Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Jews, Muslims and the Nobel Prize

by Uriya Shavit
Next month, Professor Ada Yonath will be awarded the Nobel Prize in
chemistry, becoming the fifth Israeli scientist to win this award. This
has sharpened, once again, the grim statistics regarding the scarcity of
Nobel laureates in the Muslim and Arab worlds. While Jews, who are only
around 0.2% of the world population, have won a quarter of all Nobel
Prizes awarded in the sciences, Muslims, who are one quarter of the
world population, have won only a handful, even by the most generous
accounts. And while relative to its size, Israel’s tiny academia has
been the world's leading Nobel power over the past decade, Arab
universities have yet to produce their first Nobel laureate.
Israelis and Jews worldwide consider these awards a source of pride -
and rightly so. It's always nice to be on a winning team. Muslims and
Arabs view these numbers as a source of shame and even soul searching.
Even Muslim religious scholars who portray Western political systems,
social foundations and cultural achievements as manifestations of
infidel entities in decay recognize that the West's huge scientific and
technological edge must be narrowed. Some even openly discuss Israel's
scientific achievements in order to encourage their followers to become
more academically competitive.
Conventional wisdom offers a conventional explanation for the
disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes in science awarded to Jews and
Israelis: the "Jewish genius," whereas Muslims and Arabs fail because
they live under dictatorships. This explanation is not completely
detached from reality, but is, nevertheless, not sufficient.
The truth is that a certain type of Jew has won Nobel Prizes. These
Jewish laureates drew on a Jewish heritage that dedicates itself to
learning, reveres scholars, and places intellectual demands on its young
people. But these laureates were also modern Jews, open to modern
sciences and rational thinking, and keen on making their way in the
greater world that exists beyond their communities. Remove one part of
this equation – heritage or modernity – and the "Jewish genius" vanishes.
This particular type of Jew is a nearly extinct species. Secular Jews,
especially secular Israelis, are increasingly detached from the heritage
of giving primacy to education and scholarship. They are inundated by a
culture that reveres instant celebrity, shameless greed and utter
stupidity. Observant Jews, especially observant Israelis, are
increasingly facing trends that are hostile towards rationality,
suspicious of modernity and indifferent to the merits of scientific
experimentation.
Many lament the reduction in funds earmarked for sciences in Israel. But
this is the symptom, not the disease. Where scientists receive no
respect, they also receive little or no money. To continue winning Nobel
Prizes, the Jewish world in general (and the State of Israel in
particular) need more than financial resources. They need to defend and
cultivate the particular kind of Jew who has been awarded one out of
every four Nobel Prizes. And they must do so without caving to political
correctness or cultural relativism.
The case of the Muslim and Arab worlds also evokes a discussion.  It is
a historical fact that authoritarian regimes and dictatorships have
produced inferior scientific achievements in comparison to liberal, open
societies. Until its collapse, the Soviet Union lagged scientifically
and technologically behind the United States; the gap increasingly
widened and eventually led to the breakdown of the Communist empire.
However, the Soviet Union did excel in some sciences and produced many
brilliant academics. The same holds for other non-democratic regimes.
Today, Stalinist North Korea sells technology to Stalinist Syria, not
the other way round. Thus, the lack of political pluralism accounts for
part of the Muslim and Arab scientific failures. But it does not explain
why they are so absolute.
Another explanation is the lack of religious and intellectual freedom in
most Muslim societies, where religious scholars have monopolized the
spiritual and the metaphysical in a way that disrupts scientific
progress. What does a monopoly of the spiritual and the metaphysical
have to do with the study of chemistry or physics? Everything. Science
can only flourish in a culture that does not recognize any taboos and
constantly doubts creeds of all sorts. Nobel laureates cannot grow from
cultures that raise kids from an early age to never question a certain
conceptualization of reality.
This does not imply that science and religion are not commensurable;
some of the world's greatest scientists have been deeply religious. But
it is almost impossible for great scientific minds to exhaust their
potential in societies where the clergy have ultimate control over
intellectual quests.
In the late 19th century, a reform movement emerged in the Muslim world.
It recognized that for Muslims to embark on an age of renaissance,
modern sciences must be embraced. Reformists endeavored to convince
Muslims that modern sciences do not contradict Islam – and were quite
successful in doing so. This school, developed by Jamal al-Din
al-Afghani and Muhmmad ‘Abduh, is often mistakenly described as liberal;
in fact, its primary goal was to defend Islam against Western hegemony.
It aspired to offer a theological framework that would allow Muslims to
be part of modernity without compromising their belief in the
comprehensive essence of Islam. The one thing these reformers never
intended to do was to release society from the shackles of religious
scriptures monopolized by religious establishments. And ironically
enough, it is exactly because Afghani and ‘Abduh’s relatively modern and
relatively tolerant school of thought became so influential – appeasing
the minds of so many Muslims that religion can indeed encompass every
aspect of modernity - that the Arab intellectual world is still locked
in a spirit of taboo and fear.
Some 100 years ago, it was possible, although risky, for an Arab to
doubt whether the Quran was a divine text. Any Arab who does so today
would be signing his own death warrant. Sadly enough, many contemporary
Western intellectuals also think twice before discussing Muslim creed.
Where particular aspects of life, such as religion, cannot be openly
debated, thorough scientific investigation is impossible.
Contemporary Arab religious scholars commonly offer apologias that
attribute Western scientific achievements to the intellectual legacy an
ungrateful West inherited from the Muslim world. By doing so, they shut
their eyes to the deep historical context of Western renaissance.
Contemporary leading Arab universities produce books and essays that
depict Darwin, Freud, Marx and other brilliant modern minds as part of a
Jewish conspiracy to bring about the downfall of humanity. By doing so,
they distract their audiences from entire fields of scientific study.
Despite whatever racists imply, there is nothing essential about Muslims
or Arabs that prevents them from winning Nobel Prizes. But for a
scientific revolution to occur in these regions, more than political
reform is needed. Rather, true intellectual freedom must be established.
Since this is nowhere in sight, my hope – in fact, my guess – is that
the first Muslim affiliated with a Middle Eastern university to win a
Noble Prize will be an Arab-Israeli. And he or she will teach Jews and
Muslims alike a very valuable lesson.
http://www.adelsoninstitute.org.il/
Uriya Shavit, Director of Programs in Democracy at the Adelson Institute
for Strategic Studies, analyzes the deep truths behind Nobel Prize
statistics.

 Next month, Professor Ada Yonath will be awarded the Nobel Prize in
bah
Il candidato che era sulla bocca di tutti per il Nobel letteratura 
quest'anno era Amos Oz
Fonti ufficiose lo davano per certo
All'ultim'ora hanno prevalso considerazioni di tipo "politico"
Mica si possono avere troppi Israeliani nei Nobel eh...

 Mica si possono avere troppi Israeliani nei Nobel eh...
era meglio non averne nessuno? Lo vedi che sei colona inside?

 era meglio non averne nessuno? Lo vedi che sei colona inside?
no, per carit�
Mi spiace in questo caso, perch� sinceramente, e al di l� di qualsiasi 
considerazione, Oz meritava il premio.
Quella a cui l'hanno dato � illeggibile...
Sui premi scientifici non potrei assolutamente giudicare, ma credo che i 
dati siano oggettivi, dunque nulla da dire.

 Quella a cui l'hanno dato è illeggibile...
l'avevi letta? Ho sentito alla radio che il suo editore italiano è un
microeditore del Trentino che ha preso i diritti per 1000 euro...

microeditore del Trentino che ha preso i diritti per 1000 euro...
io leggo in lingua originale :-)))
(Oz no, non sono capace :-)