Dark Mysteries of Our Mysterious Universe

Asif wrote, in #50,

[I hate to sound elitist or anything but why should EVERYONE have a degree?!]

Well, the way I see it is that everyone should have access to a higher education, and the education system should be able to deliver for all those who desire it. It should be a part of the system to detect and encourage the bright people...so in theory your %5 of people who truly earn their degrees will go on to further studies, etc., while the rest can hang their degree on the wall to impress their kin.

[This broadening of education has led to an undeniable drop in standards across the board. Now every tom, dick and harry has a degree and most of them are not worth the piece of paper they are written on.]

I can see your point...I still maintain that extracting meaning from a degree is a job of the student, and not the faculty. A good student will pursue studies with interest and understanding...others, well...they`re just cruising along hoping that the piece of paper will win them a job. You`re right, though, the latter may be better off in a vocational school...

[Only the best should go to higher education and we need to reintroduce th concept of vocational courses for those not bright enough to go to Uni. Something akin to the Guild system of Ottoman Turkey]

Isn`t it already like that with our elite schools, and the rest? In America, they have community colleges, state-run universities, and elite universities that are known for particular fields (MIT, CalTech, Harvard, etc.). So long as educating the `rest` doesn`t hamper the best and brightest from doing any meaningful work, I still think things are okay the way they are...

digit bhai, you wrote:
Don`t see how it can work for the masses, though...

I hate to sound elitist or anything but why should EVERYONE have a degree?! I usually vote Labour but I am totally against such stupid liberal policies such as Blair`s target of 50% of population having degrees. This broadening of education has led to an undeniable drop in standards across the board. Now every tom, dick and harry has a degree and most of them are not worth the piece of paper they are written on. It was much better 100 years ago when only 5% of people had degrees and a degree really MEANT something. And with such managable numbers individualised education such as was traditional in the islamic world and old europe too before the 20th century and as is being espoused by imam hamza becomes viable again. Only the best should go to higher education and we need to reintroduce th concept of vocational courses for those not bright enough to go to Uni. Something akin to the Guild system of Ottoman Turkey...I am probably voting Tory next year!

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Asif, #38

You`re right about some of modern physics and cosmology being conjecture, however it`s a good kind of conjecture. In my opinion, one doesn`t study such things for `answers`, just possible explanations given whatever faculties and facilities we have. If you’re looking for definitive answers, you`re bound to be disappointed...

It must be said, though, that the students who most often expressed their frustration to me were the pure math folks. Examining mathematical structures with no discernable use is not at all a rewarding task, or so they tell me. :-)

As for Hamza`s critique of Western education, I think he`s being rather harsh. It seems like he`s a proponent of individual, if not ‘customized’, studies. Sounds nice, I would have loved to be tutored in such a targeted fashion. Don`t see how it can work for the masses, though. Hamza also sounds a bit paranoid. Look, there`s no `brainwashing` going on...the school is there to teach you (or `upload`, to use his analogy) the fundamentals of whatever topic...it is up to the student to work with that material. There is absolutely no way to teach a student how to be creative, or `independent`. That`s a matter of initiative and character.

Gill #43 interesting you mention about the ``doctor-not`` sahib. there seem to be more quacks in pakistan today than they had in the wild west in the US. only difference is that the quacks in the wild west sold snake oil, while those in pakistan sell djinn-tonic.

Pankaj #45 welcome back. I guess it takes a village to raise a child. It takes all of chowk to raise naqshbandi.

Naqshbandi Sahab, the best course of action for you is what Mohammad Gill suggests. It is still not too late for you to enroll in Madarassah and become aalim Fazil (or whatever that is). I am afraid you have not developed the spirit of enquiry, critical analysis and appreciation of uncertainity (in contrast with simplistic certainities) central to Science. Pardon me if I sound presumptuous, but I am also a PhD and hence your peer.... and yes I have also read quite a few books by many of the authors you cite including Richard Feynman, my personal favourite.

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The physics PhD jinn maulvi that tahmed mentions, is my family friend. Last August/September when I went to Pakistan for a visit, we were invited by him and his wife (who is my wife`s dear friend) for lunch at their house. We had pleasant time with them. He has given me courtesy copies of some 2/3 books that he has published. The few times that I have met him, we didn`t talk about our divergent views. One another thing; he is not a PhD. People and his friends call him Doctor out of respect.

The world is so diverse. Some of the people we meet in our lifetime amaze us in more than one way. I do hope Mr. Naqshbandi will find some use for his education at some time in his life; or else he`ll learn some other things which will interest him. Living a life of a square peg in a round hole is so very frustrating.

Mohammad Gill

Gill is kind in his reponse to naqshbandi`s declaration that he is a science PhD who would thinks all this education has been a waste on him (and for once i agree with naqshbandi), and gives him the right advice (why spend all these years studyign science if you think it is a waste of time?).

ironman is more insightful in his description of the``naqshbandi syndrome`` aka the ``Phd maulvi``. after all, it was a physics PhD maulvi in Pakistan who declared that we should harness the power of djinns. The PhD maulvi is proof that a man may have all the science degrees, and still be no better than a superstitious man from the 14th century.

What the Phd maulvi he lacks is the spirit of inquiry combined with a rational and disciplined mind (things that they dont teach in school, but are the result of the entire environment one grew up in), that has led to the remarkable scientific discoveries of the past several hundred years.

I find Naqshbandi`s comments most puzzling.

