What is Science?

by Sundar Sarukkai

What is Science

Genres: Philosophy

229 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

Sundar Sarukkai is currently a Professor of philosophy at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. He was the Founding-Director of the Manipal Centre for Philosophy & Humanities, Manipal University, India from 2010-2015. He is the author of the following books: Translating the World: Science and Language, Philosophy of Symmetry, Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, What is Science? and The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (co-authored with Gopal Guru). He is an Editorial Advisory Board member of the Leonardo Book Series on science and art, published by MIT Press and the Series Editor for Science and Technology Studies, Routledge.

Reviews

[Swarna Kumar · Rating 1 out of 5]

#Obscurantism

The book is full of such amazing gems as this:

There is rhetorical strategy in writing of science that clearly illustrates this attempt to remove the individual from scientific claims. All expressions of science replace human beliefs by facts — so instead of saying that Einstein believed that E = mc2, we say that E = mc2. One way by which this personal opinion becomes a fact of the world is through support from the collective. That is, a belief of the individual becomes a scientific fact when it becomes a 'belief' of a collective, when the I is replaced by the 'we'.

[Shalaj Lawania · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with other philosophy books, I'm evaluating this just on the basis of ideas I've never thought about before (for example, the dominant question what on earth is a science?). Once again, skimming works for me - think it's not positioned for laymen nor experts, and sits somewhere in between.

[Sushant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for intellctually responsible parents and science teachers