The Romanticisation of Science

Children are fascinating to watch; almost everything is a matter of unknown to a child, so he is neglectfully cautious, and hysteric. “What is this? What is that?” A child is a curious little devil uneasy to learn everything that does not concern him. Or does everything concern him? The unknown indeed concerns the eyes that dare to see, and the eyes that are cowardly.

How does a child learn? How does he defeat the unknown? Trial-and-error is his only tool, but he gradually learns to master the tool after many failures followed by offering the side-effects of hysteria to those who are surrounded by him. His domain of knowledge is his territory. He occasionally steps outside his kingdom to expand his territory; when he encounters an unfamiliar object, he may attempt to examine it, and how does he respond to the unexpected reaction of the object? Yes, adults react similarly to unexpected difficulties of life. That notion occurred to me one day during work when I heard a frustrating cry of an infant in the neighbourhood. Why are you crying, little child? And to my surprise, You adults are the same, was the response.

One must not forget that parents’ capacity to cope with the nervousness of a child could alter the means with which a child attempts to understand the world. Similarly, one’s capacity to withstand certain circumstances could alter one’s views.

Science is primarily the study of the past, and the scientific method is rarely different than a child’s method for exploration. It is not easy to study the present time at any given moment, for everything in existence is constantly changing, unless what needs to be studied is changing at a slow pace.

Studying the unknown is utterly different compared to studying a book – nature of the world is ciphered – and not all books are written in a plain language. How then can one understand anything? With the aid of trial-and-error – the same tool a child acquires! The primary curiosity of an exploring child is studying what exists, and what could occur. A child is a scientist in the truest sense; however, the major difference between a child and a scientist is that a child is not a certified member of a cult.

Data is the spine of scientific research. As of writing this, the world is moving towards a pandemic by the COVID-19. News are often a portrait of the opening scenes of an ordinary apocalyptic film in which reporters announce new deaths, and the number of infected cases. COVID-19 is extremely contagious; hitherto, there are more than 96,000 confirmed cases, and the global mortality rate is two percent; the unknown is concerning the living. More than three months have past since the initial spread of the virus, and yet the knowledge of the virus is insignificant. Thus is the performance of science.

Scientific facts are based on certain collected data; the data could be flawed. One cannot rely solely on science as a value system.

The modern opinion has become all scientific; modern perspective has abandoned traditional value systems to romanticise half-formulated facts. Modern man fails to fathom the non-academic wisdom.

My grandmother was born and raised in a large family, and she had a big family of her own. She had good experience with nutrition; she was a better nutritionist than an average trained nutritionist of the modern-day. However, her practical wisdom has dimmed in the shadows of modern science.