发信人: haemophilic.bbs@l19.lib.nctu.edu.tw (Haemophilic), 看板: medicine
标  题: [转载] Islam and Science a view from NATURE
发信站: 大红花的国度 (Sat Nov  4 02:12:32 2006)
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Origin: l19.lib.nctu.edu.tw

【 以下文字转载自 Science 讨论区 】
【 原文由 haemophilic 所发表 】
Taken from NATURE website :
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/islamandscience/index.html
ISLAM AND SCIENCE

In many countries with large Muslim populations the pendulum of
power is swinging away from secular (but mostly undemocratic)
government back to where it was for many centuries: to Islamist
regimes, and Islamic law. What does this mean for Muslim scientists
and science? For a very long time, Muslim states have scored badly
on measures of science and technology. Will things be any better or
worse under the new Islamist governments?

MALAYSIA

High-tech hopes and fears

Malaysia has one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world,
thanks in part to its consumer-electronics industry. It outshines the rest of
the Muslim world in high-tech exports, but is not resting on its laurels.
The government, led since the Malaysians received their independence in 1957
by the United Malays National Organisation, is keen to build on its successes
in making semiconductor components and to develop new technologies. But
government policies have driven away some of the country’s best talent and
kept Malaysia isolated from international science. Too often, pleasing the
Islamic Malays, who make up the majority of the population, takes precedence
over rewarding scientific merit.
Historic tensions between the Malays and the Chinese minority, who have long
held the economic reins, explain some of these policies. In 1969, riots
followed general elections in which Chinese parties made gains. The government
has faced a difficult balancing act since then.

The most controversial policy is a university quota system that favours ethnic
Malays (some 60% of the population), over Chinese (25%) and Indian (7□10%).
Minority students, many of whom have top grades, struggle to get into the
nation’s best universities, and often end up going to the United States,
Singapore or Australia. Such policies also inhibit interactions with the
international community. And attempts to reverse a mainly Chinese brain drain
have failed.

The government has long invested in large projects intended to benefit high-
tech industry, but with little success. And ongoing privatization of government
operations in various sectors, including roads, energy and technology, is
slanted to help the Malays. Such ‘Malay first’ policies will fail to attract
the best overseas talent and continue to leave Malaysia isolated.

David Cyranoski
==============================================================================
INDONESIA

Boom and bust

Asked the greatest achievement of his institute in the past five years, Sangkot
Marzuki, director of the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta,
says: “Still being here.”

The 1990s were a boom time for Indonesian science. In 1993, the Eijkman
Institute was resurrected after political, social and economic unrest closed its
doors in 1965. But the Asian financial crisis of 1997 threatened to reverse the
gains.

In 1998, following two years of social unrest and demonstrations, Indonesia’s
autocratic leader, General Suharto, stepped down, ushering in free elections
and reform. Since 2004, the president has been freely elected. Religion does
not seem to have the same link with power as in other predominantly Muslim
countries. Nearly 90% of Indonesians are Muslims, but neither of the main
political parties is strongly linked with Islam. Still, opposition by many
smaller Islamic parties was crucial in quashing the bid by a woman, Megawati
Sukarnoputri, to retain her position as president in 2004.
Religious friction has hurt science by threatening international
collaborations. Marzuki says that before 1998 his institute had six Australian
scientists on three-year grants from the Australian government. “With the
travel restrictions frequently issued, especially after the Bali bombing, no
collaboration has been possible,” he says.

Islam itself is very flexible in relation to science, says Marzuki: “Our
institute performs prenatal diagnosis against common genetic diseases, in
particular thalassaemia. The government is against reproductive cloning but
supportive of therapeutic cloning, a position adopted on the recommendation
of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences.”

With stability, Indonesia could be a fertile ground for science. The government
, when cash flow allows, supports research. But no one welcomes the misfortunes
that have forced research in some fields □ earthquakes, tsunami monitoring,
avian influenza □ on Indonesian scientists.
David Cyranoski
==============================================================================
David Cyranoski, Asian-Pacific Correspondent, Tokyo

David had worked in Japan for several years before moving into journalism with
Nature in 2000. His varied employment history includes translation for a
semiconductor-manufacturing equipment company and teaching history to foreign
exchange students. In addition to covering the Asian-Pacific region, David's
interests encompass materials, Earth science and intellectual property.
==============================================================================
Tanks and technology

Pakistan’s history of perpetual military coups is a disaster for democracy.
But the men in tanks have been more generous than civilians when it comes to
funding science and technology.

