SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, THE ARTS AND NATION BUILDING IN NIGERIA
OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
IN
NIGERIA
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
The Nigerian writer and social activist Wole Soyinka's insistence that the terrorism of Boko Haram is the unanticipated outcome of Nigerian support for Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria as well as the direct expression of the ambitions of some disgruntled Northern politicians has sparked various kinds of response. Some of these have been dismissive, particularly coming from some commentators from Northern Nigeria. One such, by Abba Gummel, dismisses Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature on the grounds of literature and the arts as being of little value in building modern societies, particularly in the face of the development challenges faced by Nigeria, arguing that modern societies are built on the foundations of science and technology.
I examine briefly the nature of science and technology, relate them to Nigeria's most pressing development challenges, and compare the roles of various Nigerian institutions in contemporary Nigerian development.
Science, Technology and Nation Building
No society has ever been built primarily on science and technology.
To claim that modern society is built on science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious attitude to science. To argue that what African countries need to become modern societies is advances in science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious reverence for science, rather than an understanding of the role of science in building societies.
Such superstitious attitudes, based on ignorance on the nature of Western social management and modernity may be partly responsible for African backwardness, even in the face of long standing misguided reverence for science.
The fact is that modern societies are based partly on the management of science and technology not on science and technology.
What is Science?
Science can be understood in a broad and a narrow sense.
The narrow sense involves the study of the physical character of the universe using methods that can be replicated and assessed by others adequately skilled to do so. In that sense, we have sciences that deal with living and non-living systems, such as physics, chemistry and biology, as well as sciences that straddle both, such as mathematics.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
The essential scientific character of such disciplines is not in their subject matter but in the manner in which they address that subject matter, as Dominic Ogbonna observed in this debate. Over the centuries and even now, various disciplines engage with those same subjects without being understood as scientific.
The broad understanding of science is in the adaptation of critical methods associated with science to other disciplines. In doing that, however, it is vital to observe broad variations between the character of living and non-living systems , and broad variations within the character of living systems. Along the lines of adapting scientific methods to a broader range of disciplines, there exist the social sciences of economics and sociology, and even linguistics, described as the scientific study of language.
This broad understanding is better understood, not as science, but as the adoption of a critical method to the study pf phenomena. The success of modern Western society is in the adoption of critical methods, not on science, in terms of the physical sciences like physics, or the biological sciences like human biology. The more specific physical and biological sciences and the more general sciences like mathematics are adapted within a social system based on critical understanding of phenomena, particularly the large scale social systems represented by societies. The success of modern Western society is a demonstration of skilled social management, among other factors that made this quality of social management possible in the first place.
What is Technology?
One could describe technology also in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it can be described as the practical application of science, particularly in the creation of instruments.
The narrow sense involves the metaphorical adaptation of the idea to involve management of knowledge in general.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
Abba insists that African societies, particularly Nigeria, need to be based on science and technology in order to succeed.
Contemporary Nigerian Development Challenges
Let us run through contemporary Nigerian social/ development challenges and try to see what role science and technology could play in addressing them. My argument will be that science and technology are useful but as methods and insights managed by social managers, not always using the tools and knowledge of the sciences in their core sense. Such social management is not based on physics or mathematics, or biology and medicine, but uses these disciplines to achieve the overarching goal of social management. I also also compare and contrast the Nigerian institutions represented by the oil industry, banking and Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
Security of Life and Property
A central challenge in contemporary Nigeria is security of life and property on account of the presence of terrorism, primarily from Boko Haram but also from MEND. Also critical in security challenges is the scourge of kidnapping.
Islamic and Political Terrorism of Boko Haram
The progress made against Boko Haram so far has been though information sourcing and tracking of their members. The role played by science in the sense of the specialized skills of particular scientific disciplines has been in the use of electronic tracking technology through which the terrorists' phones were tracked. Technology also played a role in the weapons used in battling the members of the sect.
Does the use of technology in these two forms imply that these successes are due to the use of science and technology? Only partly so, beceause the anti-Boko Haram operation necessarily involves a broad range of methods of which the use of electronic tracking technology and physical weapons are two factors.
I expect the operation involves information sourcing by word of mouth from informants among members of the communities where Boko Haram members live. If the fight against Boko Haram is to succeed, such intelligence gathering from within the community needs to be intensified. The fight against Boko Haram needs to won primarily in the hearts and minds of Nigerians, which is the core arena of the war the sect has unleashed on the nation. The sect is seeking to prove to Nigerians that it represents a parallel government that embodies the aspirations of Northern Nigeria. That effort will fail when Northerners can be decisively convinced that Boko Haram represents only themselves and the pauperisation of the North.
