Science versus Miracles: Water Divining with a Y-shaped Twig

B. Premanand

When the water-diviner feels the currents psychically, the Y-shaped twig starts moving. The persons who create motivating force through idiomotor response do not have any idea that they are the cause. It is these involuntary muscle movements, which cause the water divining stick to revolve and the planchet to work.

Effect: Water divining by a Y-shaped branch of a tree.

Props: Y-shaped branch of a tree.

Method: With little unconscious pressure on the two branches of the Y shaped twig, which is held in two hands, it revolves by itself. The diviner first knows about the underground water spring by looking at the big trees and ant hills and in the guise of psychic power gives a little pressure on the two branches of the Y stick which makes it turn in his hand.

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Science versus Miracles: Curing Jaundice by Psychic Power

B. Premanand

The jaundice patient goes to the tantrik or godman for a cure. After an incantation over the medicine, the patient is administered the medicine. He asks the patient to gargle for a few minutes and then spit it out. When he spits out a yellow liquid, which looks like a bile, the tantrik says he has been cured.

Experiment: 143

Effect: Curing jaundice by psychic power.

Props: Mustard Oil.

Method: If you pour some mustard oil in your mouth and gargle for a few minutes and spit it out, it looks like brownish yellow liquid. This is because the oil gets emulsified with the saliva.

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Science versus Miracles: Psychic Surgery

B. Premanand

In the Philippines, psychic surgeons conduct surgery without any instruments and claim to cure patients. One such psychic surgeon came to India in the 1980s and the first surgery was conducted on a minister of Maharashtra State. The surgeon thus acquired much publicity in the news media. When he was confronted by skeptics, he had to leave India. Later, it was known that he fell sick and instead of going to another psychic surgeon, he got admitted into hospital for surgery.  Many psychic surgeons and doctors have appeared in India due to television programmes on Yoga for health and on holistic cures. Satya Sai Baba has also conducted psychic surgery on the son of Dr. Bhagwantam, and others, but they dies of the same disease.

Psychic Surgey (Image Courtesy: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Psychic_surgery)

Experiment: 142

Effect: Psychic Surgery

Props: Blood in a plastic bag or thumb tip, part of an animal intestine, surgical cotton, and a table.

Method: Call a volunteer and ask him to remove his shirt and vest and lie on the table. Ask him to close his eyes and go to sleep. Have some blood hidden in the thumb-tip or plastic bag in your right hand. Press the stomach and put your fingers into the skin folds. Turn them inwards to the last joints of your fingers. The audience will think your fingers have pierced the stocmach and gone right in. When the fingers are bent back, release the blood. With the left hand take a piece of cotton with the animal part inside. Push the cotton onto the folds of the stomach and act as if you are curing the part and taking it out. With fresh cotton clean the stomach of blood and show to the audience that the skin has healed itself psychically, and the person has been cured with the diseased portion removed.

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Is Astrology a Science?

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya

Astrologers in India and abroad claim that their ancient discipline of study is to be recognized as a branch of science. The issue was resolved in Europe long ago. As early as the fourteenth century, a clear distinction had been drawn between astronomy and astrology, the first regarded as a science, the second as an art. Previously astrology itself was supposed to be of two kinds:

(a) Natural astrology - the calculation and foretelling of natural phenomena, such as the measurement of time, fixing of Easter, prediction of tides and eclipses, and of meteorological phenomena, and

(b) Judicial astrology - the art of judging the reputed occult and non-physical influence of the stars and planets upon human affairs. (Oxford English Dictionary,  'Astrology') 

Since the end of the sixteenth century, natural astrology became a part of astronomy while astrology meant judicial astronomy alone.

How can astrology be admitted as a branch of science? Science, by definition, is a systematized body of knowledge, based on observation and experiments, which can be verified by further observation and experiments conducted under similar or simulated conditions, and from the results of these some laws can be formulated which may be applied in practice. Astrology fails to satisfy these basic requirements. It is based on an imaginary concepts of the wheel of the zodiac, consisting of twelve constellations, Aries, Taurus, Gemini etc. Astronomy now recognizes nearly ninety constellations.

According to astrology, the orbits of the six planets (the Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), the Sun, the Moon, and the two imaginary 'planets', Rahu and Ketu, pass through this imaginary arc. All this was based on naked-eye observation and sheer ignorance of the existence of other planets in our own solar system. The very ideas of the 'nine planets' (navagraha-s) has been proved wrong. The Sun is a star, not a planet; the Moon (of the Earth) a mere satellite; and there are other planets like Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Another characteristic of science is that it is ever progressive. New observations and discoveries necessitate modifications of what had so far been known. For example, the geo-centric concept which held sway since times immemorial had to give place to helio-centric one propounded and proved by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. Astrology, on the other hand, is a closed system. The invention of the telescope and more sophisticated device of observation revolutionized the whole of old astronomy. Astrology, however, remained unaffected. Some astrologers do claim that they have incorporated the new findings in their own calculations. By saying so they also admit their own texts are hopelessly inadequate and need drastic revision.

Science attempts to find out the casual relationship between two events. The cause is to be an invariable, unconditional and immediate antecedent of the effect that follows. So there has to be different causes for different effects. And the two events— one that precedes and the other that follows— must be inter-related. Astrology, however, believes that there is one and only cause behind such diverse events as childbirth, scoring high marks in examinations, happy marriage, increase in wealth, etc. If one cause, the influence of planets, could account for everything on earth, life would be uncomplicated indeed. 

