George Porter Quotes
Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it ? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century ? I am afraid that it is.
Porter, George. "Science and the Gross National Product." Science and Public Policy, vol. 12, no. 6, Dec. 1985, pp. 299-306.
This was a radical speech for the time, suggesting reforms that had been unthinkable to most Turks. Although it is not prohibited by the Koran and early Islamic artists made some of the greatest paintings and depictions of people, fundamentalists gained control of Islam and interpreted any statue as an idol that could be worshipped and this generalized to Islamic art in general where people ceased to be depicted and even animal depictions were rare. Muslim art developed incredible geometric intricacy but tended not to depict anything that is real. This extended to photography and illustrations in books including textbooks. At the same time, not unlike some Christian and Jewish Fundamentalists, the Muslim fundamentalists opposed science and the teaching thereof on the grounds that all authentic knowledge was in the Koran and anything else was not only false but also heretical. So this speech was a type of “declaration of war” against the established religious order and culture.
If we do not have more scientific graduates from the university we will lose contact with modernity.
One of his major initiatives was to reform the Italian university curriculum to have more scientific offerings. Italy historically has been a great scientific culture ranging from Galileo to Enrico Fermi, but in recent times the universities have not had strong scientific curricula.
10 centuries ago was a time when the Arabs were far more advanced and modern than other cultures including the Christian West that was in the Dark Ages. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
After Turkey’s defeat in WWI, some Turkish leaders like Riza Nur wanted Turkey to become a colony of America. This they believed would hasten Turkey’s development and modernization.
George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham Kt OM PRS FRSE was a British chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967.