When people are convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
Education, Marriage and Religion in Northern Nigeria
Even after this stage of terrorism in Northern Nigeria is addressed, what is to be done with the region's educational and other social problems that make it a flash point for recurrent social upheavals? There seems to be an educational crisis in Northern Nigeria, with the Islamic educational system favored by many being ill equipped to manage the transition to a modern society. How is that to be addressed? Such issues seem to me to be more in the realm of educational theory and practice and politics, than physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences.
What about the issue of the marriage of very young girls, creating a ground for severe physical problems on account of the immaturity of the girls' bodies, removing them from the educational system and severely limiting their opportunities to operate productively in the work place, and ultimately swelling the ranks of the poor? How is the religious background of this practice in the marriage of the prophet Muhammad to a pre-pubescent girl to be addressed?
Northern Nigerian Economy
What about the economies of the Northern states?
Some have called for greater reliance on indigenous wealth generation, as different from depending on oil revenue from the central government. How is this economic transition to be managed? I don't get the impression that physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences is going to be the knowledge base to be used. They can be adapted to the task but those who run those systems must be competent in a range of knowledge and skills, from economics, to social psychology and politics.
Kidnapping
How do we address the kidnapping problem?
Part of the problem must be economic. Another could relate to a sense of injustice projected by an awareness of corruption. It is also crucial to identify and destroy the kidnapping networks.
How are people to be enabled to gain employment without unnecessary difficulty? How can the cost of living be significantly reduced to make life easier and crime less compelling? How can the corruption be reduced significantly and hopefully eliminated so that people are less prone to consider themselves justified in using desperate methods against a society they see as having betrayed them? How can the kidnapping networks be identified and destroyed?
Addressing these questions would span a broad range of skills that go beyond such sciences as physics, chemistry and medicine.
Energy
Another challenge is energy, particularly the generation and distribution of electricity, this being critical to running a modern economy and society and to business and research in all fields.
Power generation is a demonstration of science and technology. Is Nigeria failing in achieving this basic task adequately because of a lack of scientists and engineers or because of inadequacies in the allocation of resources and their application to the task at hand? Can such failures of allocation and implementation be corrected by science and technology or do they operate in the more shadowy zone of political vision and commitment to the nation rather to political cliques?
I don't get the impression that having skilled scientists running the country or even running the power and steel ministry automatically translates into efficient management of these resources. Such skill is necessary but is it the absence of such skill that has led to the country not being able to account for the huge sums of money allocated to developing the refineries and to Nigeria being largely an importer rather than a processor of its own oil? What role does the county and its indigenised companies play in oil exploration and extraction? Are the limitations of the country in this area due more to lack of skilled personnel than to inadequate political will and planning to develop and equip such personnel in the first place?
Nigerian Institutions
Nollywood, the Nigerian Film Industry
As it is, the only Nigerian industry in which its citizens demonstrate originality that enables them stand out as group in the global community and earn significant income for the nation on that basis is is Nollywood, an example of the very story telling that Abba derides as not being central to developing a modern society. This is the only industry in which Nigerians as a group demonstrate originality. It is also the most visible original export of the nation. I expect it is the highest foreign exchange earner of the nation from any original achievement of its citizens.
The Nigerian Oil and Banking Industries
The Nigerian oil industry, as far as I know, is largely a buying and selling industry. Selling crude oil, buying processed petroleum. The banking industry is not known for any particular innovations, to the best of my very limited knowledge of banking. I also doubt if Nigerian banks have a significant global reach. To what degree are they engaged in economic activities outside Nigeria and to what degree do they contribute to driving development in Nigeria? Do they fund genuine claims to scientific and technological achievement in Nigeria? To what degree do they fund the obvious success of Nollywood so that the industry can move beyond sheer volume to greater quality that can penetrate global markets beyond what is likely to be its Black African fan base at home and abroad? The stupendous budgets, which allied with a dazzling array of skills, enables Hollywood to rule the global film world must be based to a significant degree on backing by financial institutions. What role are similar institutions in Nigeria playing in this crying need?
Modern Societies as Based on Critical Thinking and an Egalitarian Social Contract
In sum, to describe any society as based on science and technology in the narrow sense of the physical and the biological sciences, talk less of claiming that African societies need to be based on science and technology to achieve modernity, is a very limited understanding of science and technology as well as of social development and management, talk less of the development of civilizations.
