Why has Africa Never Produced a Nobel Prize Winner in Science [ Anguished Analysis from a Northern Nigerian Muslim and Moving Responses].

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Ahmad Sadiq on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FXPBjDCnJ/

A couple of days ago, Lengdung Tungchamma asked why we have never produced any Nobel prize winner in the sciences in Africa. 

It is a question that has also given me some concern for a few years now and I have given it a lot of thought. 

Firstly, you must understand that Nobel prize winners are only a tip of the iceberg of a population on an openminded quest to understand the nature of reality.

 Behind each of these prizes is a large number of unsung heroes whose theoretical work paved the way for those who eventually won the prizes. 

Winning Nobel prizes, therefore requires not just the advanced equipments that is missing in Africa but also the kind of thinking that produces the relevant questions that these experiments seeks to answer.

This year's physics prize for example, was awarded for the work of three experimental physicists on quantum tunnelling, an effect that made quantum computation possible. But the theoretic framework was laid down by David Deutsch who developed the quantum theory of computation by taking Hugh Everette's many worlds interpretation of quantum physics into its logical conclusion. 

Quantum computation, accordingly taps into the multiverse to perform computations that would be impossible to perform even if we used all the matters in our physical universe. 

It goes without saying that doing science at the highest level requires a mindset that is not only open to investigating reality using reason and experimentation but also takes the results of these investigation seriously. 

Beyond the need for equipment and investment, this is a key missing factor in our part of the world.

 In a region where people doubt established scientific theories because it conflicts with their understanding of scripture, science will be very unlikely to develop.

 But our situation is even worse than this. Not only do we have a population that is averse to scientific thinking, they are also hostile to and intolerant of it.

 People who think scientifically are called names such as "zindeeq" meaning they are not faithful to their religion. 

Muslim scientists are thought [taught?] by their clergy not to take science seriously.

Their education is only a meal ticket and they should not accept any theory that conflicts with their religion since science is tentative, it will eventually catch up with what the Qur'an already said. 

The problem with this kind of thinking, is that it makes us bystanders who will wait for others to do the science.

Muslims were not always this averse to scientific thinking. The likes of Ibn Sina and Al-Fahrabi were very open-minded and contributed immensely to science. They believed in reason and logic and that knowledge should be produced through "demonstration", the highest form of thinking. 

This form of thinking is what is required to do science but this is precisely the kind of thinking that has been prohibited by our clergy as too risky and capable to affecting our faith.

 I do not know to what extent this aversion to scientific thinking affects the non-muslim part of Africa, but I believe it to be a huge hindrance to the development of science in Muslim Africa and beyond.

Responses:

Chikwendu Anugba:

How much is devoted to R and D in the entire Africa? What is our energy consumption per capita? What is the budget of our universities?

       Hassan Abubakar:

Chikwendu Anugba,  Science amd scientists follow the money. People overlook the fact that the US, because of its enormous wealth, has turned the rest of the world into its talent pool.

 Even ancient Athens became the hub of arts and science because it was able to attract talent from other places. Some Americans, especially White conservatives, have a disdain for college education. 

That's partly why STEM departments in America are disproportionately populated by foreigners and immigrants. 

Without immigration, America will lose its leadership in science. The Chinese and even the likes of the Saudis have started attracting scientists from all over the world.

 I guess that very soon, they will start chipping away at America's dominance in science.

       

        Ahmad Sadiq:

Hassan L. Abubakar, a few days ago, you called David Deutsch a far right Islamophobe. 

The aversion to science is growing on both sides of the American political divide.

Policies  that impose quotas based on so-called intersectionalities are promoted by the left and are also not conducive to meritocracy which is required for science.

Emmanuel Eze:

They told us to have faith. We took it so literally we decided to stop thinking.

Now we're waiting for a miracle to win a prize for discovering how miracles work. 🔬🙏

The Nobel Prize question misses the point. The prize is not the cause of scientific advancement; it is a symptom of a society's deep-seated cognitive infrastructure.

