58 SOCIAL SCIENTIST society with its superimposed colonial structures, no attempt can obviously be made to pin down those social forces responsible for the visible variance between professed objectives and actual realities. A simple fact which has escaped the men of learning is however evident to a field worker like Anil Sadgopal who, in his Sarabhai Memorial lecture, unambiguously stated that the ship of scientific temper flounders on the rock of vested interests.2 The authors of the Bombay statement, in trying to skirt the basic issue that scientific temperament is a component of the ideology of the class which can revolutionize society (as it was with the bourgeoisie in its struggle against feudalism), avoids what is in fact the crucial point to be made by a serious statement of this sort. A correct political perspective is essential if scientfic attitudes are to be inculcated in the great mass of the people. The present statement is so far from this that it lands itself in a vicious circle. "The inculcation of scientific temper in our society would result in our people becoming rational and objective, thereby generating a climate favouring an egalitarian, democratic, secular and universalist out-look. Consequently scientific temper cannot flourish in a grossly inegali-tarian society... social justice, widespread education and unrestricted communication are, therefore, prerequistes for spread of scientific temper". Ashis Nandy's counter-statement arguing for a "more" humanistic temper (the problem of quantification presents no difficuly, for Nandy's is a purely "ideological" argument) is based on a single categorical statement: ^Oppression never ends. When one form of oppression ends, new forms emerge". His "humanism" thus consists in palliatives and not solutions. It is difficult to argue with a position based on this assumption. One can only state that the entire exercise is spurious. For Nandy cannot distinguish between electrons and witches; both are myths neither of which is better or worse than the other. On such myths, traditional, religious or otherwise, Nandy grounds "human dignity", making a mockery of the struggle of the human race to better its conditions and advance the parameters of its understanding and control. The "status quo-ist" basis of his article forces this posture, for "astrology is the myth of the weak; modern science that of the strong. If you have the latter you have to have the former". Since Nandy has neither the courage nor the inclinatioh to question this division, far less to join forces with those struggling against it, what could be better than to provide a "justification" for it? * A series of obviously fallacious reasonings are offered to substantiate a vacuous posture. The real control which scientific knowledge offers human society over its environment and therefore its destiny is discounted, while politico-administrative policies which have exploited this to the detriment of humanity are placed at the