It is accurate, instead, to describe modern societies as based on critical thinking, based on evidence and aspiration to social ideals that empower as many people as possible. These approaches are focused on rather than on speculation or religious faith. Within this context, science and technology are harnessed in concert with other disciplines in building and running these societies.
The Economic and Social Power of Nollywood Story Telling
To describe the role of the arts in Nigeria, and particularly of story telling, as very limited or irrelevant in relation to building a modern society is to ignore the facts of history, as demonstrated spectacularly in the economic and larger social impact of Nollywood, the most significant industry in Nigeria in terms of originality in relation to global reach.
OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
From: Abba <abba...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:10 AM
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| Re: [NIgerianWorldForum] SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, THE ARTS AND NATION BUILDING IN NIGERIA
The Nigerian writer and social activist Wole Soyinka's insistence that the terrorism of Boko Haram is the unanticipated outcome of Nigerian support for Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria as well as the direct expression of the ambitions of some disgruntled Northern politicians has sparked various kinds of response. Some of these have been dismissive, particularly coming from some commentators from Northern Nigeria.
One such, by Abba Gummel, dismisses Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature on the grounds of literature and the arts as being of little value in building modern societies, particularly in the face of the development challenges faced by Nigeria, arguing that modern societies are built on the foundations of science and technology.
No society has ever been built primarily on science and technology.
To claim that modern society is built on science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious attitude to science.
To argue that what African countries need to become modern societies is advances in science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious reverence for science, rather than an understanding of the role of science in building societies.
Such superstitious attitudes, based on ignorance on the nature of Western social management and modernity may be partly responsible for African backwardness, even in the face of long standing misguided reverence for science.
The fact is that modern societies are based partly on the management of science and technology not on science and technology.
The narrow sense involves the study of the physical character of the universe using methods that can be replicated and assessed by others adequately skilled to do so. In that sense, we have sciences that deal with living and non-living systems, such as physics, chemistry and biology, as well as sciences that straddle both, such as mathematics.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
The essential scientific character of such disciplines is not in their subject matter but in the manner in which they address that subject matter, as Dominic Ogbonna observed in this debate.
Over the centuries and even now, various disciplines engage with those same subjects without being understood as scientific.
The broad understanding of science is in the adaptation of critical methods associated with science to other disciplines.
This broad understanding is better understood, not as science, but as the adoption of a critical method to the study pf phenomena.
One could describe technology also in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it can be described as the practical application of science, particularly in the creation of instruments.
The narrow sense involves the metaphorical adaptation of the idea to involve management of knowledge in general.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
Abba insists that African societies, particularly Nigeria, need to be based on science and technology in order to succeed.
Let us run through contemporary Nigerian social/ development challenges and try to see what role science and technology could play in addressing them. My argument will be that science and technology are useful but as methods and insights managed by social managers, not always using the tools and knowledge of the sciences in their core sense. Such social management is not based on physics or mathematics, or biology and medicine, but uses these disciplines to achieve the overarching goal of social management. I also also compare and contrast the Nigerian institutions represented by the oil industry, banking and Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
A central challenge in contemporary Nigeria is security of life and property on account of the presence of terrorism, primarily from Boko Haram but also from MEND. Also critical in security challenges is the scourge of kidnapping.
The progress made against Boko Haram so far has been though information sourcing and tracking of their members. The role played by science in the sense of the specialized skills of particular scientific disciplines has been in the use of electronic tracking technology through which the terrorists' phones were tracked. Technology also played a role in the weapons used in battling the members of the sect.
Does the use of technology in these two forms imply that these successes are due to the use of science and technology?
When people are convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
Even after this stage of terrorism in Northern Nigeria is addressed, what is to be done with the region's educational and other social problems that make it a flash point for recurrent social upheavals? There seems to be an educational crisis in Northern Nigeria, with the Islamic educational system favored by many being ill equipped to manage the transition to a modern society. How is that to be addressed? Such issues seem to me to be more in the realm of educational theory and practice and politics, than physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences.
What about the issue of the marriage of very young girls, creating a ground for severe physical problems on account of the immaturity of the girls' bodies, removing them from the educational system and severely limiting their opportunities to operate productively in the work place, and ultimately swelling the ranks of the poor?
Some have called for greater reliance on indigenous wealth generation, as different from depending on oil revenue from the central government. How is this economic transition to be managed? I don't get the impression that physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences is going to be the knowledge base to be used. They can be adapted to the task but those who run those systems must be competent in a range of knowledge and skills, from economics, to social psychology and politics.
