Science and Freedom

By D D Kosambi
(Prof. D D Kosambi was a Mathematician, historian, political theorist ,commentator and a very original marxist thinker.In this very less known article he sums up the marxist view on science.We are posting this article specially for the science students as we think in india studieng science and having scientific temper are two very different things. We will try to post some more excellent but forgotten articles on Education and pedagogy in upcoming days – Editor )

In 1949, I saw that American scientists and intellectuals were greatly worried about the question of scientific freedom, meaning thereby freedom for the scientist to do what he liked while being paid by big business, war departments, or universities whose funds tended to come more and more from one or the other source. These gentlemen, living in a society where he who pays the piper insists upon calling the tune, did not seem to realize that science was no longer ‘independent’ as in the days when modern manufacturing production was still expanding at the lower stage of technical development, and the scientist who made the most essential discoveries was looked upon as a harmless individual toying with bits of wire, chemicals, perhaps collecting odd specimens in out of the many places. The scientist now is part of a far more closely integrated, tightly exploited, social system; he lives much more comfortably than Faraday, but at the same time under the necessity of producing regular output of patentable or advertising value, while avoiding all dangerous social or philosophical ideas. As a result, the worthies I mention were quite worried about tlle lack of scientific freedom in a planned society, but only indirectly and perhaps subconsciously as to what was actually happening to their own freedom in an age and time of extensive witch-hunting, where being called a communist was far more dangerous than being caught red handed in a fraud or robbery.

These considerations, however, are mentioned only because they lead one astray from the main facts. There is an intimate connection between science and freedom, the individual freedom of the scientist being only a small corollary. Freedom is the recognition of necessity; science is the cognition of necessity. The first is the classical Marxist definition of freedom, to which I have added my own definition of science. Let us look closer into the implications.

As an illustration, consider the simple idea of flying. I am told that our ancestors in India had mastered some mysterious secrets of yoga whereby they could fly hundreds of miles in an instant. I don’t believe it; these are flights of the fancy rather than of the body. Attempts to imitate the birds had very limited success, but gliders were more successful. Then came the posing of the elements of the problem, namely sources of power, methods of propulsion, laws of aerodynamics- all scientific and experimental truths. Mankind was not free to fly till the flying machine was invented. Today, anyone can fly without yoga- provided he has the means to enter an airplane. This, as society and its property relations are constituted, implies that either he owns the plane, or someone who does allows him admission; ultimately, the question is whether or not our flying human has money, i.e. the necessary control over means of production. In the abstract, nothing prevents him from sprouting a pair of wings and flying off like a bird; nor from becoming a yogi and soaring into the atmosphere by mere exercise of will-power. Such freedoms nevertheless, are illusory; necessity compels man to find other, more feasible technical methods. …………………………….