This infrastructure is built on two pillars: the material (funding, labs, equipment) and the philosophical (a culture that privileges reason, curiosity, and demonstrable proof over all other claims to truth). 

Africa's deficit is catastrophic on both fronts, but the philosophical collapse is more fundamental. You cannot win a Nobel for probing the nature of reality in a culture where the ultimate nature of reality is considered already fully revealed and beyond questioning.

Sadiq Ahmed correctly identifies a theological immune response in parts of Muslim Africa that attacks scientific thinking as a foreign pathogen (zindeeq). However, this is not a Muslim monopoly; it is a pan-African pandemic of anti-intellectualism, merely dressed in different religious garbs.

 In many Christian communities across Africa, the situation is a mirror image. Here, the prosperity gospel and literalist interpretations of the Bible have created a culture that is equally, if not more, hostile to scientific inquiry.

it is an African pandemic with different variants.

The Islamic Variant: Manifests as the belief that science is tentative and will eventually 'catch up' to the Qur'an, making active, pioneering investigation redundant. The role of the believer is to wait, not to wonder.

The Christian Variant (Pentecostal/Evangelical Edition): Often operates under a framework of spiritual warfare. Established scientific theories like evolution and cosmology are not just incorrect; they are demonic strongholds designed to lead the faithful astray. 

A pastor's sermon on 'defeating the lies of Darwin' carries more weight than a decade of peer-reviewed research. Here, the scientist isn't just misguided; they are potentially in league with dark spiritual forces.

In both cases, reason is not a tool for discovery but a threat to be quarantined. The open-minded quest of Ibn Sina has been replaced by a closed-minded defense of dogma.

In the Muslim context, science is often deferred to as 'already in the Qur'an,' making new discovery an act of verification, not innovation.

In the Christian context, particularly with the rise of Pentecostalism, scientific explanations are often dismissed as 'demonic' or 'worldly,' and faith-healing trumps medical science. 

The 'Judeo-Christian' scientific revolution in the West occurred because faith and reason were, for a time, seen as two books written by the same author. In Africa, faith has declared a hostile takeover of reason's territory.

They told us faith can move mountains.

But it seems it's also very effective at blocking telescopes.

We pray for miracles in the very fields where we should be conducting experiments. 🔭🙏

The Bystander Continent: The 'Qur'an (or Bible) said it first' mentality is the ultimate intellectual capitulation. It transforms an entire continent from potential pioneers into permanent bystanders, waiting for others to make discoveries we can later claim our holy books pre-empted. This is not pride; it is an admission of intellectual defeat.

The Meal-Ticket Mentality: When education is viewed solely as a 'meal ticket' and not as a vocation for truth-seeking, you produce engineers who can't innovate, doctors who can't research, and scientists who are merely bureaucrats in lab coats. We are training technicians, not thinkers.

The Death of 'Demonstration': The classical method of 'demonstration' – using irrefutable logic and evidence – which was championed by the Islamic Golden Age, is now anathema in many of our religious and social spaces. Faith that requires the suppression of reason is not strong faith; it is fragile faith, terrified of a question it cannot answer.

The Abdication of Sovereignty: The prevailing attitude that science is a 'Western' endeavor we can simply import is a form of intellectual colonialism. It assumes we are only consumers of knowledge, not producers. We wait for the iPhone to be invented so we can buy it, never imagining we could invent the next paradigm-shifting technology.

The Ghost of Our Own History: The most damning evidence against our current stance is our own history. The Islamic Golden Age and the intellectual traditions of ancient African civilizations like Timbuktu prove that our soil is not inherently infertile. We are not culturally incapable of science; we have simply been taught to pour the herbicide of dogma on our own intellectual crops.

The question is not why we have no Nobel laureates. The question is why we have chosen to build a society that would actively discourage a young Ibn Sina or a Marie Curie from emerging. Until we dismantle the theological and cultural barriers that quarantine reason in the name of faith, and until we stop seeing education as a mere visa out of poverty rather than a passport to the frontiers of knowledge, we will remain permanent bystanders in the human quest to understand the cosmos---a quest we were once, and could be again, pioneers in.