Prof Ramkrishna Bhattacharya taught English at Unversity of Calcutta, Kolkota and was an Emeritus Fellow of University Grants Commission. He is now Fellow of Pavlov Institute, Kolkota


 

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The Home of the So-called Pythagorean Theorem: Babylonia, Mesopotamia, China, India,… Vardhan’s and Tharoor’s Claims Refuted

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya

In a recent speech delivered before the scientists attending the 102nd edition of the Indian Science Congress, Dr. Harsh Vardhan is reported to have said: "Our scientists discovered the Pythagoras theorem but we very sophisticatedly [!] gave its credit to the Greeks' (The Times of India, 08 January 2015). Mr. Vardhan is not a non-entity; he is a Hindutvavadi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart and at present the Union Minister of Science and Technology. Mr. Shashi Tharoor, a Congress Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), shelving his opposition to the ruling BJP, supported Vardhan in a series of tweets. He said, '... the Sulba Sutras, composed between 800 and 500 BC, demonstrate that India had Pythagorean theorem before the great Greek was born' (The Hindu, 08 January 2015).

  

Bust of Pythagoras of Samos in
the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

There is nothing new in this claim. Dr. George Thibaut, the scholar who first studied the Sulbasutras in detail and translated one of them, had mentioned the Pythagorean Theorem in relation to the Sulba geometry as early as 1875 in an long essay published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. All histories of mathematics in general and of geometry in particular also recognize this similarity. But what the hon’ble minister and the opposition MP have stated is a curious mixture of half-truths and downright lies. Let us see where both of them went wrong.

A few words about the Sulva (or Sulba)-sutra first. It is admitted on all hands that the rudiments of geometry in India developed from that branch of the six Vedanga-s (lit. ‘limbs of the Veda’) called Kalpa. Vedic priests connected with the Yajurveda were supposed to learn this particular ancillary literature of the Veda. The Sulbasutras form a part of this Kalpa. They deal with, among other things, the piling of the fire altar, variously called Agni, Cayana, Citi, and Vedi, required for the Soma sacrifice (yaaga). The altars were made of kiln-burnt bricks. The bricks are of different shapes and sizes and required the skill and experience of the manual workers (not sages or professional scientists), such as, brick-makers and masons.

And here is the crux. The masons used ropes and bamboo in their work. The word sulba means ‘rope’. In the texts of the Sulbasutras of different schools, the word rajju (cord) is used throughout. They had no ruler and compass, and so all operations had to be made and measured with ropes and bamboos. There was no geometer, no scientist when the bricks were burnt and Vedis were piled. Whatever knowledge was acquired from such operations were essentially empirical in nature. Therefore, the very idea of a theorem is not to be expected. So Mr. Vardhan’s praise of ‘our scientists’ is beside the point. 

 

Now let us look at the Sulba texts in which the so-called Pythagorean Theorem is suggested:

(a) ‘The cord stretched across a square (i.e. in the diagonal) produces an area of the double size’. (Baudhayana Sulbasutra, 1.45)

(b) ‘The diagonal of an oblong produces by itself both the areas which the two sides of the oblong produce separately’ (i.e., the square of the diagonal is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides). (Baudhayana Sulbasutra, 1.48)

Why state the same in two different aphorisms(sutra)s? We must remember one significant fact: the Sulbasutras recognize only the caturasra, quadrilateral. There is no concept of the trilateral as such. The Pythagorean Theorem, however, is concerned with the right-angled triangle only. It runs as follows: ‘In right-angled triangles the square on the side opposite the right angle equals the sum of the squares on the sides containing the right angle.’ There was, however, no concept of angles and their measurement by degrees in ancient India. Only one type of trilateral is referred to by name: Praüga, the isosceles trilateral. Praüga is the name of the fore part of the shafts of a chariot. An altar is also named after it. The word, tisra occurs in relation to a particular kind of brick (Baudhayana Sulbasutra, 4.61), a right-angledd trilateral. The Manava Sulbasutra mentions trikona (10.3.7.6) but one side of this trigonal brick is curved. In any case the word, kona, does not stand for ‘angle’ (as it normally does today in many North Indian languages), but simply means ‘corner’. Thus panchakona in Manava Sulbasutra, 10.3.7.6 suggests a five-cornered figure. 

 

But there is no common name to suggest the trilateral as such. The right-angled trilateral is always conceived as a semi-quadrilateral – specifically a square (sama-caturasra) or an oblong (dirgha -caturasra) halved by a diagonal. There is no concept of the angle and hence, of the triangle in the Sulbasutras. The word, ‘triangle’ is quite inappropriate in the world of Vedic sacrifices. They knew only the quadrilateral, called chaturasra. Squares, rectangles and other quadrilateral figures were there, for the bricks were made of such shapes first, and then divided into several parts. Thus we have the figures, that are but the shapes of the bricks employed in piling the altar, all derived from a square as shown below: 

 

In the same way, the oblong (rectangle) too was divided into several such parts and each was accorded the name of its own. 

 

Hence the so-called Pythagorean Theorem is stated twice in the Baudhayana Sulbasutra: first in terms of a square [Proposition (a)] and then in terms of an oblong [Proposition (b)].

One may object that even though the trilateral was formed out of a square or an oblong, it was there, and therefore, there is nothing to prevent us from claiming that the so-called Pythagorean Theorem was ‘discovered’ by the Yajurvedic priests. 

 

Unfortunately, the texts of the Sulbasutras in which the statement resembling the Pythagorean Theorem occurs gives a lie to such a claim.

Some examples of the application of the proposition are also provided in another sutra: in connection with an oblong the sides of which are 3 and 4, 15 and 8, 7 and 24, 12 and 35, 15 and 36 (Baudhayana Sulbasutra, 1.49). One can easily see the relationship between the sum of the squares on the base and the perpendicular being equal to the square on the hypotenuse.

