Lack of scientific temper is the biggest impediment for the progress of country, said former vice-chairman of National Knowledge Commission and former director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology P.M. Bhargava.
Delivering the Chennupati Seshagiri Rao Memorial Lecture on “Youth, Science and Scientific Outlook for a better future” here on Tuesday, the former CCMB scientist said that scientific temper was an “indispensable ingredient of a secular outlook”. While the Constitution of India declared that it was a secular State, religion continued to hold sway over a large number of people, decades after Independence.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi attending the funeral of Godman Satya Sai Baba was “neither constitutional nor secular”, Mr. Bhargava said.
The huge amount of “hate mail” he received from readers when he wrote an article in The Hindu criticising the Godman was a clear indication of the lack of scientific temper amongst the people of India wherever they were. Some of the hate mails he received were from educated persons living abroad.
Mr. Bhargava said that some of the scientists in the country lived double lives, teaching Charles Darwins' Theory of Evolution to students by day, but endorsing the Theory of Creation at home in the evening. It was very unfortunate that rocket scientists went to Tirupati to pray for the success of the launch instead of having confidence in their efforts, he observed. People flocked to what were being popularly known as ‘visa temples' to enable them to get a visa to a foreign country.
He said that the clergy or religious heads continued to be the worst enemies of scientific temper in the country. Quoting Jawaharlal Nehru, Mr. Bhargava said that the word “scientific temper” was coined by the former Prime Minister and used in the ‘Discovery of India'.
Scientist, science communicator and actor Chandana Chakrabarti in a power point presentation explained how everyone used the “method of science” for making various decisions. While science promoted expansion of knowledge, religions tried to curb it.
Wife of Seshagiri Rao and former Vijayawada MP Chennupati Vidya, her children and Seshagiri Rao Charitable Trust members Vazeer, Rashmi, Keerthi, Deeksha and son-in-laws G.Samaram and Meher Prasad spoke.
