The genesis and development of the idea of the scientific temper is connected to ideas expressed earlier by Charles Darwin when he said, "reedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows from the advance of science," and by Karl Marx when he said, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."
History
, the first Prime Minister of independent India, was the first to use the phrase in 1946. He later gave a descriptive explanation: Nehru wrote that the scientific temper goes beyond the domains to which science is conventionally understood to be limited to, and deals also with the consideration of ultimate purposes, beauty, goodness and truth. He contended that the scientific temper is the opposite of the method of religion, which relies on emotion and intuition and is applied "to everything in life, even to those things which are capable of intellectual inquiry and observation." While religion tends to close the mind and produce "intolerance, credulity and superstition, emotionalism and irrationalism", and "a temper of a dependent, unfree person", a scientific temper "is the temper of a free man". He also indicated that the scientific temper goes beyond objectivity and fosters creativity and progress. He envisioned that the spread of scientific temper would be accompanied by a shrinking of the domain of religion, and "the exciting adventure of fresh and never ceasing discoveries, of new panoramas opening out and new ways of living, adding to fullness and ever making it richer and more complete." He also stated, "It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people."
To develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.
Recognition in India
The first major programme under the Government of India to popularise scientific temper among the people was the Vigyan Mandir experiment in 1953. It was created by S. S. Bhatnagar, at the time Head of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, in Delhi and launched by Nehru on 15 August. Its purpose was to “disseminate scientific information of interest to the rural population” and the centres were furnished with scientific tools, films, and books. CSIR started publishing a popular science periodical Vigyan Pragati in Hindi in 1952. It introduced an English monthly journal Science Reporter in 1964, and then a Urdu quarterly journal Science Ki Dunia. In 1982, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication was established under the Department of Science and Technology. NCSTC "is mandated to communicate Science and Technology to masses, stimulate scientific and technological temper and coordinate and orchestrate such efforts throughout the country." NCSTC organises annual programmes such as National Science Day and National Mathematics Day, the National Children’s Science Congress, National Teacher’s Science Congress, and Science Express. It specifically dedicated the National Science Day on 28 February 2014 to the theme "Fostering Scientific Temper" to spread Nehru's vision. The National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources launched the scholarly serial Journal of Scientific Temper in 2013.