Pakistan’s national biotechnology institute, for example, owes its existence
to former President General Zia ul-Haq (military coup, 1977). In contrast, a
decade of civilian rule after the general’s death saw research funding drop
to critically low levels □ former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto did not even
appoint a science minister. Credit for current science and technology funding
□ the highest it has ever been □ goes to President General Pervez Musharraf
(military coup, 1999).
Musharraf has handed the task of reorganizing research and higher education to
Atta-ur-Rahman, a chemistry professor at the University of Karachi. Rahman’s
many reforms include increasing the number of universities and sending more
students abroad to train. Schemes to attract foreign faculty members to work
in Pakistan’s universities, and performance-related pay for the country’s
own academics, have been more controversial.

Critics of the reforms include Pervez Hoodbhoy, physics professor at Quaid-i-
Azam University in Islamabad. He says that formerly cash-starved ministries
lack the management capacity to spend their windfall wisely, and that the
expanding university numbers have not been matched by a commitment to quality.
Pakistani researchers, meanwhile, are unhappy that foreign faculty members get
higher salaries for the same work.

Rahman says he understands the criticisms. But he is a man in a hurry. General
Zia’s life ended in a plane crash in 1988. There have already been two
attempts on Musharraf’s life. Rahman knows the boom will end when the general
leaves office.
Ehsan Masood
==============================================================================
IRAN

Revolution and reform

The decline of scientific knowledge in Persia, now Iran, began in the fifteenth
century, as the entire Islamic world lost touch with its intellectual roots.

In the 1970s, the last Shah dynasty attempted to reverse the trend by building
new universities and sending students abroad to do PhDs, after which many
returned to teach and research in Iran. The number of scientific publications
crept up from 125 in 1970 to nearly 400 in 1979, the year of the Islamic
revolution.

The revolution halted this modest progress. Many of the scientific elite fled
the country as the new regime closed universities and turned against ‘Western
science’. The Iran□Iraq war in the 1980s further drained resources, leaving
little money for non-military education and research.

With peace, more public money became available and Islamic fervour moderated to
accept the intrinsic value of science. Universities expanded again, and were
allowed to award PhDs. The publication rate also rose, more sharply than in the
1970s: by 2003 the annual output of papers reached close to 2,000.

With the election last year of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline
Islamist, every aspect of Iranian life □ from its supreme leader, to the
judiciary, and parliament □ is now in religiously conservative hands. Iran’s
reformers have gone underground.

Many areas of science continue to be well funded, including stem-cell research.
Iran was the first Middle East country to develop a human embryonic stem-cell
line, using spare embryos from in vitro fertilization. And despite increasing
restrictions on free speech, higher education continues to expand. Whether the
new university presidents □ all appointed by Ahmadinejad □ will yield to
conservative demands for greater controls at universities remains to be seen.
Alison Abbott
==============================================================================
SAUDI ARABIA

Slow starter

A year after the birth of independent Saudi Arabia in 1932, the kingdom’s
rulers faced a problem with the public acceptance of technology. The dilemma
was caused when US oil companies prospecting in the region requested permission
to take aerial images of the desert.

Newly crowned King Ibn Saud, founder of the present Saudi dynasty, had two
concerns. First, that indigenous tribes might shoot at something they
considered to be extraterrestrial. Second, if religious authorities believed
that the onboard cameras could glimpse the face of God, it would invite
divine wrath.

This story, told in Oil, God, and Gold by Anthony Cave Brown, helps to explain
why the world’s largest oil producer still remains one of the world’s lowest
producers of scientific knowledge. It took 20 years for a ministry of education
to be created.
The country’s science ministry did not emerge until 1977. Even today, Saudi
Arabia spends just 0.25% of its gross domestic product on science and
technology.

Despite this, there are some bright spots. The number of specialist science and
engineering colleges has doubled to 64 in the past decade, and the number of
students enrolled in related degrees has also doubled to 76,000.

Moreover, Saudi society has progressed considerably in its acceptance of new
technology. According to Saleh Al Athel, president of the science ministry,
genetic modification in agriculture is permitted within conventional biosafety
limits. But pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is forbidden as it is seen as
interfering with divine will.
Ehsan Masood
==============================================================================
马来西亚是最有潜力却又是最不重视人才的地方, 悲哀啊~

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