Problems with Co-Education `` In females, there is an intact connection between the left and ride sides of the brain, while in males, the connection is broken. Hence, female students are more productive in the sense that they can pay attention to many aspects of their education simultaneously, while the male students can only concentrate on one aspect at a time. ``


Dear Hafsa,
The deceptively simple scheme that you have presented above, is a gross oversimplification and an unwarranted generalization of a biological complexity. It is misleading to refer to the brain as if it were connected in a way similar to hardwired electronic devices.

The neural system connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is called Corpus Callosum. There are conflicting studies about the size of Corpus Callosum, with some showing Men`s CC to be larger, while others, Women`s. The latter only succeed to prove that only one part of the CC, the Isthmus, which seems to be larger in consistantly right-handed women than consistantly right-handed men. In studies relating the inter-hemispheric interaction, it has been found that women`s reaction times are slower than men`s (Hoptman & Davidson, 1994), which means the greater size of the Isthmus, or that of Corpus Callosum as you claim, does not mean greater inter-hemispheric interaction. Therefore Steven Rose, the British neuroscientist, correctly calls the hypothesis you mentioned, ``little more than ideological fantasies.`` (Rose, 1992)


You, dear Hafsa, in your well-researched article have supported both Psychic Essentialism and Biological essentialism to establish your point.

The basic problem with your psychic essentialism is that it is based on a false premise, i.e. the assumption that some students getting more attention than others is unnatural. In all-girls classes, some girls tend to get more attention than the others. Reducing the classroom size may not help, even if there are two girls in a class, one of them will get more attention than the other.

The second problem with your pysychic essentialism is that it somehow suggests that all girls from all parts of the world, from the third-world under-developed pre-renaissance Pakistani society, to the post-modern western world, face the same problem in co-education schools. It is not convincing to talk about psychology and ignore the cultural context.

While the difference in Biological make-up is can be investigated with the tools of natural science, its profound impact on behavior can not. The crucial step in biological essentialism is to relate to the supposed difference in biological make-up to the culturally defined norms of masculinity and femininity, which is also its fundamental weakness.

Charbagh




* q u e s t i o n


Is it okay to express one`s creativity and communicate one`s inner vision to the audience through art as well as text, rather than art alone? How does reading or not reading the text affect the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling?

Cynical 21st Century Psychobabble



#4 by sri on December 17, 2003

- Islam -
Crazy idiots driving planes in to peoples workplaces.



* r o f l

Of Men and Fences
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

- Robert Frost ( Mending Wall )

On Self Reference and the Law


* i d e a

To me, the form of this essay was somehow more attractive than its content. Has someone ever tried ``self-referential stream-of-conciousness`` in fiction? Like character trying to cope with depression by attempting an objective analysis of his stream-of-conciousness?

Particles of Dust
tahmed32, puyu & ZahraJ, thanx for the compliments, I`m always looking for them :)

Urstruly, what `mardana` hobby do you advise? Jihad?


Fara & Farzana, what you regard as contradiction has been called ``the dichotomies of life`` by temporal :) These dichotomies exist. Apparently, ``Being thrown around by the wind, they look so weak, try breaking them apart and you`ll realize how strong they are. `` is a contradiction in itself, and so is ``They always pretend to be strong and confident, hug them tight and they`ll collapse into tears.``. And then these two contradictions contradict each other in a braoder sense. But thats how humans are, my role was only to observe and express.

Farzana, I always had a touch of `abstract` prose in some of my previous literary pieces, but with time I have become more and more paranoid and concerned about the virginity of my thoughts....I know this approach and this abstract style of prose sounds retarded, but then I am ``Paagal Insaan!`` :)

Particles of Dust Dear Ironman,
It is hard to keep the hymen of the original thought intact, when you process it through the rules of grammar and proverbs of language. I therefore decided to write raw thoughts in prose. It probably is something similar to the abstract art on canvas.

Haseena and Jannat (on earth)
Re: #36 by Tipu:

Webster Dictionary is Kafir and Capitalist. You should use an Islamic Dictionary.

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees
Naqshbandi:

1- I did not say the military should take over by force. I said a technocratic government should put the military, the agencies and the bureaucracy back into their place by force.

2- What is a `western style` degree? I really need to know that.

3- If the MMA can speak better English than Musharraf, why did the Finance Minister of NWFP during his budget speech replace GST (General Sales Tax) with GTS (Government Transport Service)?

Haseena and Jannat (on earth)
Dear Tipu, there`s a lot of difference between being a prostitute and being a pawn of a chess. I couldn`t understand your point at all.

And Kashmir and Palestine are urgent for people that live in Kashmir and Palestine. For us Pakistan is urgent. If you want universal mankind brotherhood, kindly go help the starving in Somalia, they`re more urgent than Kashmir and Palestine.

lol and sorry to hear some nymphomaniac lured you in some breezy chatroom :D Tell me who she is, and I`ll scold her I promise.