Thus, 3² + 4²= 5², 15² + 8²= 17², 7² + 24²= 25², 12² + 35²= 37², 15² + 36²= 39².

The same proposition also occurs in Apastamba Sulbasutra, 5.5, etc. and Katyayana Sulbasutra, 2.11. But no attempt at generalization is ever made. 

 

Any attempt to prove that the so-called Pythagorean Theorem (Proposition 1.47 in Euclid’s Stoikhna, in English Elements) was known in that very form in India before Pythagoras (flourished about 530 bce) is futile. First of all, the dating of the Sulbasutras is conjectural, but it cannot be earlier than the 600 bce. The dating of ancient Indian texts is always problematic: unanimity of scholarly opinion is seldom to be expected. (We have followed the chronological table given in the opening pages of A. N. Ghatage and others (eds.) An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles. Poona: Deccan College, Volume I, 1978).

In any case, such claims and counterclaims have long ago become meaningless, since it has been decisively proved that the ‘theorem’ was known in Old Babylonia at least twelve hundred years before Pythagoras. (A. Seidenberg, ‘The Geometry of the Vedic Rituals’ in: Agni, Vol. 2, edited by Frits Staal with assistance of Pamela MacFerland, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983, p. 101. For the Cuneiform texts containing Pythagorean numbers (and triples), see Midonick (ed.), Treasury of Mathematics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, Vol. 1, 1968, pp. 29-35). Both Mesopotamia and China too have a claim in having a glimpse of the Pythagorean triples. (Carl Benjamin Boyer (1968). "China and India". A history of mathematics. Wiley. p. 229; S. N. Sen and A. K. Bag, The Sulbasutras. New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1983, pp. 10-11, 154). Even if the redactors of the Satapatha Brahmaṇa were aware of the theorem (as Seidenberg says, p. 106), the work cannot be pushed back to 1900-1600 bce. We should rather note that the theorem was formulated in India out of the practice of craftsmen quite independently of Babylonia or Greece or China. The same statement would be true of Greece and China as well. Here is an excellent example of polygenesis: the same conclusion was arrived at in different ancient civilizations, unbeknown to one another, all on the basis of empirical observation. Euclid provided a general theorem true for all right-angled triangles and attributed it to Pythagoras, and there lies his credit. His predecessors could only think of and note down several cases, but stopped there.

 ***

 

Dr Ramkrishna Bhattacharya taught English at the University of Calcutta, Kolkata and was an Emeritus Fellow of University Grants Commission. He is now a Fellow of Pavlov Institute, Kolkata.

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Transplanting Elephant Head on Human Body - The Magic of Mythological Fiction

Ram Puniyani

One of the best parts of childhood for me was to enjoy the mythological tales and become aware of the world where Lord Hanuman could fly, as the emergency herbal treatment is to be delivered to his master’s brother; Laxman. Lord Ram travelling by Pushpak Viman (aero plane), Lord Ganesha being planted with the head of elephant as his human head was chopped off by his father, all this was uncritically digested. Karna is born from the ear of his mother; Kauravas are born from the mass delivered by Gandhari, the mass being divided into 100 pieces and being preserved. Such fanciful imaginations were so engrossing that questioning them never came to my mind. With growing up years, some exposure to science and then rigorous training for close to decade in a medical school forced one to revisit the childhood fantasies built around mythological fictions. Realization gradually dawned as to how to distinguish between fact and fiction, history and mythology. The beauty of imagination; fiction of the pre-Historic times, does still remain etched somewhere but is not a guiding principle for understanding of social phenomenon and processes.

 

While going through the tough medical discipline, one came to see the complexity of human body, histopathology, immune systems, blood groups, bio-compatibility and what have you. A mere thought that Lord Ganesha could carry an elephant head if taken logically will lead you to so many questions. If the head is severed from the body; for how many minutes one can survive? The head houses the brain with higher centers for control of breathing and heart pumping amongst others, so how long can one remain alive to be a recipient for other’s organs, and that too the head of an elephant? What is the difference in the immune system of human body and elephant? Even while transplanting kidney to one human being to another there are battery of tests carried on meticulously to assess the compatibility between recipient and the donor. So there was all this paraphernalia, if Mr. Modi is to be believed?

A mass delivered from uterus; can it be divided into 100 pieces? What type of micro surgery is required for splitting the fertilized ovum? Can uterus be located near ear? I am sure all these questions must have cropped up in the minds of the doctors, who had the privilege of listening to their Prime Minister in person when he was inaugurating their hospital. They heard, “We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time. We all read about Karna in Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realize that Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb… We worship Lord Ganesh. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time, which got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery”.

Hope the hospital he inaugurated is not planning to undertake such miraculous surgeries and splitting of the ovum in to hundred pieces! Many in the country surely must be feeling happy that their PM has given glory to ‘our’ past achievements! By all accounts it was a pastoral society or might have been the beginning of agricultural times, with hunting stage still lurking somewhere. The facts are very different from the utterances of the PM.

The practical impossibility of these fictional tales being true cannot be overemphasized. As understood with great pain and scientific enterprise the fictions of mythology of Mahabharata or Ramayana do not stand even a chance of being actualized. All this requires a huge infrastructure, body of scientific knowledge of human body, physics, astronomy, and myriad other components of knowledge which have been growing from the past but have taken definitive contours in last few centuries only. With all this progress in scientific enterprise today none of these ‘glorious achievements’ can even be dreamt of even today. The World of science has taken giant strides and built up on the cumulative knowledge of human society as a whole. Surely there are many contributions which came up in ancient India, and they need to be underlined, and their wisdom and logical method highlighted. Some of these are the ones related to Charak Samhita (Medical science), Sushrut (Surgical techniques); contributions of Aryabhatt in astronomy and discovery of zero. What is important is to build a method of thinking and logic which can take us to the next step of the knowledge, ultimately leading to techniques and applications, which in turn can be used to enhance and enrich existing scientific knowledge.