How do we address the kidnapping problem?
Part of the problem must be economic. Another could relate to a sense of injustice projected by an awareness of corruption. It is also crucial to identify and destroy the kidnapping networks.
How are people to be enabled to gain employment without unnecessary difficulty? How can the cost of living be significantly reduced to make life easier and crime less compelling? How can the corruption be reduced significantly and hopefully eliminated so that people are less prone to consider themselves justified in using desperate methods against a society they see as having betrayed them? How can the kidnapping networks be identified and destroyed?
Addressing these questions would span a broad range of skills that go beyond such sciences as physics, chemistry and medicine.
Another challenge is energy, particularly the generation and distribution of electricity, this being critical to running a modern economy and society and to business and research in all fields.
Power generation is a demonstration of science and technology. Is Nigeria failing in achieving this basic task adequately because of a lack of scientists and engineers or because of inadequacies in the allocation of resources and their application to the task at hand? Can such failures of allocation and implementation be corrected by science and technology or do they operate in the more shadowy zone of political vision and commitment to the nation rather to political cliques?
I don't get the impression that having skilled scientists running the country or even running the power and steel ministry automatically translates into efficient management of these resources.
In sum, to describe any society as based on science and technology in the narrow sense of the physical and the biological sciences, talk less of claiming that African societies need to be based on science and technology to achieve modernity, is a very limited understanding of science and technology as well as of social development and management, talk less of the development of civilizations.
It is accurate, instead, to describe modern societies as based on critical thinking, based on evidence and aspiration to social ideals that empower as many people as possible.
To describe the role of the arts in Nigeria, and particularly of story telling, as very limited or irrelevant in relation to building a modern society is to ignore the facts of history, as demonstrated spectacularly in the economic and larger social impact of Nollywood, the most significant industry in Nigeria in terms of originality in relation to global reach.
OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
thanks
toyin
Please forgive my late response. I wanted to make sure I respond adequately to Abba.
Thanks, Abba and Ojo.
You make the debate truly challenging.
I will respond to Abba first and to Ojo in another post.
Response to Abba
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:10 AM, Abba <abba...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Toyin,Thank you for, yet another, nice scholarly response. I disagree with most of it. My comments are interspersed in yours (in bold font).
The Nigerian writer and social activist Wole Soyinka's insistence that the terrorism of Boko Haram is the unanticipated outcome of Nigerian support for Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria as well as the direct expression of the ambitions of some disgruntled Northern politicians has sparked various kinds of response. Some of these have been dismissive, particularly coming from some commentators from Northern Nigeria.
I must say that this part is a little misleading. I never, for example, condemned Soyinka for his stance on Boko Haram (BH). To the contrary, he and I share the same view of utter condemnation for what the atrocities committed by the BH thugs. So, I think it is important you place things in proper context. You cannot prove that I condemned Soyinka for what he said about BH. Hence, somehow invoking my name (as you did below) in this context seems inappropriate.
One such, by Abba Gummel, dismisses Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature on the grounds of literature and the arts as being of little value in building modern societies, particularly in the face of the development challenges faced by Nigeria, arguing that modern societies are built on the foundations of science and technology.
This is where the problem with your piece is. There is a clear disconnect between your central premise (Soyinka's view on BH) and what you are attributing to me now (my comment on his Nobel Prize vis-a-vis Nigeria's science-inspired development). The two issues are totaally unrelated. Regardless of what Soyinka would say about BH, my views about Nobel Prizes on things that don't matter (such as his own prize) remain the same. I hope you can update your piece accordingly (I noticed it is already published in the web)...I feel misrepresented (and I do not think that's your intention; nonetheless, I feel it is always better if things are put in proper context and people are properly reperesented...if you have to include my name in the piece, I feel it is only fair you do so in the context within which my contribution on the subject was made). I said the above not as a criticism, but as a reminder (in a collegial spirit) that people should always be quoted within proper context.
Another issue is that the debate on whether or not arts had any role in science and technology was not a regional one (your first paragraph seems to suggest that only people from the North are against Soyinka and the value of his prize...I think if you follow the thread carefully, you would see that some from the South also share my view that modern nations are built based on excellence in science and technology). In anycase, your opening paragraph has all sorts of problems in my view...and I hope you can fix it (a scholarly writeup should be free of such misrepresentations in my view).
No society has ever been built primarily on science and technology.
