[DAWN] WHEN Pak students open a physics or biology textbook, it is sometimes unclear whether they are actually learning science or, instead, theology. The reason: every science textbook, published by a government-run textbook board in Pakistain, by law must contain in its first chapter how Allah made our world, as well as how Muslims and Paks have created science.
I have no problem with either. But the first properly belongs to Islamic Studies, the second to Islamic or Pak history. Neither legitimately belongs to a textbook on a modern-day scientific subject. That’s because religion and science operate very differently and have widely different assumptions. Religion is based on belief and requires the existence of a hereafter, whereas science worries only about the here and now.
Demanding that science and faith be tied together has resulted in national bewilderment and mass intellectual enfeeblement. Millions of Paks have studied science subjects in school and then gone on to study technical, science-based subjects in college and university. And yet most -- including science teachers -- would flunk if given even the simplest science quiz. |