It’s not that it’s only in our country that such mythological fantasies developed. All old civilizations have such interesting myths. In Egypt, in prehistoric times the tales of Cleopatra tell us that she had belief, like probably many other Egyptians, in the supreme power of many gods who had animal’s heads, like Baboon God head Hedj-Wer and Annubis the jackal headed God. Had the likes of Modi known about this Egyptian belief, the claim of ‘export of our knowledge’ claim would have been registered by now. What a coincidence with our own Lord Ganesh? Is it again a case of plastic surgery or flight of imagination? In Greek mythology, Chinese mythology and many other traditions such fictional characters do merrily abound.

The hope and prayer is that in order to prove the point, those in seats of power do not divert and waste social funds for investigations of these fantasies. While an average person can believe in Lord Ram’s travel in Pushpak Viman or someone else travelling on a flying mat, if those in power believe in these things; the danger of public money and state funds being diverted for ‘research’ in these fantasies is very frightening. One recalls that during Zia Ul Haq’s regime in one of the conferences was on ‘how to solve the power shortage’. Encouraged by the atmosphere where it is supposed that all knowledge is already there in our holy books, one ‘scientist’ presented a ‘research paper’ which argued that jinns are an infinite source of energy and that should be harnessed to solve the power crisis in Pakistan! Mercifully, one hopes that state did not allocate funds for such a research! Any way science is a universal knowledge not owing allegiance to any country or religion. There cannot be anything like a Hindu science or a Muslim science!

While individuals can harbor the reality of mythology, the matters will be difficult if the chief of state has belief in these fictions being part of History. That will be a big set back to the progress of scientific, rational thinking and enterprise. This combination of mythology, religion and politics will make the matters worse. Many competing mythologies will be struggling with each other for their acceptance and being encouraged by such utterances. And the fantasies of power of jinn’s and plastic surgery for Lord Ganesha will a have field day.

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Signs in the Sky: The Irrationality of Astrology

JV Narlikar

With the New Year just around the corner, most people will now be taking stock of their performance in the current year and will be busy making fresh resolutions for the New Year. Anxious to perform better than in the past, they hope to foresee their future. Instead of making a rational assessment and prediction, many people fall back upon superstitions. Making an accurate assessment of this situation and exploiting the weakness of the gullible to the hilt, astrologers do a flourishing business in making horoscopes. Millions of copies horoscopes are printed and sold every year in our country. Bookstalls in railway stations and bus stands and airports display them prominently.

In our continuing effort to debunk this nonsense of astrology, we publish an essay by the eminent astrophysicist, Jayant V Narlikar. This essay was first published almost two decades back in The Times of India (January 1, 1994). We have left out the last paragraph of the original essay as it is not relevant today.

‘The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves…’ Thus wrote the Bard of Avon in his classic, Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare belonged to the 16^th century and Julius Caesar pre-dated him by about 17 centuries. The statement denies any power to heavenly bodies in shaping human destiny.  In the modern age of science when the astrophysicists have solved the mystery of what the stars are made of and what makes them shine, how does the above statement sound?

Imagine the following scenario.  The time is early afternoon, yet the ever-busy city of Bombay is at a standstill, its streets empty, the BEST buses parked in rows long the pavements, shops with shutters drawn. Why? Is it one of those bandhs which have (sadly) become part of our life?  Has the plague been rampant? Have there been bombs going of everywhere? Or is the city deserted because of the threat of an imminent air attack?

Well, the scenario is not imaginary.  It actually took place but not because of any of the above causes which, though unpleasant, are at least rational.  The cause was irrational; its source, the star nearest to us – our sun. The day was February 16, 1980, when a total solar eclipse was visible from certain parts of India. For Bombay, which claims to be the most advance city in India, a partial cover of the sun was, however, enough to drive practically everyone indoors.

Science Models

Schools texts tell us how and why the solar and lunar eclipses take place. Models are made to demonstrate how the earth’s shadow (in the sun’s light) falling on the moon causes the lunar eclipse and how the moon blocking the view of the sun from the earth causes a solar eclipse.  The geometry of the earth-moon-sun system tells us that the eclipses of the sun are considerably rarer than the eclipses of the moon.  Even the Indian astronomer, Aryabhata, back in the fifth century knew all this. Yet, the spectacle of a shining ball of light disappearing, if only for a few minutes, causing momentary darkness is impressive, and can even be frightening if you do not know its case.  Thus our ancient forefathers may be excused for reacting to the phenomenon with wonder and far. It is not surprising that legends grew up around the eclipse phenomena, legends that inspired rituals. The transient darkness and the serpentine shadow bands were considered harmful.

The fear, the legends, the rituals continue to dominate the minds of many to this day, even though science has given a rational explanation for the phenomena.  This irrationality which drove even a city like Bombay behind doors, has its roots in a deeply-imagined belief that the fate of any individual here on the earth is governed by the heavenly bodies.  Let us see what hard scientific evidence has to say on this belief.  To what extent do starts govern our condition?

