Rituals of myth and sacred, two legitimizing moments in ‘from the annals of the laboratory state’: A critique

This critique unfolds the areas of Visvanathan’s article which aims to open up challenges to ‘prevailing’ western discourse of science which, he assumes, is linked to and associated with political and economic interests. In this review, the writer seeks to draw attention to the concepts deployed both by the western scientists and Visvanathan, as well as to the methodology Visvanathan has adopted by combining the concepts in arts, science and humanities to advance with his agenda. The writer would show that defining any paradigm or procedure as a ‘sacred’ moment may easily lead to discipline-policing and to the reproduction of reductionist worldviews, implicated whether in the scientific or humanistic thought.