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees Dear Mr. Daudpota,


I really think the MMA should not have been allowed to compete the elections in the first place, but its never too late to learn. It would be stupid to let them carry on. What theyre doing, especially the Hasaba act they plan to implement, is against the very philosophy of democracy, so letting them carry on with their BS is more dangerousto democracy then anything else. The perfect way this could be brought about is, that the court disqualifies all MMA members, and when they protest, their leaders be charged with contempt of court and punished.
I may sound extremist but I think the only way to put everyone back in their place is by use of force, by a non-elected technocratic government. As for the illiterate masses, they`re always wrong. The public opinion is always ridiculous. The educated should not waste heir time peaching masses, because the illiterate masses will always listen to those who exploit their ethnic or religion feelings. They should come directly into power. It is not a bad idea to filter the public opinion by bringing in things like the graduate condition. Infact this condition should also be applied to the voters. This will eliminate the afghan refugees voting for molvis, and the peasants voting for their landlords.

I know a farmer`s or a labourer`s son does not have the opportunity to be educated. you may ask what wrong has he done to be denid of the right to rule or the right to vote? My answer is, he has done nothing wrong, but then, what wrong has Pakistan done, to be ruled by illiterate incapable people? Until educated people are in power, there is no way Pakistan will become good enough to provide equal educational opportunities to the sons of the poor. And until that happens, the rights of 14 crore people collectively are more important that those of single persons.

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees #14 by Naqshbandi on June 16, 2003 6:09pm PT
all the leaders of the MMA speak fluent English much better than Musharraf speaks!



dil pe mat le yaar! dil pe mat lay!!

Haseena and Jannat (on earth) Re: #16 by Tipu


1- Those are some awesome designs! Its always a pleasure to see good artwork. Thanx for sharing the link.

2- Its the liberty that offends you, the fact that some women in Pakistan actually have the right to be models and get their pictures taken. Its their independance that you don`t like, the fact that they choose what they want to do. I, and many others like me find these pictues to be an extremely positive influence for the society for the same reasons.

3- Complexed deprivd and desperate losers spend hours on the Internet trying to find pictures of Pakistani celebrities with even the slightest hint of a clevage or bare midriff, then they look at those pictures every day and say, ``Toba toba! Pakistan ka mahol bohot kharaab ho gya hai!`

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees --==[ Dars e Nizamia ]==--

Brief History and Philosophy:
Dars e Nizamia, originally developed by Mullah Nizamuddin (1748) was intended to create professional Molvis that could work for the Government. It was intended to give preference tomaqulaat on manqulaat unlike its competitor Dars e Rahimia of Shah Waliullah`s school. This made it so popular that for a hundred years it was taught without any change, and is still being taught in the Madrassas of India and Pakistan with minor changes.


Course Analysis:
Naqshbandi has given the course outline for the Madrassa. Although 200 years ago, it was `progressive` to prefer philosophy and logic over manqulaat, the overall meaning of philosophy and logic have changed completely over two centures.
1- The Dars totally ignores English, which makes the molvis totally incapable of staying up to date witn the progress of modern thought in philosophy and logic, it makes them unable to read the international public opinion, incapable of keeping themselves abreast of the researches in science, and renders them useless when it comes to preaching internationally or to counter any philosophical or logical threats to Islam.
2- While the teaching of philosophy was a highly progressive act in a Dars designed more than two centuries ago, but modern philosophy can NOT be understood without sound concepts of the science of physics. Teaching obsolete philosophy does more bad than good, and the molvis end up being totally unaware of what the world is about.
3. It is impossible to get a cmplete grasp on the subject of Logics, without a detailed study of mathematics. Mathematics have been given no importance whatsoever in the Dars.

Logics and Philosophy today are based on concrete rules of science, which the molvi oday is completely unaware of. For him theology, philosophy and logics are supernatural religious experiences. Being completely illiterate in English, he is left with no opportunity to make up for this lack of knowledge.


Conclusion:
Since the dars was designed to produce government officials, and until recently molvis had been totally rejected by the masses inelections, they were out there with nothng to do with their degrees. They are usually not educated enough to understand the kind of challenges Islam faces in the modern world. The only choice they were left with, was to use religon to earn money. Tens of sects were made and thousands of mosques were constructed to find jobs for these molvis. This exploitation of religious feelings and the use of religous theoroms for material gains eventually led to the exploitation for political and social gains, which is the biggest problem faced by the pakistani society today.

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees --==[ The Real Power in Pakistan ]==--

Let me make this clear, the real power in Pakistan is niether the civil nor military bureaucracy, I come from a military family and let me make this clear, the real power in Pakistan are the agencies. Despite all efforts Musharraf and the military bureaucracy have failed to control the ISI, who`s objectives have, until recently, been the establishment of an `Islamic` state in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. The pressures that Musharraf bowed to, about the degrees issue, was NOT political pressure since he never ever bows to it, it was pressure from the agencies that literally hold the country hijacked. After the abolition of the `Islamic state` in the Afghanistan, these agnecies decided to practice their ideas in the NWFP.

The Scandal of Fake and Madrassa Degrees
Guys, get one thing clear:

THE MADRASSA ISSUE HAS NOT BEEN BROUGHT UP BY THE MUSHARRAF GOVT. LAST TIME I CHECKED ASLAM KHAKI WAS PRO-PPP. INFACT SOME MEMBERS OF THE GOVERNING PARTY HAVE ALSO BEEN NAMED IN THE PETITION!

Nobody likes Musharraf but kindly avoid writing long analyses based on false assumptions.



Romair: Shah Ahmed Noorani probably does sprak 12 languages, but I`d protest if Urdu and English are to be considered the languages he knows :)

Nqshbandi: Its not how many years you spend studying, its the course you study. Dars-e-Nizami is more than a hundred years old, and unsuitable for a modern democratic state.