Twentieth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society

Abstract

This paper problematizes the imagination of science as a type of body of knowledge and its hegemony accepted not only by its supporters but an implicit acceptance by its detractors, too. It discusses what is considered ‘scientific’ and asks if its acceptance rests more on faith than on the inherent usefulness of scientific knowledge forms. The paper begins with a description of knowledge questioning the conceptualization of the rigid understandings of sciences. It brings to the fore the dichotomy of the supposed acceptance of sciences by the people as well as the denial of basic dictums of science and an overwhelming support of unscientific and pseudoscientific beliefs. The paper asks whether it is, in fact, not the acceptance of science because of its inherent usefulness but because of faith that the people accept it. Using the COVID-19 pandemic and the prevalence of Liv.52 (an ayurvedic formulation) in India as exemplars, it further asks if there’s a crisis in knowledge in the making, and whether the State, as an all-powerful actor, has a role to play in creation and continuation of this crisis. It also asks, via a problematisation of the supposed singular entity of the “scientific community”, whether the scientific community has a role to play in this, if any. It concludes that the acceptance of this hegemony of the sciences by the people because of an implicit trust arising out of faith and not realisation of the inherent usefulness is a problem that demands further analysis.