What is the evidence?

ANY EVIDENCE ?

• My New Jersey based NRI friend told me last year that he had asked his parents to shift from Chennai to Mumbai in view of the ‘perennial shortage of water and milk’ in the southern city. Shocked at his colossal ignorance and, I suspect, prejudice—I asked him if he had any evidence of these shortages.

ANY EVIDENCE ?

• When my friend Joginder from Delhi asked me why a so- called developed state like Tamilnadu had so many cases of foeticides I asked him if he had any statistics to support his allegation.

• I read the speech of the Chairman of a top corporate extolling the ‘ outstanding performance’ of his company. My Investment counsellor friend told me that I ought not to be carried away by the speech. The evidence is precisely the opposite he suggested.

• Vinod Mehta the editor of OUTLOOK magazine writes that he is a Hindu agnostic.

• A devotee of a renowned Godman told me that her guru had performed many life saving miracles. When asked for evidence she referred me to the website of the Godman.

There is a common thread running through these apparently disparate incidents cited above. I seek to make a case for asking for reliable evidence in any situation. I request that while we may visit movies after suspending our sense of disbelief we ought to carefully sift for evidence before agreeing to bestow our support for any significant suggestion.

Take the first example.

It may not be known to many readers that the second largest dairy farm in India after Amul is in Erode in Tamilnadu and there is absolutely no milk shortage in Chennai .For that matter unless rains fail for a few years in succession there is no shortage of water in Chennai. On an average day the per capita availability of water in Chennai is MORE than in Mumbai !

As for cases of infanticide and foeticide India as a whole has to hang its head in shame at this extreme prejudice against the girl child.[there are 914 girls for thousand boys]. The worst records in this respect are to be found of all places in Mumbai and New Delhi!! Need I say more for evidence based thinking?

As for the Chairman’s speech my adviser asked me to read it with a heavy pinch of salt. The data about physical units of raw materials consumed, he told me, suggested that the company had puffed up profits by financial jugglery. That is what the evidence furnished by the company as required by law ,says he added

Vinod Mehta belongs to those who are neither believers or non-believers .All that an agnostic asks is evidence . Thus if and when I am given believable evidence that God exists I will be more devout than anyone else .That brings us to the stock reply to this question—God is beyond evidence, beyond science.

This question is also at the heart of the last incident I have cited above—the so called miracles of Godmen and others of that ilk including faith healers of any religious persuasion.

I suggested that the cases of miracles claimed for the godman or for any others need to be verified by experts and a body of reliable evidence ought to be available before one can pass any judgements. ‘But our Godman and his work is beyond science’ they asserted. Now whenever someone says this I suspect that there is an underlying anxiety that the claims to supernatural powers many not stand careful scrutiny –this has been the case in all instances where a ‘miracle’ has been scrutinized by disinterested experts .

One such godman who is said to have brought a dead man back to life and cured many an incurable disease is now critically ill and is under treatment under a team of eminent doctors—the best that money can buy . When asked how a man who could cure everyone is himself ill I am told ‘ he has taken on other peoples illness on himself hence he is ill.’ This kind of argument is called a non- falsifiable claim and is not to be taken seriously by us.

As for many alternate remedies, practitioners tell us that they too are beyond science. However when a scientist comes up with any evidence that seems to uphold any of their claims these practitioners turn around and tell us ’See even science backs us !!”A case of selective interpretation.

That ’ believers’ cannot get over their credulousness was made clear to me when a friend requested me to meet a faith healer in Kurla, a suburb in Mumbai. My friend promised me that if I consulted this faith healer I would be cured of a certain ailment that had been affecting me for over 25 years. I protested that no cure existed for this ailment that can at best only be managed by medication. She told me that I had nothing to lose anyway. I went with her deep into slum. I saw a crowd of over a thousand people waiting patiently for a ‘ darshan’. I knew I had a long wait on my hands especially because I was not a VIP whom faith healers and godmen are fond of. I strolled around the slum when at a strategic point I noticed a signboard that read

‘ I AM NOT CAPABLE OF ANY MIRACLES.PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME .PLEASE CONSULT A DOCTOR FOR YOUR AILMENTS.MAY ALLAH HAVE MERCY ON YOU’

Here for a change was an honest faith healer.Right below this board which had a hindi translation sat more than a hundred people—a testimony to the suspension of thinking and common sense by ‘believers’.

In the secular and corporate worlds too there is a dire need for evidence based thinking. More about this later.

k.r.ravi