jueves, marzo 04, 2004

La ciencia como fuerza de liberación

Estados Unidos quiere "liberar" a Irak y reformar al Medio Oriente... eso no lo logrará solo a punta de cañon y con noticias pro occidentales en árabe... Si el mundo árabe va a avanzar hacia el futuro debe ver en sus origenes, cuando Bagdad, Damasco y Cairo albergaban la intelligentsia del mundo. El mundo árabe debe perder el miedo a hacer preguntas. The Chronicle of Higher Education presenta el caso de la liberación por la ciencia en esa área del planeta:

"Eleven centuries ago an Islamic renaissance occurred in Baghdad, attracting the best scholars throughout the Muslim world. For the next five hundred years, Arabic was the lingua franca of science. Cutting-edge research was conducted in cities such as Cairo, Damascus, and Tunis. In the ninth century, algebra (al-jabr) was invented by a Muslim mathematician in Baghdad under the auspices of an imperial Arab court dedicated to scientific enrichment and discovery. Ibn Sina's monumental Canon of Medicine was translated into Latin in the 12th century and dominated the teaching of the subject in Europe for four centuries.

Today, no one looks to the Arab world for breakthroughs in scientific research, and for good reason. According to a number of highly self-critical reports that have come out in the past few years, the 21 countries that make up the region are struggling to teach even basic science at the university level. For poor countries, such as Yemen and Sudan, the problem is a lack of money and resources. For wealthier ones, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, complacency and a relatively new and underdeveloped university system have hampered progress."

Si el mundo árabe no aprende a preguntar con el lenguaje liberador de la ciencia, todo el mundo sufrirá las consecuencias...

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