The existence and sustenance of life here on the earth has been possible because our planet goes around a star (the sun) at a ‘reasonable’  distance; that is not too close to be burnt out by the sun’s heat and not too far as to freeze to death.  The sun provides energy that is needed for all life forms out here.  Our own building blocks – the elements we are made of - were mostly manufacture deep in the cores of other stars through the process of thermonuclear fusion and ejected through stellar explosions. The stars are essential for our existence.  But this statement is a far cry from the claim that your birth chart of horoscope determines your future or that an eclipse or a comet will bring disaster.  Scientific temper requires that such claim be examines in the first instance by the usual techniques that scientists use to test the validity of empirical relationships. What has been the outcome of such tests?

Birth Charts

Take, for example, the belief that for a happy and sustained married life the birth charts of the couple must be compatible.  Compatibility here means a matching as per astrological criteria. To test this hypothesis studies have been conducted for couples of kinds, those whose marriages were happy and sustained and those whose marriages did not last. The birth charts of couples from both groups were given to astrologers (who were not told to which group they belonged) to sort out which coupes and compatible birth charts and which did not.  Their classification tuned out to have co correlation whatsoever with the actual groups; In other words, compatibility of birth charts has no bearing on compatibility of marriage. This is just one of the many ways in which astrological predictions have been tested by scientists using objective criteria and statistical methods of inference employed successfully in other fields for testing empirical hypotheses.  In all cases the results have been negative; that is, astrological statements have shown no scientifically predictive power.

In the ancient times of Julius Caesar, the motions of planets were known to be irregular, not fitting in the same circular pattern in which stars appeared to move. The Greek word ‘planet’ itself means ‘wanderer’.  Did the planets wander because they moved at will?  Did they possess extraordinary powers? Did they exercise them on humans here on the earth?  Affirmative replies to these questions partly, if not fully, account for belief in astrology.

The work by Kepler and Newton in the 17^th century, however, has put the planets in their place, in orbits round the sun with motion, far from being irregular, but entirely calculable.  Today computer programs are available with whose help even a secondary school student can tell where Mars or Jupiter will be at any given time on any day.  Spacecrafts are launched to the moon and the planets with trajectories of split-second accuracy, thanks to the entirely predictable nature of scientific laws – the same laws that so graphically and accurately predicted the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter.

Astrology Flourishing

Why then even today we find astrology still flourishing?  For reasons one must look to that part of the human brain that is subjective, not rational.  Belief in astrology may provide solace to the frustrated and hold out hope when by all objective assessment there none.  For the stars (that is, the planets, which in astrological jargon also include the moon and the eclipse nodes) may then provide excuses for human failing and inaction and raise expectations that they will override human control.

While an individual may find mental solace in such beliefs, they are hardly beneficial to society. Think of marriage proposal between otherwise well-suited couples being turned down because their horoscopes don’t match. Or important decision like launching welfare programmes or forming cabinets put of to ‘more auspicious times’.  Or relaxing efforts in the success of an enterprise because ‘stars are favorable’.  I have hopes that in the highly competitive age of science and technology the long battle against superstitions will eventually be won.

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My Encounters with Healing In The Name Of Jesus!

Narendra Nayak

My first public encounters as a rationalist were with evangelists - the crusading ones claiming to heal the sick, the blind and the lame. It was in 1975 or so when I was a student at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal. I used to come to Mangalore on Saturdays and Sundays. One of these weekends when I had come home and was relaxing with friends, we got the news that there was a miracle healer called Chris Panos having his sessions on one of biggest maidans of Mangalore. One of our friends who is now no more was gushing about him having restored hearing to two of his cousins and he was a medical student! So, that leant all the more credibility to the claims and some of us rushed to the place. There was a high podium there with a well dressed man in a three piece suit, holding a microphone in his hand and shouting at the top of his voice- Heal in the name of Jesus and was exhorting the audience to shout halleluiah praise the lord which they were doing at the top of their voices. One of those on the dais was a familiar figure- he was the retired chief engineer of Mangalore Harbour project and his name was Panditaradhya. He was lead to the stage holding a walking stick and was ordered in the rolling baritone of Chris Panos throw away that walking stick and walk in the name of Jesus and the stick was snatched from his hands. The poor man somehow managed to reach the sides of the stage and held on to the ropes hanging on for dear life and then came shout from the hero- look Jesus has healed him! Again there was a big shout from the audience- praise be to the lord! Then was the turn of a girl whose arm was paralysed since birth- again the voice took over- Chris Panos said bend your hand and she bent it. At this I saw the arms of the girl - both were of the same size. So, I went to the stage and asked him how come both her hands appear the same since you claim that one of them was paralysed since birth! He was flummoxed and told me that it was a miracle.

www.atheistcartoons.com

There were hundreds of people waiting to be cured some of them in very pathetic conditions and my temper was slowly rising. On the sides I saw a quadriplegic beggar who was crawling on all four limbs and a begging bowl on a wooden trolley. I bribed him with 50 paise( which was a good amount in those days) and asked him to come with me. I took him near the stage and requested the volunteers to take him on the stage and get him cured. They told me that cures do not happen on stage but only the cured are allowed there. I told them that this man was deaf also and his deafness was cured and hence he was to be taken on the stage to let all know about it! But, the volunteers could sense a trap in that and said no, I told them why not and there was a commotion. Disturbed by this the great healer came to the side of the stage and demanded to know as to what was happening. I told him that this man should be cured. He said I don’t cure. I asked him then who does? He replies Jesus. I told him in that case-ask Jesus to cure him! There was a commotion and a policeman asked me what was happening and why I was creating a disturbance. At this, the healer came to the side of the stage and kicked the railings and shouted go back. When I looked around there was no one and I was the only one left! I told the policeman that I just want to check the healing powers of this guy and he said fair enough go ahead! At this Chris Panos called me to him asked for my hand pulled me close to him and whispered go away peacefully my friend in the name of god! I said I am an atheist and god is a dirty word to me. Then he told me go my friend otherwise something may happen to you. I replied don’t worry if something happens to me twice that or probably more is going to happen to you. Just at that moment somebody threw a wire at the power cables and the lights went off. Then there was a disturbance and the healing session came to an end! I was furious and started shouting at all the helpless people who had come in search of a miraculous cure there! In the meanwhile some of the saffron gang who had come there to try and disturb his meeting asked me whether anything happened when he kept his hand on my head- I told them nothing.  Their reaction was that they had all been scared that he had some sort of a power and that is why they did not have the courage to disturb him and that they now knew that nothing happened to me despite he keeping his hand over my head, they would come next day and teach him a lesson!

