Scientific Scepticism!!!

Much of the scientific thought that prevails today started back then as pseudo science. Science as we know it, is based on roots that are as yet shaky to a limit. Every scientific evolution has been based on a complex idea of theories...and as far as i know, theories are not facts. These are all mathematical calculations built around some number known as a 'constant'. So it could happen one day that Theory of Relativity or the Gravitational Theory could be replaced by some other theory which is more potent and more satisfying to the prevalent scientific temper. After all, that's what has been happening over the ages, isnt it? Lets not get rid of new Galileo's just because we cannot get rid of our old ideas. Or else, the sun would still have been rotating around the earth!!!

But then we do need to apply our logical minds when we discuss stuff like teleportation, telekinesis and other paranormal ideas. I can understand that the belief in such 'other' ideas can be strong as these are very intriguing ideas that appeal to the mind. Does our logical mind allow us to believe in miracles done by 'fakirs' and 'babas? We may pray at temples, but how many of us still believe that God's stay in these edifices? Can we quote a single non-controversial example of of the above 'tele' things apart from legends, and what others have told us that they have heard from someone else and so on? These are things we dont understand, and unless we are very sure of their working mechanisms, its better to be sceptics.

Being skeptic doesnt mean holding onto something even when you know that the new idea maybe better...it just means not giving urself unto something just for the sake of being with the new breed unless logic allows you to do so. A rational mind may hold you back from holding a fire in your hands, but the same sane rational mind will prepare you to do so when the time is right!!!

The idea of talking to someone thousands of miles away using something called a 'phone' would surely seem too far fetched even 200 years back, but a scientifically tempered mind would have looked the possibilities of doing so even then. Ask Leonardo da Vinci who had designs of a helicopter in his manuals!!! Granted he was no ordinary being, but logical and scientific thinking need not be the realms of geniuses only!!! But the ideas of 'tele' are not new...these ideas have been omnipresent in all civilisations - old and new - since men started using their imaginations!!! And the progress to implement these ideas have been zilch since then, while new ideas have come forth and have been visualised, designed and developed many many times. Imagination is never a bad idea (after all its the beginning of an idea), but in this realistic world (about what we hardly know anything), skepticism is the only tool that we have to prevent us from ends like that of Icarus!!!

As for me, I dont believe in something that doesn't sound logical to me, just like I dont believe in the principle of God, and surely not in 33 crores of them!!! It doesnt mean I am a fanatic in my beliefs, and will never change my thoughts in the future. But I believe in my own thoughts more than what others feed into my mind. I think there is a small Galileo present somewhere deep in the recesses of my cerebrum and cerebellum, and I am very happy for whatever experiments he conducts over there!!! :-)