Most would agree that scientifically treating water at religious sites, or treating water from rivers or springs before religious use, would help reduce health risks. However, treated water must be acceptable for consumption — especially for public religious use. This is not a trivial notion. For decades, researchers have documented the perceived differences between science and religion. On the one hand, water technology is now sufficiently advanced to treat water at the source or before use. On the other hand, psychological barriers to water treatment are largely based on the nuanced psychology of contagion. Scientific contagion, as we observe, underscores the possibility that water used for sacred purposes is psychologically different from water used for drinking, and that the idea of purity as a criterion for its acceptability for the two may be different.
Sumitava Mukherjee and Payel C Mukherjee expand upon the original conceptualization of contagion to introduce a new hypothesis, which we term Scientific Contagion. Our proposition is that scientific treatment might transfer some essence of science or technology to the processed substance, thereby altering its very nature. This transfer need not be physical. It requires expanding the spiritual contagion model, originally proposed as the transfer of an essence from people to objects through physical touch, to encompass even more abstract transfers in which specific processes imbibe or remove essences from substances. Another idea closely associated with scientific contagion is contamination. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, contamination can be defined as ‘the action or state of making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning’. It is pertinent to note that while scientific contagion in our definition does not refer to making the substance physically impure, there is an implicit sense of “polluting” a spiritual essence. However, it does not necessarily indicate that the object becomes non-consumable or inappropriate for any form of use. Instead, scientific contagion operates as a mental heuristic, leading us to intuitively regard the ‘touch’ of any ‘scientific process or treatment’ as potentially desecrating or contaminating the value of the substance. It specifically contaminates the essence for which it was understood, respected, and valued, particularly with respect to its sacramental, religious, and ritualistic usage.
The studies below lay forth this possibility and also highlight how our judgments are affected. This account, in turn, highlights the complex relationships between science and religion through water, relevant to public health.
For an ancient natural well having a religious narrative, most participants judged that the acceptability of water would be reduced for religious purposes but not for drinking if local officials scientifically treat the water. That is not the case if religious rituals are conducted on the water instead (study 1). If water from a “holy river” is processed scientifically, most participants predicted that it would reduce acceptability for religious use while increasing acceptability for drinking (study 2). Potential scientific treatment even without altering the composition of water from a natural spring also decreased acceptability for religious use but there was no effect on acceptability for drinking or on willingness to pay money for the water (study 3). A follow-up study comparing acceptability for different kinds of water sources — from a holy well, natural spring, and household tap water sourced from either underground wells or rivers found lower acceptability for religious usage compared to drinking after potential scientific treatment for all these waters, but more so for holy and natural waters (study 4). These studies establish the phenomena of scientific contagion that could have significant social implications and open future directions.
This paper sets the stage for an interdisciplinary dialogue among the psychology of judgment and decision-making, environmental research on water, and symbolic socio-cultural narratives of human engagement. It helps to think in terms of the growing relationship between the symbolic and the material. These complex relations among society, religion, science, and natural resources are of concern to multiple stakeholders, including social scientists, health professionals, administrative policymakers, and the public at large. This is a matter of critical concern because millions of people worldwide may use water for religious or sacred purposes.
(Excerpts taken from the paper published under Creative Commons Licence).