     

Teaching him a lesson is something that they really did the next day! They waited until it was dark and then tripped the electricity connection by short circuiting the wires and started molesting the girls when they raised their hands shouting halleluiah which resulted in a stampede and the cancellation of the proposed one week healing program in two days! Then followed the mutual recriminations the Catholics said he had been invited by the protestants and they said the opposite! Any way the whole thing ended in a fiasco and Chris Panos had to stop his healing sessions.

      

In 1977, he came once more to Mangalore and this time we were well prepared, we had printed pamphlets asking why this man from Greece had to come to India to heal when there were enough number of patients there itself. We had also questioned as to why the police were not taking action against him for practicing medicine without a license etc. These pamphlets were distributed in such a bold manner even to those who were in the audience that many thought that it was something being handed over by the organizers themselves! We had also challenged him that we would show him patients to be cured and if he did that we were ready to admit that he had the healing powers. At that time something really surprising happened- the program was cancelled. We were summoned by the police who asked for our pamphlets. Later on we came to know that the police inspector who was in charge of the security had called this man Chris Panos shown him the pamphlet  and had told him that we had complained that he was practicing medicine without a license. He was also told that the Inspector would take him to the nearby hospital and show him a few patients to be cured. If he did that he was assured nothing would be done to him but if he did not he would be arrested for fraud! Chris Panos told the police that he was just conducting prayer meetings and he was not curing people. He was asked to give that in writing and was let off. Later on we came to know that many of the so called cures were stage managed affairs with paid people first acting as if they were handicapped and then appearing normal when summoned to the stage as an evidence of being healed. In the case of the ex chief engineer it was said that he had had a brain hemorrhage and was slowly recovering. When he was called to the stage and his walking stick pulled away he had not alternative but somehow try to reach to the side of the stage as he did not want the public embarrassment of falling down as there was nothing to hold on there!     

The next day the ads about blind seeing, deaf hearing, and the lame walking were off and instead there were announcements of prayer meetings. The show was a flop and was wound up earlier than planned. So, that was the end of our session with this man Chris Panos. A few years later another healer called Peter Youngren appeared on the scene and his ads were too of the same type. This time we were ready with our pamphlets and had repeated the same challenges. But, here there were the police in full strength and we were not allowed to go into the venue but were asked to distribute our pamphlets at a distance from it. I had the time to visit it and it was quite apparent that the whole thing was an attempt at proselytizing in the name of healing and probably a few psychosomatic cases would have got some relief.

     

But, as the protests against these so called healing sessions started, the modus operandi of these people also changed. They started calling their meetings as prayer meetings and claimed that the ill would be prayed for. The venue of the meetings was also shifted to a place called as mission compound which was an enclosed area surrounded by the houses of Christians and would be easily protected from the attacks from outsiders. The process of saffronisation had also started and the Hindu groups were gaining strength. Around the end of the 20th century as rumors started about the end of the world, there was the big ‘prayer meeting’ of Dinakaran organized at Mangalore where large crowds of Christians-both Roman Catholics and protestants were supposed to gather ad pray, There were some feelers from the Hindu outfits that we should protest against that and I realized then that they wanted to use our shoulders to fire at them and told them that if they wanted to do that they could do it on their own. A few years later there was this man from Philippines- Alex Orbito who was supposed to perform psychic surgery- operating with his bare hands and removing what was called as bad elements from the body. He used to plunge his hand into the patients abdomen and a pink liquid would ooze out- an obvious case of palming! At the time when he was in Bangalore, his first session was in the Karnataka Legislative assembly and his first ‘patients’ were the ministers of the Karnataka govt.! This got him publicity and the next day there were long lines of ‘patients’ waiting to be operated by him outside the hotel where he was ‘operating’ it was estimated that he had collected several millions of rupees in one day charging a sum of Rs.3000 for a 3 minute session of ‘operation’. I could not visit that place as I had already fixed programs at a nearby place for three days. But, he was spirited away by organizers of his program as one lawyer from Kolar had filed a case against him at the Karnataka High court and the court had ordered his arrest. He was allowed to escape as some of the top police officials were his supporters and had arranged for his going out of the country. Later on it was revealed that he had been jailed in USA for practicing medicine without a license.

