What Is Science? (review)

In What Is Science?, Sundar Sarukkai provides a magisterial overview of science as a human activity today, covering definitions of science, the social organization of science, the philosophy of science and ethical issues arising in and from scientific activity. He ends with an impassioned plea for deep engagement in a new dialogue and negotiation by the scientific community with other segments of society. Through this process, he argues, scientists will not only enrich their creativity and develop new forms of science, but will also become far more responsible citizens of the world. The book is written for a general, non-academic public and is accessible both to working scientists and artists.

Several particularly strong narratives stand out: In chapters on Science and Logic, Science and Reality, and Science and Knowledge, Sarukkai outlines the history of concepts such as Time and Space within different philosophical traditions and their connections to scientific periods. I was intrigued with his discussion of the ontological status of space, including some comments on the concept of aether in Indian traditions. It would be interesting to trace this issue of the aether, a topic that has come alive again with the mystery of dark energy in cosmology, but also certain concepts of cyberspace. Linda Henderson, in the forthcoming republication of her Leonardo book The 4th Dimension and Non-Euclidian Geometry in Modern Art, develops at length the dominance of the concept of the aether in much of 19th-century science and artwork, even until 1919 and the eclipse confirmation of one of the predictions of general relativity; the concept of the aether continued to have influence in the arts in the postwar period and also in spiritual circles and is being re-injected into current art-science discussions as documented by Henderson. Concepts of space in science continue to evolve with string theory.

Sarukkai contextualizes the development of scientific ideas and methods and—more particularly, mathematics—within the multiple influences and exchanges between the various Mediterranean and Asian civilizations, with a strong rebuttal to the dominant European mythology of its predominantly Greek roots (more on this below). He develops at length the variety of ways in which mathematics is connected at the hip with modern science, arguing that in part this is due to the fact that mathematics, as a language, is a proliferating combination of sub-mathematical languages adaptable to the evolution of scientific practice; here he offers a variety of responses to Eugene Wigner’s ill-posed question about the “mysterious effectiveness of mathematics.”

Finally, in a very rich and well-argued section, he further develops his previous arguments on the ethics of curiosity, its social evolution from a Christian sin to a scientific virtue, and the lack of a corresponding discourse in the Indian philosophies.

I am particularly interested in his argument, argued at length in the closing chapters of this book, that the scientific community should and must engage in deep dialogue with other sectors of society. This line of reasoning connects to Helga Nowotny’s call for a “socially robust science,” and the proposition that the art-science dialogue currently burgeoning internationally is one example of the beginnings of a deep dialogue and negotiation.

A connected issue is the concern that, after Leonardo’s 45 years of existence, the Indian subcontinent is virtually invisible in the Leonardo publishing program and networks. In the chapter on “Doing Science,” Sarukkai explains some of the perverse effects of scholarly publishing and mechanisms with social consequences that reinforce the hegemony of government-supported science in North America and Western Europe, mechanisms that among others contribute to the relative invisibility of Indian science in the global scenario.

Sarukkai frames the chapter “Defining Science” with Article 51 A(h) in the Indian Constitution, which states as a Fundamental Duty of the Citizens of India “To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform,” making it the only world constitution that embeds science so overtly. He goes on to explain how...