Starting with the last first, he gives a quote about public school education, which may be right, namely ``School is an artificial construct to socialize individuals into a group identity.`` But that does not apply to graduate school, which is where the ideas discussed in the essay are taught and researched, and where (unless he was extremely precocious) where Naqshbandi ``studied cosmology and physics quite a lot: read most of Richard Feynman`s books, Carl Sagan, Einstein, Schroedinger, etc., A Brief History of Time by Hawking, Roger Penrose, and taken some postgrad courses in some aspects of quantum mechanics, QED, etc. ``

Moreover, suppose the quote applies to graduate education as well - how does string theory or cosmology help ``socialize individuals into a group identity``?

``Most of it is just conjecture`` - can this statement be made more precise? Is quantum mechanics mostly conjecture? Is Quantum Electrodynamics mostly conjecture? Is the Theory of General Relativity mostly conjecture? Or does Naqshbandhi mean some specific things, like Inflation, or superstring theory is mostly conjecture?

One would have hoped that one who has had the acumen to see through the uselessness of Western education would have also learned to ``ually think and use their brains`` and make less vague statements. Apparently all the Western education equips one for, and that too only if one is lucky, is to be able to see through its pretensions. :)

Ah! So we finally get to know Naqshbandi`s thesis title - ``Nanoprobe characterisation of mineralised human tissues``. Impressive!

During my time, I had some friends doing their Phds in the organic chemistry dept. Basically they would mix chemical X with chemical Y and report the results. This process was usually 2 weeks of visiting the lab for 5 minutes every day (to shake the tubes containing the mixture). Then another 2 weeks of `analysis` where they would prepare a couple of graphs...to be updated later to research paper!

At the end of two years, most had a whopping 25 papers!!...unlike us poor supersonics chaps struggling to write one paper every 8 months or so.

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I long suspected Naqshbandi`s thesis to be something along the `tube-shakers` category...and I think I`m right...unless Dr. N (to be) informs us otherwise.

naqshbandi:
I am not in any position to suggest anything to you. My outlook on life is that life is given to me only once; I should make something of it. I should not be doing things in which I don`t believe or am not interested.

It`s never too late to start again. From all the usual standards and measures, you`re a very well educated person. But according to your own admission, it`s the wrong type of education. May be you can acquire the right type of education by self-study. You seem to have a great capacity for such undertaking. If not and if I were you, I will not waste any more time and go where I can acquire the right type of education. I wish you well in whatever you do or want to do. For now, happy new year.

Mohammad Gill

actually i have studied cosmology and physics quite a lot: read most of Richard Feynman`s books, Carl Sagan, Einstein, Schroedinger, etc., A Brief History of Time by Hawking, Roger Penrose, and taken some postgrad courses in some aspects of quantum mechanics, QED, etc. It is a subject I AM interested in but all that I have read does not change my view that most of it is just conjecture. Besides, having been through the Western education system to its highest levels (my PhD insha Allah will be finished by June. Thesis title, ``Nanoprobe characterisation of mineralised human tissues``) I am very disillusioned by the whole system of Western education and feel it is a mostly a huge waste of time and energy.

I would have been better off doing a degree in the liberal arts if anything but should have gone to a madrassah when i was younger instead. I could have been an alim fazil by now.

Hamza Yusuf`s critique of the modern education system is spot on:

I think modern school is a negative experience. I believe you can learn more out of school than in it. There is now a universal education system, whether you are in an Arab country, China or somewhere else. This universal education is only going to vary according to the political atmosphere of the given country. For example, in Iraq, the indoctrination is probably more obvious whereas in the US it is just more subtle. School is an artificial construct to socialize individuals into a group identity. The whole idea of a ``school of fish`` is that everyone swims together whereas traditional Islamic education was completely individualized. What it did
was give people all those tools (in the West called ``liberal arts``) such as grammar, rhetoric, and logic, through which people could actually think and use their brains.

In public high schools, you are not given tools, you are given information and data. In fact, a metaphor that is used in education today is that you`re basically a hard drive that needs to be written with a given software. You will then fulfill whatever are the social needs of the society. Schooling today is designed only to matriculate people into the logic of the system itself. Then people end up in meaningless jobs doing meaningless work, and never really think about what type of society they`re contributing to.

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freethinker #35 it seems we will see confirmation or modification or possibly outright rejection of either string theory or quantum loop theory or perhaps even both - if the experiments that have been devised for the next few years prove to be as revealing as the countless experiments that have been done to confirm the implications of the theories of relativity and of quantum mechanics (with atomic clocks in globe-circling planes used as far back as in the 1950`s i think to show how time slows down with speed; and with the light of stars shown to bend due to gravity, and so on) and by now they are well established even though counterintuitive given the way our human brains are wired to think.

you are doing a great job of stirring up some interest in science. naqshbandi`s comment is indeed an indication of how far scientific frontiers have moved in the past century - but this has been the reason islamic societies have been left so far behind in the past five centuries: the maulvis today appreciate the nuclear bomb because it does what they understand best (i.e. destruction). but talk to them about principles behind it, about strong vs weak nuclear forces vs electromegnatism and they will start yawning. In the 19th century, the Ottoman empire decayed even though the caliph paid a fortune to western military trainers to give him a modern army - the caliphs never realized that western military strength is the tip of the iceberg. it rests on a culture that takes a positive interest in things around us, in scientific inquiry. the japanese understood this much better than the muslims in the 19th century and so moved ahead. with the illiterates now on top in pakistan - the maulvis and the military men - there is a great danger that pakistan will continue to wallow in the age of superstition (where maulvi ``scientists`` talk about harnessing djinn power, of measuring the speed of heaven, while turning away from rationality and the scientific method).