What is scientific temperament and what is its importance in

business and life

There is one duty that is unique to India under Article 51A (h) that encourages the citizen to
“develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform".

Historians credit India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for coining the term “scientific
temper". In The Discovery Of India, Nehru writes, “The scientific approach, the adventurous and
yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept
anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of
new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard
discipline of the mind, all this is necessary, not merely for the application of science but for life
itself and the solution of its many problems."

We are now going through a rather confused phase in our society, where this requirement for
scientific temper is simultaneously being broadcast with specious claims of India’s ancient
scientific prowess and hoax “miracles" being performed by gurus and charlatans. 

Science and the scientific temper are imperative if better lives are to be assured to a billion plus
people in a country constrained by resources, particularly energy, and at a time when the world
is beginning to feel the devastating impacts of climate change. Abnormal weather patterns and
natural disasters, including bushfires in Australia, flooding in Indonesia and unseasonal frost in
India, are likely to get more intense in the coming decades. Only science and the application of
the mind can offer solutions at scale and in an affordable fashion if we are to pursue inclusive
development. Science lifted the world and its living standards over the past two centuries, and
it can do so again.