists to quench their thirst for curiosity and creativity.

Students nowadays are attracted to well-paying jobs in management and the IT sector. Also, one should remember that a career in research involves uncertainty about the time it will take to complete one’s doctorate. However, this trend can be handled by handsome research fellowships. In addition, students should be given challenging problems in cutting-edge technologies, which will certainly motivate them to consider science as a career. Though a number of engineering and medical colleges have mushroomed all over the country, the number of basic science colleges and institutes has not witnessed much increase; in fact, the strength of faculty and students has dwindled over the years. The number of science educational institutes should be increased, and there should be greater fund allocations. The science curriculum has also become obsolete; it should be changed to include current developments and applied aspects to sustain interest.

It is time that premier science institutes like DRDO, ISRO, DAE, and CSIR shoulder the responsibility of spreading science. Actually, this will be a symbiotic relationship; the students will get exposure, and the institutes can recruit more scientists from them. In ISRO, post-Chandrayaan-1, more students are asking for details on the mission and Indian space programme. Many colleges and schools too are eager to visit ISRO. Financial assistance can be provided to students and colleges to conduct research in areas of interest to ISRO, DRDO, etc. The establishment of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IISST) by ISRO is an excellent example of science popularisation.

Channels of Science Popularisation

It should be clearly understood that not every science can be popular. So those subjects should be identified that can be more effectively popularised. For instance, health science and the environment interest people at large; astronomy and space fascinate them; Nobel Laureates, UFOs, defence technologies, etc. are held in awe by them.

The media must popularise contemporary science in relation to contemporary problems and take into account the social and cultural environment as well as the people’s aspirations and needs. The reach of the print media is limited in view of the low levels of literacy in India. Mass media like TV and radio can be used to present science and technology in a popular language to a large, heterogeneous, and scattered audience. Folk mediums could familiarise science through folk dances and songs, puppet shows, folk dramas in theatres, and street shows in every nook and cranny of the country. Communication through this medium would be very fast and effective. More importantly, it would be an interactive one.

Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

– Nikola Tesla

Often, the media that is used to popularise science ends up terrifying the masses, bombarding them with technical jargon and confusing them. There are books, journals, and magazines on science, but they are often meant for geeks, not the common man. “A Brief History of Time,” Stephen Hawking’s 1988 best-seller, is an example of an excellent popularizer. Following the advice of his publisher, Hawking only kept one formula in the book, since every mathematical expression would have halved the sales, and the book is now the most popular and easiest text written on quantum physics. All this contrasts sharply with Hawking’s “The Nature of Space and Time”, a book he wrote with colleague Roger Penrose. Actually, the book is a compilation of a series of talks between the two authors. Needless to say, it didn’t serve the popularisation of science or its audience. The text is obscured by ambiguous, sometimes even shabby, illustrations and very complex formulae. Only graduates in mathematics or physics can grasp the whole story.

Conclusion

Abdus Salam said, “Scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind.” So the scientific community has to carry forward the torch of science to spread the light of knowledge among the masses and remove the cobwebs of superstitions and myths. Science can be popularised by having the right educational infrastructure, scientific organisations popularising their activities and the use of popular media. It’s a Herculean task, but the transformation from darkness into light is necessary.

” Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya “