The most unifying element between races, religion or nations is science. Here all speak the same language. It is common to see a Chinese scientist discussing research topics with say an Arab scientist in a conference, academic institution or research laboratory. There is a universal aspect of scientific laws, principles that crosses racial, geographical cultural boundaries that is absent in other branches of knowledge(e.g history, arts, economy, law etc which are taught, developed and adapted to suit their respective nation or society). The programs in Physics, Chemistry etc. in an Arab, Chinese or US University cover the same topics and principles. The theologians of different religions have widely differing views but the scientists of all religions have identical "views" of scientific principles. A vindication of the point I am trying to make is nicely illustrated by the noted British American elite Physicist Philosopher from Princeton, Freeman Dyson who, in his insightful book "Infinity in All Directions" credits a Bangladeshi Muslim (Dyson's own word) Physicist Jamal Islam as having inspired and helped him in his quest for understanding of what the possible ultimate fate of the universe might be, and to a Japanese Biologist Kimura for having helped him in a mathematical way in his quest for the understanding of how Life on Earth might have evolved (genetic drift through random statistical fluctuation). Incidentally, Jamal Islam is also mentioned in Frank Tipler's mind boggling book "Physics of Immortality" on page 116. As Physicist and former president of the New York Academy of science Heinz Pagels said: "What distinguishes scientific theories from the pictures of reality provided by religion, culture or politics is the intention of their creators that they be useful theories independent of their user's religion, culture, politics, sex, race, personality, feelings, or opinions (p-172, "The Dreams of Reason"). Nobel Physicist Steven Weinberg remarked: "The experience of listening to a discussion of Quantum field theory or weak interactions in a seminar room in Tsukuba or Bombay gives me a powerful impression that the laws of physics have an existence of their own." (From "Dreams of a Final Theory, p-47-48). Physics is the right choice as the laws of physics are fundamental laws of nature that are universal and any explanation of any aspect of nature eventually reduces to explanation in terms of these basic laws. All other branches of science are derived from these basic laws of physics with some additional assumptions reflecting the complexity of the individual instances. Pleasee refer to A scientific view of Life, death, Immortality for quotes from scientists substantiating this conclusion. The principles of medicine etc are not fundamental laws either but reflect empirical rules that can and sometimes indeed seem to be violated, but are nevertheless universal i.e not culture or tradition dependent. A nice illustration of this universality is by listing the following Nobel Laureates in Physics (with diverse ethno-religious backgrounds) and their work:

1. Subrahmaniam Chandrashekhar(Indian/Hindu): Theory of Black hole and the structure and formation of Stars. See the link at: http://www.math.bme.hu/mathhist/Mathematicians/Chandrasekhar.html
2. C.N. Yang and T.D.Lee (Chinese/Buddhist): Theory of Parity violation in nature (A subtle aspect hard for me phrase it for laymen) See http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1957.html.
3. Abdus Salam (Pakistani/Muslim): Unifying the Weak and Electro- magnetic forces of nature (same comments as above). See http://www.ictp.trieste.it/ProfSalam
4. Tomonaga (Japanese/Buddhist?): Work on Quantum Electrodynamics. See http://nobel.sdsc.edu/laureates/physics-1965-1-bio.html
5. Landau(Russian/Aethist(?)): Work on Superfluidity. See http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1962-1-bio.html
6. U.S, and other European physicists too numerous to mention.

Often a cavalier view and misconception exists among many laypeople about scientists, scientific truths and scientific methodology itself. There was a common perception before (and still is among some) that the laws of science are discovered by bespectacled, absent minded scientists, working quietly away in their labs, dabbling with microscopes and playing with simple equations or graphs of the kind that one is familiar with in their high school math, adding here, subtracting there, tweaking numbers until they are hit by a piece of good luck. In fact the math that is used in contemporary science is quite sophisticated. The simple math of the early Greek and medieval times has evolved into an incredibly complex edifice of advanced math today that are applied to scientific research. This complexity is not just in quantity, in the sense that an entire page of equations of high school algebra or calculus being needed to express a physical law, but rather in the complexity and novel concepts, notations and structures needed to express a physical law precisely. The new notions themselves often require mathematicians to delve metaphysically into the realm of higher dimensions, far removed from ordinary experience, sometimes to a 11 dimensional world, for example in developing the superstring theory of spacetime-matter at the fundamental level. Also the stereotypical image of scientists diligently engaged in trial and error with experiments and equations until finally they hit upon something revolutionary is a myth as well. It is not realized by many that all the profound breakthroughs in scientific ideas are not due to just the patient and diligent tinkering of instruments and numbers, but due to the painstaking, disciplined mental work through mathematical analysis and observations following the scientific method. Although the inspirations behind the discovery of certain scientific truth may be epiphanic, but the formulation, verification and communication of such scientific truth requires the use of scientific methodology before it can attain the status of a universally accepted scientific law. Scientific method is the "conscience" of the scientists, so to speak, that guides the scientists and prevent them from succumbing to individual whims and wishes. It enforces a uniform rule of engagement for any scientist irrespective of affiliations to search for the objective truth about reality based on observations, evidence and logic. Technological marvels, which are results of applying those scientific principles through ingenious ideas using both theoretical and experimental techniques, however at times do require diligence and tinkering. Some layfolks even think that the laws of science are just the result of some abstract imaginations or mental constructs of scientists reflecting their bias for what they perceive to be true, and the scientific laws are just a post hoc mental constructs to explain away observations, denying the objective reality of scientific laws. They seem to equate the claims of truth by religions with scientific truths. But unlike religious and personal beliefs, which are considered true just by thinking it ot be true, scientific beliefs are arrived at and inspired by a desire to seek the truth through a systematic, repeatable, testable experimental and theoretical endeavors. Such endeavors have to be necessarily objective in nature for it to be verifiable by scientists collectively regardless of their affiliations. A scientific truth does not result from haphazard attempts. It emerges from a systematic series of tests and observations inspired by intuitive thinking, reasoning and evidences, aided by theoretical or mathematical analysis. The level and complexity of the mathematical analysis is often beyond that seen even in graduate level math courses. One need only glance through the pages of the book "The large Scale Structure of Space Time" by Hawking Ellis or "The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" by Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar to appreciate this fact. Oftentimes lay persons are illusioned and take the profound scientific statements of reputed scientists for granted as obvious,simple, or armchair speculation, not realizing that pages and pages of sophisticated math that went into arriving at such a scientific conclusion in a precise way (An example being Hawking's mathematical derivation of a Universe with no beginning or end and the notion of "imaginary" time) and developing a theory based on such math that can predict any result that is a logical consequence of the theory, testable by the scientific community in a repeatable way. A full consensus of the scientific community crossing national, racial borders is an absolute prerequisite as well. The most important aspect of scientific methodology is its ability to predict and a scheme of verification/falsification of this prediction. All known scientific laws were established through verification of the predictions it made. A lay person is hardly aware of the ruthless and exacting rigor with which the prestigious scientific journals and their international referees screen a prospective article publicizing a scientific principle. Such is the firmness of an established scientific law or truth. A scientific law is not introduced in a cavalier way like the pseudoscientific theories of "Scientology", "Quantum Healing" and similar other new age myths that are not accountable and subject to any rigorous peer review and testing. One simply has to remind oneselves that there is good reason for these never being taught in the regular programs in any general Academic Institution, private or public. It is important to remember that only one violation of a scientific law is enough to topple it whereas a series of evidence/verification together with a mathematical and logical consistency tested repeatedly by peers help to establish one.

Many laypeople hold the view that something that cannot be "seen" by their eyes cannot be said to exist in a certain way but only conjectured. To them an electron or atom is thus not a real object, but a scientific conjecture. They miss the point that our individual senses are no longer the only reliable means of verifying, testing or predicting a truth or proving the existence of some entity. Our observable universe consists of visible and invisible domains, the macrocosm and the microcosm. The entities of the microcosm can be "seen" by more sensitive means than our limited senses. Scientific methodology has, over hundreds of years been able to perfect an objective systems of observations through the design of extremely (Cannot overemphasize this word) sensitive equipments procedures that can measure one billionth of the thickness of a hair to give an example. Scientists today can "see" an atom by a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope. Add to that the extremely complex, sophisticated mathematical structure language to express a scientific truth that defy human words. Scientists spend a substantial amount of time mastering this complex language before even beginning to express and converse about the truths with their peers. Our entire assortment of technological boons like T.V., microwave or for that matter any electrical/electronic appliance is based on the same principle that asserts the existence of electron, even the computer that the Software Professional was writing programs for. Saying that the existence of an electron is a perceived truth by the scientists is like saying that the existence of the computer he is operating is the result of his believing that it exists! Many educated people even doubt about the objectivity of Einstein's Relativity particularly its implication of time dilation etc. They don't realize the "Nuclear" bomb, whose existence no one dare doubt, is built and devised from the very same law that yields time dilation as its natural consequence. It is also sad to see the cavalier way some lay people and non-specialists dismiss many scientific theories/speculations just because it contradicts their subjective perception, belief or "common sense". Examples are "Big Bang", "Black Holes", "Time Warp", Superstring Theory, Antimatter, prediction of machines having consciousness beyond 2050 etc(As believed by Nobel laureate Scientists Crick and Edelman, Computer Scientist Marvin Minsky, Philosopher Daniel Dennett). The noted philosopher of this century Martin Gardner commented in 1983 in his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" : I cannot say it is impossible for humanity someday to build a computer or a robot of sufficient complexity that a threshold will be crossed and the computer or robot will aquire self-consciousness and free will (p-114). Notice he is not saying that this WILL happen, only that it cannot be dismissed as impossible. Scientific theories are based on painstaking mathematical derivations based on well established fundamental laws of science or are propounded in a mathematical expression derived on the basis of some premise that seem plausible from observations. Once enough observational evidence in support of the consequences of the theory is accumulated the theory becomes a fundamental law itself. Scientific speculations are predictions based on existing natural laws but project its future extensions far beyond its current range of validity. For a lay person to dismiss or disbelieve such a theory or speculation, he/she has to point out the flaw (if any) in the mathematical derivation of the theory (For that he/she obviously has to master enough technical proficiency in the sophistication of the mathematical framework) or put forward an observational evidence to contradict the theory (Also has to be able to master the observational skill needed in the experimental field of that theory). A lay person is intellectually dishonest/wrong to dismiss the result of the painstaking work of the scientists. Here by lay person I mean those not trained in science, they can have PhD in non-scientific discipline. A lay person can with good conscience only confess that they don't understand or are not capable of comprehending or analyzing it because of their lack of necessary background. They can either accept the words of the science experts, read up enough to get a reasonable grasp, or just stay neutral. See http://www.csicop.org/sb/9803/reality-check.html for a related interesting article by Victor Stenger. Some post modernist social theorists also audaciously characterize Science as another cultural construct of human and question science's claim to objectivity. Interestingly these postmodernists use the same scientific results to propagate their outrageous propositions while declaring science as relative and not objective! This is a gross mischaracterization of science and scientific truths, which although tentative, but are nevertheless objective. As Werner Heisenberg said "In science a decision can always be reached as to what is right and what is wrong. It is not a question of belief, or Weltanschaung, or hypothesis; but a certain statement could be simply right and another statement wrong. Neither origin nor race decides this question: It is decided by nature, or if you prefer, by God, in any case not by man" (Quoted in p-267, "Dreams of Reason, by heinz Pagels). The truth about these postmodernists is that they are suffering from "science envy" and since scientific knowledge undoubtedly commands glory and respect, they cleverly try to wrest more respect by pretending they know more than scientists by proving that science is wrong. After all, if science requires high intellect then surely discounting science must require even higher intellect, so why not pretend to "debunk" science if you cannot understand it? Thats the ploy of these postmodernists. Another reason for these posmodernists to pretend to debunk science is because that would provide a convenient excuse not to go through the hard route of learning the difficult principles of exact sciences and apply them correctly to the social sciences. These postmodernists are nothing but armchair social scientists incapable to face the challenge of the hard sciences, who unlike some of their fellow social scientists (who have successfully tackled the scientific challenge) are threatened by the incursion of scientific paradigms and principles in their field. For them the appropriate maxim is "If you can't join them beat them" rather than "If you can't beat them join them" ! There are even some outrageous views like "scientific truths are the results of the mental constructs of the white males of Western society !". Thereare those who propose "Islamic Science", "Vedic Science" etc. Then there are feminist sociologists who take this post modernist view and advocate feminist science! (For debunking of such ludicrous view, see an article by a female philosopher Susan Haak where she takes on the preposterous position of Sandra Harding on feminist science at www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html. For another rebuttal of post modernist views,see http://www.godless.org/eth/round.html. Philosopher of science Noretta Koertge criticizes feminists' position of science at http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/fem/KOERTGE.html . A Female freelance journalist Elizabeth Larson mocks feminist science in the April/May 1997 issue of Heterodoxy maganzine. The famous Sokal's Hoax lucidly illustrates this ridiculous attitude of some non/pseudo-scientific social theorists who pass irresponsible armchair commentaries on the value of scientific principles. For more on post modernist's abuse of scientific ideas check out Alan Sokal's Book: Fashionable Nonsense

Here are some excerpts from Fashionable Nonsense: :

"Science is not a text. The natural sciences are not a mere reservoir of metaphors ready to be used in the human sciences. Non-scientists may be tempted to isolate from a scientific theory some general "themes" that can be summarized in few words such as "uncertainty", "discontinuity", "chaos", or "nonlinearity" and then analyzed in a purely verbal manner. But scientific theories are not like novels;in a scientific context these words have specific meanings,which differ in subtle but crucial ways from their everyday meanings, and which can only be understood within a complex web of theory and experiment. If one uses them only as metaphors, one is easily led to nonsensical conclusions."

