March 23, 2016

U.S-Trained Pakistani Scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy On The Root of Muslim Backwardness: Scientific Education Is Not Valued In Islamic Culture

"I will not claim that this science phobia that we see is entirely due to textbooks, because there's a lot more to education than just textbooks. It's part of a national culture. And certainly we do not have a national culture that values science. We do not have science programs on television. We have a lot of political entertainment, to be sure, but not very much on science at all. We cannot differentiate, for the most part, between the path-breaking work done by Abdus Salam and the copy cat, reverse engineering done by the bomb makers. And, frankly, science is not considered either by students or their parents. So one should not be surprised, therefore, that most textbooks written in Pakistan by Pakistani authors are just not worth reading, and that they have seriously impacted upon students' understanding of the subject." - Pervez Hoodbhoy.