IISc Freethinkers was born when few jobless students at the Indian Institute of Science, in the delusion of their pseudo intellectual grandeur, decided to loop their friends & fellows in their coffee table fights- by making a permanent abode at (where else) a Facebook group. Pretty soon, our delusion deepened & we felt the need to expand to Google groups & have a blog as the voice of our group.
On a serious note, we thought it was high time when a prominent university like ours, being home to a diverse group of people in diverse disciplines, gets a platform to advocate critical thinking. Bangalore is abuzz with intellectual activities of all sorts, & we hope to get their support & encouragement in due time.
Our first activity was the screening of a documentary called 'Here Be Dragons' by Brian Dunnings at our campus on 19th January, followed by discussions & commentaries on various topics. We had an enthusiastic participation of more than 40 people, including some faculty members. The documentary is an excellent introduction to the basic tenets of critical thinking, & is highly recommended to anyone who has the slightest interest in anything related to it. While there were some people who were overly familiar with the contents & found the documentary a bit simplistic, & some others who took exception to a few points mentioned (I'll describe it in a minute), but to a large extent the documentary was well received.
Now, the interesting & somewhat intriguing part was the discussion that ensued. The initial questions were about homoeopathy, which were easily answerable by an informed answerer. Then, some people raised doubts about the validty of a few facts put forth in the documentary, like mention of FDA approval as a guarantee of a fool proof research, & mocking the claim of a black hole at the center of our galaxy.
We had moderators to prevent the discussion from devolving into a catfight. We might have been partly successful, but the discussion surely did press the wrong vein of some people. And we are talking about a group which is probably more intelligent, informed & articulate than laymen.
Astrology was the first turbulent. We had speakers who claimed to have experienced the correctness of astrology despite their initial skepticism, & others who maintained that it is close-minded to ignore astrology. Still others were convinced that there is enough room in quantum mechanics to allow for astrology. 'What good has science done to us' was the other thing. It was a tough job convincing people to look beyond the anthropocentric notion of science. Why should science bother to do anything for us? Such problems arises when one confuses science with politics of science, sociology of science, & so forth. No doubt that such questions deserves attention, but there are seperate answers for seperate questions. And what is this notion of good anyway? (One commentator opposed the increase in life expectancy as an index of betterment). Some had existential concerns, like why should one not be free to believe whatever the hell (s)he wishes to?
Others had problems with the explanatory power of science, with inductive reasoning, & even with the scientific method! Authority of scientific establishments was questioned (understandably considering the research institution like ours). The over reliance on science was accused as scientism.
Now, that kind of discussion was a bit unsettling for many people- but on a hindsight, isn't this the very nature of an actuating event? As a takeaway from our first event- in future we plan to organized lectures, debates, screenings & good old coffee table discussions on more pertinent issues (please do suggest some topics), & would urge participants & audience to brush up their views & come with handy references. We would make all efforts to keep our tones moderate & more contextualized (concerning, though not limited to, an educated Indian audience). In addition, we would not shy away from actively participating in more practical situations, viz. skeptivism (skepticism+activism!).
This blog is a platform to showcase our scattered discussions in a comprehensive manner, to connect to a wider audience, & to allow for the light to get in.
P.S.- The picture at the top right corner will be used as our official logo :-) (courtesy The Thinking Atheist)