We pray for miracles in our laboratories and demand evidence from our pulpits.

We have reversed the entire scientific method. No wonder our biggest export is prayers, not patents. ⚗️🙏

The question is not why we have no Nobel Prizes. The question is why we have abandoned the very cognitive toolkit required to earn one. 

We have erected theological walls around our curiosity and wonder why our minds cannot soar. Until we dismantle the dogma that forbids the 'risky' act of thinking, Africa will remain a consumer of knowledge, forever applauding from the sidelines as the rest of the world continues its open-minded quest to understand the sublime nature of the universe we all share.

They tell our scientists, "Don't question God's creation."

Meanwhile, the Nobel laureates are in their labs asking, "What if God created a multiverse?"

One culture fears the question. The other wins the prize for the answer.

~ #EmmanuScript ...✍️

         Eric Trantham

Emmanuel Eze, 

That was brilliant.

Ogunfowora Lekan Ismaila:

Thank you for sharing this observation. This is one of the reason why I know I will have problem if I am in Academics.

 I remember my undergraduate project some years ago. I have not even finished stating the project topic when a chief Technologist, the most senior rank in the Technology Engineering cadre when the man said "it's impossible". As someone who know his onion I responded immediately in the most audacious way. Just like you stated. His reason was on religious ground. 🤣. 

How can " Design and Fabrication of Automatic Solar Tracking Device" be seen as such?

 It took the intervention of lecturers, professor and PhD holders in the room who corroborated and acknowledged the genuine behind the research work. 

That same research work earn me Google Scholar and it has been quoted by international researchers in about 4 continents and more than 40 universities. US, India, China, etc

We have a long way to go on research & development and it's contribution to real life problem. 

Each time I opened the 370+ pages of research work on "Satellite Networking Principles and Protocols" I asked myself when will Africa get there. 

Has there been any research work done by two generations by the Bernoullis in Africa? Is there any solid textbooks written by two generations like Theraja? 

Is there any research work that has turn to a 3-level certifications like "Kirkpatrick Learning Impact Measurements ". This was Kirkpatrick PhD work that has turned to a legacy revenue generation for his family. 

These are the kind of thing that we also need in Africa. 

I look forward to creating such generational revenue avenue for next generation in collaboration with my partners.

      Comrade Abdullahi Bajego:

Ogunfowora Lekan Ismaila, in our own part of the world, we take religion too personal and it's the reason why we are where we are.

Comrade Abdullahi Bajego:

Good observation 

And if the Muslims will focus on scientific discoveries, the Muslim populations have higher chances of making a better breakthrough just as you've given instances with Ibn Sina and co. 

The Qur'an have thousands of theories waiting to be tapped for scientific discoveries. 

But our stumbling block is, we now have scholars who choose to forbid whatever will be a hindrance to their source of money, and so, they'll find a way to make it forbidden even if it isn't.

 Moreso, when focus is shifted to using the Qur'an to make scientific breakthrough, they'll have minimal chance of abusing their fellow religious scholars and this is what they all don't want to happen.

We take religion too personal in this part of the world and that hinders our scientific development.

Ambrose Unuamume Olori:

Most people will still blame the government for this by saying they're not devoting enough resources to research and development and also that our electricity is still not in a stable state. 

But I'd like to remind us that though the government doesn't award any resources to religion, our religious houses are places of affluence and our religious leaders are swimming in wealth. 

If we were not hostile to scientific thinking which is often times as a result of our religion, we would be much more present in the scientific world. 

It's not always about money, most times it's will.

      Bukar Alli Shettima:

Ambrose Unuamume Olori, Yes, because the religious leaders rob from the looters and the people combined.

Honest Elo-akpo Emoghene:

Scientists are elite of a society. Just because the regular citizens of a country think one way doesn't mean they'd think the same way. 

