What is Science?

by Radhika Bapat

When Ira asked me to write an article on "What is science?", I looked around me and thought "What isn't?" The car I was in, the road we were on, the clothes I was wearing, the appliances used to make my lunch, electricity -all these things that make our lives so convenient! In fact, I turn 45 today. The fact that I'm even here at this age, would have been a statistical improbability for anyone born just over 200 years ago. Whereas science encompasses the vaccinations, oxygen cylinders and surgical instruments that save lives, unfortunately it also includes the guns and nuclear arsenals that take lives, the larger-than-life machines that drill holes into the earth, and the large trawlers that fish in the ocean because there is no "enough" for humans. 

Science is not just opinions (we all have those!). It tries to understand how nature works by observing and testing ideas. Scientists observe phenomena, they propose theories about these phenomena, and they change what is known again and again and again. Scientists are constantly being updated and updating themselves. Our ways of learning improve over time. Our instruments for measurement keep getting more advanced. There was a time when we had to rely only on our naked eye. Now we have telescopes & microscopes and they have helped us advance our knowledge. It is the search for knowledge about the universe by using methods based on evidence that can be replicated over and over again.

We use our knowledge of science to try to make accurate predictions about our future

Psychology is a science and it uses systematic observation, experiments, and data to understand behaviour and mental processes & to try to make accurate predictions about future possibilities. 

But the ubiquitous presence of science leads to a more nuanced question than simply "what is science?"as a subject – Is science an ideology? I hope not. I have a fundamental problem with ideologies. Why? Because I think they carry an inherent risk of becoming too rigid, inflexible, and, above all, arrogant! The very act of clinging to a fixed belief system (i.e. an ideology) creates a blindness to new information. This is the opposite of what we want as scientists.  Because, a manner of thinking that is constantly questioning itself to evolve and adapt- that, to me, is science. Science should never, therefore, become an ideology, beware. When people treat it as one, believing in its sole supremacy to the exclusion of all else, it becomes dogma. It becomes the very thing it seeks to overcome! 

This is why I believe science is a process, not a body of knowledge. It is a lack of arrogance. It doesn't need its practitioners to brandish their MD or PhD at the start of every retort simply to prove dominance. Instead, the practitioner of science, whether a researcher in a lab, a doctor outside of one, or a qualified science communicator (influencer) should be profoundly modest. They should seek to heal by causing minimal harm, especially to those who don't yet believe in their methods. They must show compassion to others, but also to themselves, because they are on a path of being "less wrong." This path is forged through exploration and discovery, not hubris. To be a scientist requires an openness to see and yield to the data before you, even despite deeply held preconceived beliefs. It requires the sheer bravery to accept what the evidence shows. This is hard (believe me) and on the whole, this represents my personal ideal.

I remember reading a Tintin comic as a teenager, where the Incas are about to burn Tintin at the stake, and he uses his knowledge of an impending total solar eclipse to shock them into believing he is divine. They bow down to him instead of killing him (these portrayals carry their own biases about "primitive" versus "European" people). This was the first time I realised the connection between how people could be manipulated to believe in magic and divinity if they did not yet comprehend a phenomenon! A demonstration in how we are all fundamentally trying to make sense of the world. But the more we understand of the universe, the less we depend on divine explanations.

This brings the scientist-practitioner to a critical ethical crossroad: What is our responsibility when a family finds comfort in a non-scientific explanation for a sudden, devastating, and inexplicable tragedy? Is it our duty to insist on a fact-based narrative, especially when science may offer a definitive "how" but not a deeper "why"? 

Why now? Why me? 

This truly highlights a clear limitation of science: a factually correct explanation may completely fail to address a family’s deeper need for meaning. Anne Fadiman's classic 1997 book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, powerfully illustrates this tug-of-war. She describes passionate, dedicated doctors trying to ensure their patient's medical compliance, clashing with the patient's ingrained (Hmong) culture. A failure of science. What doctors saw as "non-compliance" was, in fact, a breakdown in communication not reducible to mere language barriers. Instead, it points to a fundamental disconnect in how each group constructed their respective realities and understood what constituted their truth. 

So ultimately, I have come to the conclusion (for now) that a scientist’s true measure isn't in their pursuit of being 'right,' but in their commitment to ensure that no one is 'left' out.