Drawing the line between Science and Pseudoscience

Indians have always had a great pride in their ancestral heritage, be it individualistic or collective. It sure is worth and there is much more in India that one can be proud of, for instance, the area of arable land available to Indians or biodiversity profile of India or something more under one's control - saving our economy from financial crisis in 2008 (and more). That is OK. That is acceptable. What is not acceptable is bad science, complacence and fake pride in the bad science.

Now, I don't have to list out all the instances defying scientific temper here. They are all over the place -news, internet, social network. They have invoked a lot of criticism from the scientific community in India and abroad (for example, this). 
The point I want to stress here is the great divide between the general understanding of people about science and what it actually is. Now, being brought up in a family in which some believe in the origin of varnas from various parts of Brahma's body and that cow is a holy animal its dung and urine have anti-cancer properties, the reader can rest assured that I have seen the most unscientific conviction of people who swear by the science of that time. Please note that this is different from indigenous of plants and their medicinal properties and in case of conflict between indigenous knowledge and modern medicine, I am not educated enough to comment on which one to pick.

Anyway, their claim is that we (general people) are not able to comprehend the science of that time (and I have heard this many many times from the arm chair critics and gyaani people in my home firsthand. I hope they read this too).

Now, I understand that we don't know enough or we are not qualified/educated enough to critique the technology/medicine of that time but we are qualified enough to do for today's technology! And what I am putting up for dialogue today is- is that all there is to us? What rishi, muni, sanyasi did in the past is all we have and believe blindly what ever we are being told? Why are we so complacent and gullible? How can we believe and be proud of, say, the 'nanochip' in the new 2000 currency notes? So, can we get out of the mess of pseudoscience being sold to us? Can we just NOT BUY IT? And if we could, what is the most basic way in which you can judge what is science and what is not.

Here are a couple of points to keep in mind when there is another "masterstroke" in technology.

1.  What kind of question one is asking. For example, "we will do research to prove cow urine can cure cancer" is a bad start. Whereas, "let us check this claim about cow urine/ identify components of cow urine and their effect on cancer cell line" is appropriate (by my knowledge; comments to improve this are welcome). What is the difference? You do not decide the outcome! That is against the spirit of science!
2.  The time taken to invent or make a new technology commercially available. It takes an awful lot of time to make the best available stuff, in the cheapest way (in the process using a lot of resources and time), multiple rounds of testing, administrative processes, and mass production. Cutting long story short, given certain amount of time and limited resources, you can only do a certain amount of work at your best capacity. So don't expect technology to develop overnight like in sci-fi movies.
3. Scientists to make public statements on the validity of the claim. The funniest thing about the pandemonium created after export and domestic consumption about cow leather was that everyone spoke their heart out on television except a representative of Department of Revenue, GoI OR a scientist from Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai (CLRI) though the celebrated leather week happily last year.

And how do you make all these sure is kind of obvious-  more interaction of people with those who do science. One can attend outreach programs, follow people on social media or simply write to the people you have a question about! People in science are really happy if someone takes interest in their work and highly encourage taking initiatives, inquisitiveness and criticism(of course, positive or negative but fair). A bitter criticism is acceptable within one's democratic freedom and is civil. Being blinded by what you think is right is not. Blind faith is something plaguing our society and, especially with regards to science, does not seem to get better.

I would also suggest making a career in science. Research as a career, I can say, provides a conducive environment for people to be flexible enough to accept the change in the existing realm of knowledge and also to be firm in their opinion when they are fully convinced of it by today's standards of an acknowledgeable fact. Nonetheless, there are varied opinions about the same and heated discussions on the nuances for hours. In fact, the differences that these researchers have are so specific to their field that for a layman, it sounds all the same and an utter wastage of time. Quoting Neil degrass Tyson on this,"Anyone who thinks scientists like agreeing with one another has never attended a scientific conference." (Super true between cell biologists and structural biologists LOL)

There are organizations and individuals who try to do their part in making society develop a scientific temper but the importance of lost connectivity between the science inside the lab and propagating ideas fueled by half-baked 'idea of science' has come out to the scientific community in the most painful ways and it has to stop.