Foretelling science

May 16 - day of science in Novosibirsk. This brings joy, and it is relevant. Usually the purpose of such a day is to remind us, that there is such a phenomenon, which this day is dedicated to, and to be glad that there are people who are somehow related to it. And, of course, to congratulate these people, with their professional holiday. In this case - scientists.

For 70 years we lived “scientifically”. Guided by the “most scientific world view” we built the best society where the division between mental and physical labour, between city and village, should have been erased. The government should have just died off by itself, and the freedom of each and everyone should have become a condition for freedom of everyone. And wealth should have reached unprecedented heights.

Reality was somewhat different - the divisions, although were partly erased, but not completely. What concerns government and freedom - here it somehow didn't happen: the government refused to die off, and freedom refused to become a condition. What concerns wealth... In any case everything needed to be changed. The price is known.

In the end science happened to be - clearly or implicitly - in the role of the accused, and those things that it was so much against, flooded from every gap onto the steep of somewhat confused public consciousness. Newspapers became gaudy with advertisements such as this: “Certified hereditary specialist in black magic will remove any dependence, free from curse, basilisk-glance and crown of celibacy, guards and hexes...” Television provides brilliant astrological forecasts regarding the time when it is best to invest extra funds into new business (this is especially relevant to all our rich pensioners), when to talk to our loved or not-so-loved ones... and I am not even talking about the oceans lashings of the mystical and mysterious.

Certified practitioners of black magic are becoming respected citizens and almost more interesting than serious scientists. All this is happening in a country, where journals such as “Science and Life”, “Chemistry and Life “, “Knowledge is strength” and “Young Scientist” were very popular. However now against the background of growing illiteracy (to be more precise, what is still worse, growing half-literacy - when people still kind-of know something, but all of it is so sketchy and vague, that it's not really different from ignorance) it became possible to seriously discuss concepts alternative to science, the ideological pluralism, etc. As if all opinions were equal. And that, which is built on the age-old traditions and enlightenments of brilliant people, who discovered amazing laws of nature, and taken from nowhere.

If science doesn't know all, it doesn't mean, that any witchdoctor happens to be on the same level with science. Science, in fact, differs from non-science because it clearly recognises the boundaries of what it still doesn't know. Because it is a system that works according to specific laws. It can make mistakes. As it is made by people. But that in no way justifies those, who never make mistakes.

Yes, mysterious exists. And that's fantastic. But it became mysterious only because, thanks to science, accustomed-to, rationally substantiated non-mysterious appeared. People became illiterate only after grammar appeared. If the timid enamored nervous young women find help in charms and spells, let them go to hereditary fortune tellers. But this abolishes neither the periodic table nor the theory of relativity.

A Russian version of this article can be found here.