Science, and the game of science

In an episode of Young Sheldon, young Sheldon who is supposedly a genius and a budding scientist, is listening to the live broadcast of the Nobel prize ceremony live from Stockholm. He had invited several of his friends to listen to this live broadcast, even tried to engage in debates with them on who ought to be winning the Nobel this year, and also arranged for snacks for them to have a listen-party-- but no one turns up.

The next scene shows him lamenting that he may end up dying all alone, at this rate. The scene then shows other future BBT protagonists as kids, and what they are doing at that time. Young Howard is tinkering with some machine, Young Raj is looking at the stars, Young Leonard is reading something, Young Penny is sleeping, and so on. None of them had invited anyone else to listen to the live broadcast from Stockholm and were lamenting about no one turning up. 

It appears from this, that the real budding scientists were Young Sheldon's friends. Young Sheldon only showed interest in the game of science, while his friends showed interest in science itself. They were more interested in science itself, and not the social practices around science, like awards and recognitions. Young Sheldon only deluded himself as a scientist, but was more interested in who gets what award.

Of course, it is more likely that it is Sheldon who would stand the best chance of winning a Nobel prize later on. We tend to get what we really want. What Young Sheldon wanted was recognition as a scientist-- and his friends were more inclined to be a scientist.

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The difference between some field of activity, and the "game" of that field of activity, is the most important thing that we need to teach our next generation. Today, it is very hard to find those rare individuals who are really interested in scientific inquiry as an end in itself-- and are willing to pursue it sincerely, regardless of whether they get published and cited for their work. Their voices are drowned by the shrill rhetoric of very many scientific tournaments that abound. 

Most administrative decisions around science today, are based around the game of science, and not around science itself. Science is supposed to be a systematic inquiry into something that helps us understand reality better, and overcome some of our problems and challenges that we face. But the game of science is about award, glamour, recognition, fame, power, and such things. 

I often give an analogy to help understand this better. Consider a space research organization that has the capability to send humans to the moon. Even in such an organization, not every employee gets to go to the moon. The few astronauts who do get to go to the moon, get a lot of visibility, glamour and fame. But by far, they are not the ones who are practicing the science of going to the moon. There are typically hundreds or thousands of scientists and ground staff-- most of whom get no recognition at all-- who are pursuing the actual science of sending humans to the moon-- and of bringing them back! 

Scientific inquiry is a dispassionate and collaborative process. We all possess some nugget of insight from our own inquiry, and only when we collaborate and exchange notes will we get a glimpse of the deeper picture of reality. But the game of science sets up a competitive atmosphere of credits and awards, that goes against the spirit of collaboration. Imagine cartographers from olden days who each had an understanding of their region and just a broad idea about how the rest of the world looks like, competing with one another and pushing their version of the map as the authoritative one! (Such things did happen, but advances in technology made all such games obsolete). 

Scientific breakthroughs are often a result of shooting from the shoulders of giants. A great breakthrough is the result of several independent pursuits and there is typically no one inventor of anything. Unlike what we were taught for example, it is not just Wright brothers who built heaver-than-air flying machines. Several people around the world had independently created heaver-than-air flying machines-- that also included an Indian scientist named Shivkar Talpade (who does not feature in any "mainstream" articles or on Wikipedia for obvious reasons). Even if it is only the "Hindu nationalists" who mention Shivkar Talpade, it is entirely plausible that thinking minds existed in India too just like in every other corner of the world, and someone could have very well attempted building flying machines. 

The game of science is all about territoriality and turf wars, that is intricately affected by prevailing socio-political power structures. The science of radio was discovered and practiced by the Bengali scientist J C Bose quite successfully but the game of science only reluctantly acknowledged his contributions (with many conditions and caveats) several decades later. 

Science is driven by curious minds, while the game of science is driven by commercial and political interests and their power dynamics. The game of science is about winners and losers-- while science is about knowledge and ignorance. 

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Oftentimes to promote scientific temper, we create one or more "games" around science to "motivate" people to pursue science. However, unless we understand the psychology of how our minds interact with games, such efforts lead pretty much to the exact opposite of the intended outcome. 

Sometimes I ask the younger generation who are in their early 20s, whether they remember the marks they obtained in their crucial 10th standard Board Exams that they took when they were 14. Invariably, most of them would remember the exact marks that they had got in 10th standard. In fact, more than the students, their aunts and uncles would remember their marks much more clearly-- as this becomes a benchmark for their own children to aspire for, and get better results and "win" against their cousins, in this game. 

But when I then take up a random topic from their 10th standard syllabus and ask them a question about it (like say, "What is Apollonius Theorem"? or "What are Eucledian axioms of geometry?"), most of them would have forgotten the answers to these! I've also asked questions like "How do you measure the height of a tall coconut tree without climbing it?"-- something that the assimilated knowledge of 10th standard education should have helped them solve, even if they didn't remember specific theorems. But most of the times, the students are clueless about how to do this. 

The marks, which is an artifact of the game of science lives for much longer in our minds, and gets a life of its own, than the science itself! The marks is supposed to have represented how good we are in the science that we were taught-- yet, after a few years (or sometimes, just after the exams are over), only the marks remain, and the science is forgotten!  

And this is not relegated to just individuals. Entire institutions and nations are gripped in the game of science, and neglecting the practice of science in this process. 

Recently there was this news about the University of Zurich calling it quits and withdrawing from the game of university rankings expressing concerns about the quality of its research suffering from an obsessive emphasis on quantitative metrics. 

Some years ago I got to speak with an agency that advises universities on how to get better rankings. The person speaking to us was almost boasting that their agency had played a critical role in convincing the government to make these rankings mandatory-- and now they are advising universities (for a fee, of course) on how to get better rankings. He even when on to say that while he himself did not get admission in a prestigious technical university several years ago-- these universities now come to him for advice on improving their rankings! 

It reminded me of a scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie, where Charlie first sends out a boy, who goes about throwing stones at glass windows and breaking them, and then Charlie himself walks in a few minutes later, selling his services for window repair! Rankings are a classic case of the broken window fallacy where actual scientific activities get upended, to cater to the requirements of the game. 

Real scientific pursuits results in a congenial and cooperative work environment where the focus is on the scientific object of inquiry and problem-solving, while emphasizing on the game of science results in toxic work environments, full of mistrust, backstabbing, and an indignant and judgmental atmosphere. 

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The only thing worse than not having a scientific mindset, is to have a "game of science" mindset.