Check also the following excellent and timely written books:

1. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science(see link below) www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195117255/o/qid=935873231/sr=2-1/002-0600960-2676052
2. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science (Link below) www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801857074/ref=sim_books/002-0600960-2676052

The Nobel laureate scientist P.B. Medawar said that "there are some fields that are genuinely difficult, where if you want to communicate you have to work really hard to make the language simple, and there are other fields that are fundamentally very easy, where if you want to impress other people you have to make the language more difficult than it needs to be." ("Third culture - By John Brockman, p-23). As Alan Sokal says in his book "Fashionable Nonsense": "Not all that is obscure is necessarily profound" (p-186). The renowned Biologist author thinker Richard Dawkins says:

"And there are some fields in which--to use Medawar's lovely phrase-- people suffer from 'physics envy'. They want their subject to be treated as profoundly difficult, even when it isn't. Physics genuinely is difficult, so there's a great industry for taking the difficult ideas of physics and making them simpler for people to understand; but, conversely, there's another industry for taking subjects that really have no substance at all and pretending they do-- dressing them up in a language that's incomprehensible for the very sake of incomprehensibility, in order to make them seem profound."

Interestingly neither Medawar or Dawkins are physicists, but are biologists. Dawkins also said, apparently saddened by those pseudo/non-scientifc intellectuals who argue that science alone cannot answer ultimate questions about existence that:

"They think science is too arrogant and that there are certain questions that science has no business to ask, that traditionally have been of interest to religious people. As though *they* had any answers. It's one thing to say it's very difficult to know how the universe began, what initiated the big bang, what consciousness is. But if science has difficulty explaining something, there sure as hell is no one else who is going to explain it". (From End Of Science - John Horgan p-119)

Dawkins is right on the mark here. My point here is that when laymen, mystics or new age thinkers etc assert that "scientists or science cannot answer all questions or that one cannot/should not try to understand life, consciousness/soul/Creation of the universe etc using science", they are in fact themselves arrogantly claiming that their way (mystical meditation, pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo etc) is the "right" way to know them! So much for consistency! At least scientists are always basing on objective evidence and reasoning as their guide and constantly making room for revision and revocation and humbly confessing not knowing all the truth at any time. It is one thing when scientists say science is yet unable to explain some mystery and another when a layman or mystic says that. The laymen's assertion is an uninformed biased view. The scientists' assertion is an informed verdict. The two assertions are not by any means of the same weight or consequence. One may accidentally hit on the truth by random guessing, but it is not the same as arriving at the truth by systematic reasoning. The truth is not always what appears to be most likely from common sense. Our senses can be easily fooled as amply borne out by history.

Another unfounded view held by many non-scientific leftist intellectual is that it is impossible if not difficult to change the existing scientific paradigm by fresh new minds brilliant ideas specially if theses new minds happened not to be from the elitist white western male scientist etc, i.e basically they contend that the objective content of a new scientific theory is not judged in isolation but that the affiliation of the proponent figures in its acceptability. A single landmark exception will suffice to debunk this preposterous belief. Until 1956 the overwhelming majority (In fact 100%) of Physicist believed that Parity conservation is never violated in nature. Any new theory without evidence that went against this ingrained belief would almost certainly be dismissed. The belief in parity conservation was too strong an accepted paradigm to be challenged. Then in 1956 two Chinese physicist Yang and Lee first pointed out the exception and theoretically predicted non-conservation of parity. Initially there was predictable skepticism and it took further convincing work and subsequent experimental verification by another Chinese woman Wu and her colleagues and in 1957 the physicist community abandoned a long held belief in conservation of parity. Yang and Lee were not only vindicated,they received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this intellectual feat. So much for conservative western scientist clinging on to their scientific "beliefs" and refusing to accept any new ideas specially if proposed by scientists from different affiliations. This debunks two myths in one stone:

1. That revolutionary new ideas that go against the current paradigm is always rejected by reactionary mainstream scientist community and
2. That the affiliation of a scientist offering a revolutionary new idea may be a hindrance to an objective assessment of the merit of the new idea.