          

But our campaign against his healing went on full swing and I went to Bangalore to demonstrate this ‘psychic surgery’ at a TV studio along with a panel discussion which was supposed to be attended by one of the members of the Karnataka cabinet who had subjected herself to this ‘surgery’. It was not a surprise that the lady did not turn up! Along with this we demonstrated this in a few medical colleges including the Bangalore Medical College. It was here that I came to know that a pediatric surgeon was one of the supporters of this Alex Orbito and had arranged for his program. I also met one Dr.Rao who was the Chairman of the anti quackery cell of the Karnataka State Branch of the Indian Medical Association he informed me that when he had gone to a meeting at a very prestigious venue where Alex Orbito was giving a public lecture he was ridiculed by a supposedly upright policeman called Sangliana that what he was doing protesting when his President was on the dais. That was a fact that the meeting had the state President of the Indian Medical Association on the dais! This clearly shows the hypocrisy of the medical profession. Anyway, this Dr.Rao had taken a list of the names and addresses of the ‘patients’ who had been treated by Alex Orbito and was trying to follow up on that. The ‘psychic surgery’ performed by me for the TV channel was broadcast and I got a number of invitations to demonstrate that. I was told that a number of religious maths had invited Alex Orbito to do his treatment which he could not as he had to run away! Anyway, some of the top cops of Karnataka had helped him to escape.       

Then was the Benny Hinn episode-that was a year after the tsunami had struck the shores of India. He was supposed to come to Bangalore, conduct his prayer meetings for the peace for the souls of the affected people and also conduct the healing sessions. We were the first group to protest against his coming and had challenged him to demonstrate his healing powers on patients shown by us. At that time the congress party was in power and probably to please their ‘madam’ they rolled out a red carpet welcome for this man. The protests against his visit turned violent and there was quite some damage to public property due to the protests of the saffron gangs and the Bharatiya Janatha Party which was in the opposition at the time. The meeting was at a airport which was no longer in use and was attended by millions of people and was taken as a show of strength by the Christian community! The meeting was attended by the Chief Minister and some ministers of the central govt. too! However, the tough  ex cop Sangliana who was then a member of the parliament of the Bharathiya Janata Party issued advertisements in the local press asking people to attend the meeting when the rest of his party colleagues were busy protesting against that!

   

There was supposed to be an encounter with a healer called as Jira Ma in Jamshedpur which did not take place! She was supposed to be a very famous faith healer of the area drawing thousands to her sessions. Her healing sessions would start with her going into a trance and reading the bible. Her devotees who by then would be seated would have two bottles with them one of water and the other of oil. At the appointed time they would remove the caps of these bottles and pray along with her. After that they were to put on the caps and take them home for use- the water was for internal use and the oil was for external use! There was a regional meet of FIRA at Jamshedpur and the very next day her session was at a nearby stadium. So, we wanted to attend that and check on her powers and decided to so after discussions. But, we had not been aware of a reporter of a local daily around when these were going on. The very next day the newspaper carried on its front page our photographs with a bold headline- Jira ma is going to be exposed by the top rationalists of India. The element of surprise was gone and we were advised by the locals not to go there and get attacked by her devotees and we had to drop our plans. However, within a few years her nemesis came. At one of her meetings a heart patient who was waiting to be healed by her collapsed and died on the spot. She was arrested and imprisoned. These supposed healing sessions are called Changai Sabhas in the North and we have some of these ads. Our Nagpur groups have been successful in getting the Drugs and magic remedies (objectionable advertisements) act applied to them as they claim to cure disease. But, some of the Christian groups rally behind these so called healers, treating our questioning their powers as an attack against their religion. There are some of their activities going on in places on a permanent basis like in Potta in Kerala.

This was my last encounter with these groups in December, 2011 and the result of that is also mentioned along with. Since this was an attack on healing in the name of Jesus Christ most of the local papers which would be reluctant to publish anything against such claims from the groups linked with cow’s urine, exorbitant claims of yoga and Ayurveda were keen to publicise this. This was the statement

Healing disease by Chosen Generation of Ministries!

    

For those who may be having problems with married life, parents and children. Financial, health etc. etc. including things like satanic bondage the solution is well at Hand as Jesus is coming soon!

   

I am in possession of a pamphlet by an organization called as Chosen Generation of Ministries® which states that all these problems and more can be solved by them and two cell numbers have been provided when I called them and informed that I was suffering from cancer of the prostate and was told by one Mr.John that they could heal it, I was asked to come to Suratkal( a suburb of Mangalore) on the coming Monday and their god would heal anything!

Funnily enough this issue was brought to my attention by a Roman Catholic who was angry with this group for ‘baptising’ people and giving them communion again thereby converting them to their sect. I was also told that they were seeking donations for their cause and were mesmerizing people. While we have a Minister who claims that rolling on leaves on which Brahmins have had their meals, these people have gone one step ahead and have claimed that their god can heal all diseases!

In fact this hand bill attracts the provisions of the Drugs and magical Remedies (objectionable) advertisements ct, 1954 under which claiming cures for certain diseases is a cognizable offence. The authority for taking action under this is the drugs controller of Dakshina Kannada. Because, when one claims all disease, those under the provisions of this act are also covered.

  

The address of this organization is Chosen Generation of Ministries® Church Post box no 76 Udupi -576 101 and the founder and senior pastor is one Peter Quadros. Well one can claim the freedom to profess ones religion and also practice it. But, how about the claims made herein?

       

Of course however much I was keen to get my prostate healed by their prayers it was not to be. Not only I was busy that day, but the Hindutwa brigade was far busier. There was an attack by them on the premises where these ‘healings’ were going on and the usual violence followed!

     

This is an account of our encounters with those who heal with the power of Jesus. Thouigh I have been quite keen about exposing these frauds we have to be a bit on the careful side due to the propensity of the Hindutwa brigade to use our shoulders to fire at them. Not that they are exclusively dependent on us for that, but even our little bit helps! Of course we have such with those who heal with the power of many such gods, goddesses and spirits and what have you. More about that, some other time.

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Were Our Ancient Ancestors Scientifically Advanced?

