SCIENTIFIC TEMPER: An Empirical Study

The first major objective of the present book is to define the concept of scientific temper theoretically. Hence, in the first part of the book, its various components have been logically knitted on the basis of their methodological and epistemological links to make it a theoretically coherent ideal type construction. Subsequently, the expediency and essence of scientific temper for a developing society like India has been spelled out. In the course of his discussion, the author has attempted to take on conspicuous issues of the debate like those pertaining to the universal and monistic character of science and scientific method, science domination and authority, science and violence, science and (human) values, science and religion, and the tradition of science and scientific community in India, etc.
And secondly, in order to give it a conceptual status, the second part of the book is devoted to the empirical aspect of the study that examines several hypotheses pertaining to faculty differentials in scientific temper, the relationship of scientific temper with religious beliefs and dependent variables, called as its social correlates, such as exposure to mass media, length of urban living, average family education, socio-economic status and attitudinal modernity. Some qualitative probings through selected case studies to tap the esoteric propellants of scientific temper have also been made.