Another example debunking the first myth is that of Nobel physicist Paul Dirac's suggestion in 1928 of the existence of anti-matter purely on mathematical symmetry considerations. As bizarre and far out this idea may have sounded back then in 1928 physicists didn't ridicule it even though they didn't accept it either for lack of observational evidence. When observational evidence did come in 1932 his idea was accepted and rewarded with the Nobel prize. Truth, however tall sounding, ultimately manages to shine out. A very opportune note can be found at by a female Professor emiriti of Physics Nina Byers (See her page at http://www.physics.ucla.edu/faculty/emeriti/byers.html) and Claude Pellegrin, professor of Physics at the University of california at Los Angeles, at: http://www.soz.uni-hannover.de/isoz/SOKAL/NYTREV6.htm. It is equally disingenuous for laymen to observe "Of course, that's obvious, I knew it all along" etc when commenting on some superficially trivial sounding but truly profound statements by top scientists like Roger Penrose's assertion that "Human mind/brain cannot be simulated by a computer (Turing machine)". This assertion has a deep scientific connotation and is made to refute the opposite viewpoint taken by top scientists in Artificial Intelligence theory. This disagreement between Penrose and AI people (Dan Dennett, Marvin Minsky etc) for example) is of a highly technical nature and Penrose was not making a cavalier remark to echo what mystics and pseudoscientists often make while discounting the role of science in metaphysics and what laypersons perceive by their gut feeling and common sense. This trivial sounding statement is a result of a laborious research (Summarized in the two books, "The Emperor's new mind" and "The shadows of the mind" in hundreds and hundreds of pages). For a layman to quip "Oh that's obvious" is an arrogant, flip remark implying he/she already is in possession of the insight that is reflected in Penrose's conclusion based on his painstaking cerebration and whose conclusion is nevertheless debated by top scientists from Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon etc. Similarly when top scientists express the views that in about 50 years it may be possible to create intelligent machines possessing consciousness it should not be cavalierly discounted by laymen but should be debated with authoritative expertise in artificial intelligence, brain research and mind/matter research based on Quantum theory. Laymen and quacks etc seem to thrive on dissenting views of scientists. They quote the views of the side which seem to be favourable to theirs and claim that their view is supported by scientists! The fact is that the two dissenting views of scientists on an issue differ on a fine level and the two sides nevertheless agree on 80% or more of a detailed and technical knowledge of the issue on which their dissension is based. The quacks and laymen are totally ignorant about those detailed technical background. So for a layman or quack to claim that their view is supported by scientists is nothing but and disingenuous. In other cases the laymen or quacks point to the dissenting scientists and conclude that since the scientists differ with each other so they are all wrong and its them (laymen/quacks) who are correct ! (conveniently ignoring the the broad area of agreement between the two dissenting scientists). As a final example, when cosmologists state that vacuum has no weight, laymen should not jump to a derisive laugh and say "Phew. Isn't that obvious? How can empty space have weight anyway?" etc. Emptiness(vacuum) is more than meets the laymen's eye. A deep study of quantum theory and general relativity reveals empty space to contain virtual particles in various modes of excitation and the fact that ordinary vacuum has zero weight is a fortuitous result of the Grand Unified theory of matter. Another example is the question why is the night sky is dark. To a layman this may sound like a silly question, but it is not, according to Physics it should not have been dark IF universe was infinite with stars or space was not expanding, So there IS a deep cosmological reason behind night sky being dark. The bottom line is that so called "common sense", "gut feeling", "intuition" etc are not always guaranteed to be a reliable guide to an objective truth. They all reflect to some extent our desires and wishful thoughts deeply ingrained inside, though in many cases they are indeed right, but NOT ALWAYS, and it is this exceptional cases that a true scientists ruthlessly tries to guard against any veil of illusion and deceptive appearances that might creep in through fond wishes and habits, by deductive, objective cerebral work. And it is through these deductive cerebral intuition that some of the the most bizarre yet valid predictions and theory have sprang forth that defy usual common sense and intuition of laypeople, like time dilation, quantum non-locality, matter from vacuum, many worlds etc. A layman's intuition is almost invariably based on his/her wishful desires and is believed in naively by him/her but is constrained by his/her refusal to think in a more detailed and careful way. A scientist's intuition is almost always based on an assumption of symmetry and simplicity of nature, but is refined by deeper and careful thinking and is always considered tentative. So it must be emphasized that just as in order to establish a theory one has to get it screened and reviewed through highly respected journals by a wide body of scholars crossing national boundaries and actively involved in the field and most importantly borne out by clear objective (indicated by unanimity of scholars of diverse background) evidences, it is equally true that to declare an established theory wrong one has to go through the same rigorous path. Unfortunately often one is seen to cavalierly dismissing a theory just because it seems too abstruse to him/her. Humans have learened enough sobering lessons not to jump so quickly in accepting or dismissing any notion without careful investigation.