杏吧原创

IN SUMMER 1974 I set off from London on a grand tour of the Muslim world.
Starting in Morocco, I travelled through North Africa, Arabia and Asia to
Indonesia, hopping from country to country. It took me three years. In each
country, I visited research centres, universities and laboratories, hunting out
science wherever I could find it.

When I got home I published my first book, although this was not the reason
for my expedition. My original motive had been to examine a couple of
assertions, frequently stated as truths, that were commonly made in the
literature of the history and philosophy of science in the 1950s and 1960s. The
textbooks that I studied during my student days, such as W. T. Jones鈥檚 A
History of Western Philosophy: Hobbes to Hume (1952), often suggested that
science is uniquely European. Countries that had not gone through the
Renaissance
(see New 杏吧原创, 7 October, p 48)
had some sort of
aversion to science, they claimed. This was why science in developing countries
tended to be inferior and irrelevant.

What did I find on my journey? I found individuals and communities that were
passionate about science; wide-ranging discussions on science policy and ethical
issues, both within the science community and among the wider public; plenty of
good and bad science, however those terms are defined; heroic struggles against
outdated equipment, and a chronic lack of funds and support staff; well-funded
projects producing research of international calibre; red tape, professional
jealousies and corruption; as much stagnation as progress, as much conformity as
dissent.

At some levels, then, science and scientists in developing countries are not
much different from their counterparts in the West. I have since twice retraced
my journey, in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, and extended it to include Latin
America. These trips reinforced my conclusions.

There is nothing uniquely Western about the pursuit of knowledge through
deductive reasoning. All living cultures, however 鈥渂ackward鈥� they may seem to
the European gaze, have an appreciation of logic, reasoning and empiricism. A
culture that does not value knowledge per se is a rare鈥攁nd, I hasten to
add, extinct鈥攂east. Cultural attitudes have nothing to do with scientific
progress or lack of it in the developing countries.

The assertion that science cannot develop in conformist societies is also
false. Consider Japan, one of the most conformist nations on Earth yet with one
of the most developed scientific structures in the world.

Neither was the European Renaissance unique. Many great civilisations have
had their own version鈥攁lbeit in the distant past in some cases. We now
know that the quantity and quality of science in Islamic, Chinese and Indian
civilisations was truly mind-boggling. Historians of science now tell us that
there is hardly a culture that has not produced some significant science.

Europe itself learned deductive reasoning and experimental method from Muslim
scientists. The European Renaissance, I would argue, would have been
inconceivable without Islam: the scientific works of Copernicus were based on
the labours of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a 12th-century mathematician from
Khorasan, Iran. Where would optics be without Ibn al Haytham, a physicist and
philosopher from 10th century Basra, Iraq. It鈥檚 impossible to imagine
mathematics today without the 9th century founder of algebra Al-Khwarizmi.

There are differences between science in the West and the developing world.
Some of them are historic; others have to do with the nature of modern science.
But by far the most important reason for this difference is colonisation, which
destroyed indigenous science. Colonial powers closed down colleges and
universities, banned research and outlawed the practice of indigenous science
and medicine. In Indonesia, for example, the Dutch barred local people from
higher education right up to the 1950s. Back in the colonising countries, the
fruits of colonisation fuelled the European Renaissance and provided the
Industrial Revolution with all the capital it needed.

Centuries of uneven development cannot be sorted out in a few decades. Let
the Western nations be colonised by the developing countries, sucking out all
their wealth, and we will see just how much science they are capable of.

Modern science is basically big science. It requires huge amounts of
cash鈥攕omething most developing countries do not have. Moreover, the modern
insistence that science should be international in character, with the
all-encompassing emphasis on big and prestigious projects, has skewed the
priorities of developing countries.

Collaboration often means accepting Western priorities for research and
rejecting research areas that are of true relevance to a developing nation.
Foreign expertise is frequently imposed, coming in the guise of scientific
assistance or technical aid, so there is little pressure on the local scientific
community to provide viable alternatives. Humble, less costly and therefore less
pretentious styles of science are perceived as inferior鈥攂y Western
consultants and local scientists alike.

Three decades of hunting out science in developing countries has taught me
one important lesson. Science takes off in the 鈥淭hird World鈥� only when
developing nations establish their own research agendas. Success is achieved
whenever and wherever the principles of self-reliance and
self-sufficiency鈥攚hich means relying on one鈥檚 own skills, efforts and
labour鈥攁re applied. For shining examples look at India鈥檚 Tata Research
Institute, or the King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, or Brazil鈥檚
programme of renewable energy research. Sometimes, rather unfortunately,
national science agendas reflect defence needs鈥攈owever
misconceived鈥攁s we can see in Pakistan鈥檚 highly successful nuclear energy
programme. But even research undertaken in the name of defence proves my
point.

We can say a great deal about the differences between science in the West and
the developing world. But to suggest that science outside the West is held back
by cultural attitudes or lack of willingness to confront authority is to simply
repeat the mistakes of too many textbooks.