I had couple of postings about Swat and Taliban's affection for schools. Well - we need to see the other side too. Khwarzimic Science Society kicked off its activities for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) yesterday in Lahore. Their speaker was Pervez Hoodbhoy talking about The Usefulness of Extra Dimensions of Spacetime - and they had a fantastic turnout for the lecture. Also, see Umair Asim's website about his telescope (a nice Celestron C14) and his astrophotography through Lahore's light pollution.
About eight hundred miles away, as part of The Year of Science, The Second Floor (T2F) was holding a Science ka Adda talk in Karachi on the Large Hadron Collidor. Mason Inman was the speaker and his talk was titled the Big Bang Machine.
And here is Zakir Thaver on News Weakly (a desi version of the Daily Show) talking about building a Science Multimedia Library in Pakistan and the power of science documentaries (hey - after watching the segment, I'm in no position to disagree :) ):
What is Irtiqa?
Irtiqa is Salman Hameed's blog. A few years ago (before Facebook killed many of the blogs), it used to track stories of science & religion, especially those related to Muslim societies. That is still one of its foci, but now it dovetails more of Salman's interests including film, astronomy, science fiction, and science outreach in both Pakistan and the US.
Irtiqa literally means evolution in Urdu. But it does not imply only biological evolution. Instead, it is an all encompassing word used for evolution of the universe, biological evolution, and also for biological/human development. While it has created confusion in debates over biological evolution in South Asia, it provides a nice integrative name for this blog. For further information, contact Salman Hameed.
The blog banner is designed by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. You can find all his creative endeavors at Orangie.
Salman Hameed
Salman is an astronomer and Associate Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. Currently, he is working on understanding the rise of creationism in contemporary Islamic world and how Muslims view the relationship between science & religion. He is also working with historian Tracy Leavelle at Creighton University to analyze reconciliation efforts between astronomers and Native Hawaiians over telescopes on top of sacred Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He teaches “History and Philosophy of Science & Religion” with philosopher Laura Sizer, and “Science in the Islamic World”, both at Hampshire College. Salman and Laura Sizer are also responsible for the ongoing Hampshire College Lecture Series on Science & Religion, and you can find videos of all these lectures below. Contact information here.
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Blog Archive
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2009
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January
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- Forget Taliban - here is some public science in Pa...
- Art from evolution
- Another school blown up by militants in Swat
- The value of words
- Creationist mess in Texas and Evolution in texbook...
- Robots of war
- Science and Islam: Part 3 - The Power of Doubt
- Kepler on God and the physical world
- Taliban, education, and diary of a 7th grade schoo...
- E.O.Wilson on science & religion and ants
- Science and Islam: Part 2 - The Empire of Reason
- History and genetic tests to solve the Palestinian...
- Safety and Pakistan's nuclear program
- Kelvin is Lord and a bit of Colbert
- Video: Lawrence Krauss - Science & Religion: Two S...
- Science and Islam: Part 1 - The Language of Science
- BBC documentary on Science and Islam
- Good Pope, Bad Pope
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January
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2 comments:
Yes, Hoodbhoy was about the most interesting/intelligent contribution I read in the Templeton Foundation's 2008 publication, "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" which I wrote about at url below. He really thought about the intersection, rather than just positing it. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080516-god-science-debate.html
Thanks Robin for the link. I think there are some excellent quotes from Hoodbhoy in your article - and I more or less tend to agree with his position.
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