Scientific Temperament: The Need of the Hour

First of all, we must know what does temperament mean? According to the Oxford Dictionary temperament means, “a person's or animal's nature, especially as it permanently affects their behaviour”. The term ‘Scientific Temperament’ was first coined by our former prime minister, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru in his book ‘The Discovery of India’ in which he described it as a search for truth and new knowledge, and the refusal to accept anything without tests and trials. So, scientific temperament or scientific temper refers to a person’s attitude of logical, rational and scientific thinking and hypothesizing things by observing them deeply and analytically.

 

Importance Of Scientific Temper

India has a population of over 1.2 billion (Census of India, 2011) out of which about 444 million people are under 18 years of age (i.e., 36.6% of the population). It is very important to develop a scientific temperament amount this young population of India to develop our human resources and inculcate decision-making capacity in them based on scientific thinking. India is very infamous for the blind faith of its people in various superstitions and irrational practices, e.g., the system of auspicious times (Muhurta), Fortune telling, Horoscopes, Vaastu and a lot more. All these superstitions just create a false perception in a young child’s mind and these facts get hardened in the child’s mind as he grows up. That is why we must inculcate the skill of scientific thinking in our children so that they don’t believe in such superstitions and give rise to a new generation of India. Scientific Temperament among the people of India would also help in the development of our country in various political and economical spheres.

 

How to Develop Scientific Temper?

Scientific Temper must be developed in a child since his/her childhood. They must be taught that all these superstitions and irrational practices lack logic and reasoning. We must teach them to deal with such things with a scientific approach. This learning must start from our homes and then continue to school which is unlike what happens in India. Teaching scientific thinking methods of thinking is an easy task that doesn’t take much effort and time and should be taught in schools. We must encourage them to ask questions and reason for all the actions they perform or observe. With this habit, they would start to analyze each and everything with a scientific approach and would stop believing in the irrational superstitions and practices. We must also provide them with reliable sources like well-reviewed books and encyclopedias so that in their journey of gaining knowledge they don’t gain any false information. Awareness must be spread among people about the importance of scientific temper. Our government must focus on this area but sometimes the government itself believes in such superstitions. The 2012 Sanal Edamaruku and the Jesus statue incident is a great example of this. However, some organizations have taken the responsibility of spreading scientific awareness among the people of India, e.g., Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishat (KRVP) and the Jana Vignana Vedika (under AIPSN i.e. All India People’s Science Network) in Andhra Pradesh.

Scientific Temper in Nation Building.

As we have already read that the term scientific temperament was first coined by our former prime minister Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, this means that scientific temperament would be playing a crucial role in building the nation and it was also mentioned in our constitution. We know that superstitions and irrational thought processes hamper the growth of our society and thus, the development of scientific temperament among people would lead to a declining trend in these irrational beliefs. This would give provide better opportunities for our society to grow socially, economically and even politically. If we talk about our political leaders, if they would believe in such irrational practices, they would not be analyzing the problems in our society with logical reasoning and would not be able to take a good decision for the betterment of society. As the need for scientific temper has been mentioned in our constitution, all of us and the government must take serious steps to spread its awareness all over the country to build a civilized nation and promote the welfare of people.

 

Challenges in Developing Scientific Temper

The fact that we have to make effort in making a list of challenges faced in developing scientific temper among the people of our country is a hallmark of the failure of our society. One of the biggest challenges is that the people of our country are highly influenced by the tales and stories which are told to them during their childhood and these thoughts get hardened as they grow up and when organizations that want to spread awareness regarding scientific temper reach out to them then the people argue about those practices and they have to give convincing and reasonable answers to them. E.g., various people question them about the importance of Vaastu or any other such superstitions. The fact is that everything written in a book is not always the truth. Maybe be during the time the book was written there might have been such circumstances but nowadays it is of no use. They have to make the people understand that albeit the concept of Vaastu being followed across the country has no proof that it is always true.

 

Conclusion

Our population, especially the young population is like the steering wheel of our nation. These are the people who will decide the fate of our country and society. We must believe in the scientists of today who are working day and night, sometimes even risking their lives and helping in the development of our country rather than believing in those people who have spread these superstitions and have not contributed anything to our country. We must support the organizations and individuals trying to promote scientific temperament rather than arguing and questioning them. We must pledge to build a new India with no superstitions and irrational beliefs.