How many Americans accept evolution? Even those who accept it, how many could truly claim to understand it? We could even do same for Europe and it won't be different. I'm using evolution as an instance because I could use relativity and the results would be the same.

When the budget of Brazilian most funded university eclipses the budget of nearly all the federal universities in Nigeria, you'd know that there's a problem.

Where will a rising lecturer have the time to conduct groundbreaking research when his salary isn't even enough to pay for the electricity required for running a lab. Mind you, he's expected to do that out of his pockets.

Until we understand the role that politics play in fostering innovations and progress, we'd keep blaming the wrong people.

        Ahmad Sadiq: 

Honest Elo-akpo Emoghene, the difference is the fact that American society is tolerant while Muslim Africa is totalitarian.

 If you don’t believe in science but leave the space for those who want to believe on it to do so in peace, that will be fine.

        Thomas Abiodun Joe:

Ahmad Sadiq, and they also wouldn't mind "putting their money where their mouth is" since no authority will ostracise them endorsing well grounded scientific findings.

       Honest elo-Akpo Emoghene: 

Ahmad Sadiq, the American society isn't tolerant because of the people. It does so because there's a strong rule of law.

 At the time we got independence, some white people were still lynching some black people. But the state stepped in to outlaw it. Charlie Kirk was killed last month for expressing a view that was offensive to some. His killer has been nabbed.

Regardless of these, you know you can pretty much say anything because you know even if you are hurt, there's going to be consequences.

At the end, the government and the state need to guarantee all these in addition to improving the funding to our universities.

Rydwon Tariq Leckhan:

We have one who is from Egypt in the field of Chemistry. His name is Ahmed Ziwail.

         Ahmad Sadiq: 

Rydwon Tariq Leckhan, he worked in the US.

Khalid D Ahmad Gwadabe;

This is right on religio-cultural ground, but there is still others factors that is yet not captured here!

Abdullahi Muhammad Jidda

The question is this: do we feel we lose something by not having even a single one of us win the Nobel Prize? 

The Nobel Prize is a worldly Prize, we can afford to lose but can we afford to lose Jannah? 

The fact that this post has only 90-like engagement 7 hours after it's publication when 10-minute-old Guruntum-video is having millions of likes and views is a reflection of how much we don't care.

Kiyitwe Gotom:

Well thought out submission.

Al-Amin Tsafe

Professor Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel in Chemistry in 1999. He’s an Egyptian.

      Ahmad Sadiq: 

Al-Amin Tsafe, he worked in the US.

Hajarat Usman: 

I don't even understand what they are teaching the children in their islamiya. A child in my daughter's class just dropped biology because of the topics imagine a science study for that matter because of his religious beliefs.

Muhammad Rabiu Yusuf Tugay:

Abdullahi Muhammad Jidda , True.

Eric Trantham: 

Thanks for clarifying that.

Misbahu El- Hamza:

I wanted to comment with a reminder that Islam isn't the only religion in Africa, only for me to read the last sentence.

I share your concern. True, Africa hasn’t produced many Nobel laureates in the sciences, though we’ve had the Egyptian Ahmed Zewail in Chemistry. He's a Muslim.

And i also don't I think religion or understanding of it is our only or major problem here. The deeper issue is how our African societies treat inquiry and how much we're ready to invest in that. 

Beyond belief, the issues include poor funding, weak institutions, and brain drain. Even dogmatism thrive where education is fragile.

So to grow science here, and perhaps race more for the Prizes in science, we need systems that reward questions in labs, classrooms, and, of course, in our pulpits.

Camillus Nwaelu:

I remember telling a pastor to shut up for saying that computers/Automobiles/Digital Devices were made through mysterious magical and diabolical powers...

Not only Muslims are facing this.. The worst part of it is that u are quickly labelled an atheist for being pro-scientific, by same people who can even logically prove the existence or possibility of what the believe in...

Abdul Seyni:

We don't  place  serious value on sciences in Africa. As such, we don't invest in that field of knowledge. We see it as something magical that isn't for us.