J V Narlikar

[This essay, written by the eminent Cosmologist Jayant V Narlikar, first appeared in the April 1985 issue of Science Age, a magazine now defunct, brought out by Nehru Centre, Bombay. Though the essay is almost three decades old, it continues to be as relevant as most of the criticisms on pseudoscience are.

While recommending books debunking pseudoscience,  MassimoPigliucci says in his influential book Nonsense on Stilts - How to Tell Science from Bunk that though the books he recommends are old, one need not worry as pseudoscience never progress. Since the purveyors of pseudoscience almost always recycle the same stale arguments, the criticism raised earlier also continues to be valid. This is true of promoters of pseudoscience in India as well - especially those who make outrageous claims about the so-called "Vedic Sciences"]

Dr Jayant V Narlikar
Image Courtesy:
http://scientistsinformation.blogspot.in/

“Astronomical Vedic Science” by J Arunachalam (Science Age, March 1985) tries to show that the Vedas contain extraordinary scientific knowledge.  Others believe our puranas contain descriptions of things which re scientific and technological inventions of the most sophisticated order.  Was Sanjay in the Mahabharata the first TV commentator?  Were the Kaurava princes test-tube babies?  Were the battles in our mythology fought with guided missiles? Was the Pushpak Viman a helicopter?  These are examples of technology.  But were our Vedic ancestors scientifically advanced?  Did they or their immediate successors employ high technology?  If you believe that the answers to these questions are n the affirmative, you must prove it with scientific evidence.

Let me clarify what I mean by scientific evidence.  For someone to argue that an apple falls down from an apple tree (when it ripens, say, and gets disconnected from the branch) because there is a force of gravity acting on it and pulling it towards the Earth, is not enough.  Not even Newton could have convinced his fellow scientists of the law of gravitation with just that observation.  The law of gravitation has behind it Kepler’s meticulous analysis of observations of planetary motion, Newton’s law of motion, the mathematics of calculus; it has following it such predictions as Halley’s Comet and the discovery of Neptune.  Science, in other words, is not a collection of vague qualitative statements: it rests upon detailed experiments and mathematical foundations.  What is technology?  It is not a folklore of extraordinary objects: it is made of detailed manuals specifying in minute details all the components that go to make such objects.  Scientific evidence should produce such detailed descriptions.

Take the Greek epicyclic theory.  Wrong though it turned out to be, it can be judged as a scientific theory even to day by examining, say, Ptolemy’s Almagest. Detailed geometrical constructions are given the aim of which was to reproduce the observed positions of planets on the sky and to predict where to find them in future. 

Mr Arunachalam complains that “a majority of Indian scientists who know a great deal of Greek science are thoroughly ignorant of Indian science”.  Since he talks of Vedic science, he presumably means that there exists Vedic science in such quantitative details as the above example of Greek science.  Unfortunately, to date, no such detailed description has emerged.

Science makes unambiguous statements based on precisely stated assumptions. Unfortunately, Sanskrit (a language which I know a little and admire a lot) is not a suitable medium for describing science.  It has flexibility of syntax and meaning that can lead to many interpretations being given to the same statement.  A classic example is Aryabhata’s sloka implying that the Earth revolves around an axis against a background of fixed stars.  Since at the time he made the statement, and in the centuries that followed, the geocentric theory held sway, Aryabhata’s successors interpreted this sloka differently.

This being the drawback of Sanskrit, statements in that language depend very much on who chooses to interpret them.  Scientific conclusions are by contrast objective.  When Einstein writes a paper it does not require different interpreters to say what he meant. If he wrote a paper in such ambiguous terms it would not be accepted for publication in any scientific journal.

Arunachalm’s examples from ancient writings are such that they depend very much on the interpreter.  Take for example his translation of the answer to where the Sun gets its energy: “the Sun gets its power from a gas, which is in unlimited quantity.”  Now if modern science had found the Kelvin-Helmholtz hypothesis of gravitational energy (of contractions) as the correct answer to solar energy, this statement could be cited in support of it.  This hypothesis is, however, incorrect and so the same statement could be cited (as Arunachalm presumably intends) as supporting thermonuclear energy.  Further, what does the adjective “unlimited” mean?  The Sun has a large but finite mass. Is this what is implied?  If so, the interpretations are contrived at best. The relationship of the time span of manvantara (300,000,000 years) to the modern estimate of the Sun’s orbital period round the Galaxy is equally farfetched unless the Sun’s motion round the Galaxy is so stated explicitly somewhere.

The Viman-shastra which I had once studied failed to satisfy me on either of the two counts.  In terms of science, it did not give (even qualitatively) the theory of aerodynamic lift that motivates all modern planes.  It did not give any alternative scientific explanation as to why planes fly.  An in terms of technology it did not give a manual on how to make a plane.

It is wrong to read “science” into descriptions that are not scientific texts in the first place. The Ramayana and Kumarasambhava are literary masterpieces. Let us not confuse them with such things as Principia Mathematica or Review of Modern Physics.  As for the Vedas, as Arunachalam says, “traditions hold that even to misspell a word by a single letter is sin” – that is hardly the spirit of science!  Had science followed such a tradition our school children or college graduates would today be reciting Alagest word for word.

In the end I wish to clarify that there have been scientific text in India. The Charaka and Sushruta Samhitas give medical science as known and understood and practiced in ancient India.  The works of Aryabhata and Bhaskara are examples of astronomy text which exhibit clarity (in spite of Sanskrit!).  Leelavatis is an excellent example of a text in arithmetic, algebra and geometry.  Thus it is not necessary to go to Western science per se for examples of ancient science writing.

This makes it all the more important to find scientifically written texts of Vedic times.  Until such text are found, I regret that my answers to questions in my title cannot be in the affirmative.

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