I bet to differ on this. How did the Asian Tiger nations, for instance, transform from being poverty-stricken to the robust (and respected) economies they are today? How did the G8 nations develop their economies? Take away science and technology, will the US be the global super power she is today? The answer is a resounding no. I can stop the debate right here...because I think I made my case already..but I will carry on to do justice to your comprehensive response.
To claim that modern society is built on science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious attitude to science.
I disagree. Modern societies have a number of things in common, one of which is excellence in science and technology (this is something at their core; they never joke with it; they invest heavily on it). Others are quality services, education, infrastructure, healthcare etc. Modern nations manufacture things. Modern nations greatly invest in science and technology (there is a reason why their school curricula always emphasize science and math). Modern nations value and strive on innovation. Modern nations create enabling atmosphere to attract foreign direct investments.
To argue that what African countries need to become modern societies is advances in science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious reverence for science, rather than an understanding of the role of science in building societies.
You keep saying this without giving a single reason to support your claim. Asian Tigers built their economies based on science and technology (I lived in one of such nations and saw things with my own eyes). Africa needs to do same in order to develop.
Such superstitious attitudes, based on ignorance on the nature of Western social management and modernity may be partly responsible for African backwardness, even in the face of long standing misguided reverence for science.
You keep using the term ``supersititious" without actually justifying it. Let's see what your definition of ``Western social management and modernity" is.
The fact is that modern societies are based partly on the management of science and technology not on science and technology.
I am not sure I understand you. Will there be anything to ``manage" if there was no ``science and technology" in the first place? I totally disagree with this.
The narrow sense involves the study of the physical character of the universe using methods that can be replicated and assessed by others adequately skilled to do so. In that sense, we have sciences that deal with living and non-living systems, such as physics, chemistry and biology, as well as sciences that straddle both, such as mathematics.
I can accept the above as a definition of the word ``science". What makes it ``narrow" is something I cannot understand. The above is (generally) what science is. Can you provide suitable references (accepted by scientists) that support your characterization of the the above (standard definition of science) as a ``narrow" definition?
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
My focus was not just on physics chemistry and medicine, but other important natural and engineering sciences such as biology, engineering and math. I said Physics, Chemistry and Medicine because they are the non-arts discilpines awarded prizes by the Nobel Committee (I added Economics too).
The essential scientific character of such disciplines is not in their subject matter but in the manner in which they address that subject matter, as Dominic Ogbonna observed in this debate.
I do not agree. Are you saying the essential nature of Chemistry is not Chemistry but how Chemistry addresses some aspects of Chemistry? This is unclear to me... I do not expect any scientists to agree with you on this and the ``narror definition" claim. I assume you are not a scientist (if you are, sorry for my wrong assumption). If this is the case, shouldn't you be using the definition used by scientists? Do you really have to tell others what they are...particularly when what you say differ from what they say they are?Over the centuries and even now, various disciplines engage with those same subjects without being understood as scientific.
This is unclear. Please give us some specific examples.
The broad understanding of science is in the adaptation of critical methods associated with science to other disciplines.
I do not understand what you mean here. What are ``critical methods"? So, ``science" is about using scientific ``methods" in other (presumably non-scientific) disciplines? Let me understand this correctly. It is ``science" if I, for instance, use the method of designing a vaccine in one of Soyinka's plays, but it is not science if I actually design a vaccine? I do not understand....applying science to other areas is science but doing science itself is not science? Am I missing something? I totally disagree with this ``broad definition". This is surely not accepted within the scientific community. This is (I think) a classical case of non-scientists defining what science is or isn't.
In doing that, however, it is vital to observe broad variations between the character of living and non-living systems , and broad variations within the character of living systems. Along the lines of adapting scientific methods to a broader range of disciplines, there exist the social sciences of economics and sociology, and even linguistics, described as the scientific study of language.
Science is science. Applying science to other disciplines is still science. For examples, people in Chemistry apply their work sometimes in biology....does that make their Chemistry not Chemistry? Those in math apply their work almost everywhere...does that make their math not mathematics? One of the beauties of most of the sciences is that they can be applied in many different scenarios...there are some that are not really applicable anywhere (those in mathematical sciences, for example, know what I mean), but focus on building the theoretical (rigorous) foundation of the discipline/science.
This broad understanding is better understood, not as science, but as the adoption of a critical method to the study pf phenomena.
You have not justified your ``broad definition". You have not given any supporting references (accepted by scientists). You have not given any specific examples. I would be curious to see if any serious scientist would agree with you on this.
The success of modern Western society is in the adoption of critical methods, not on science, in terms of the physical sciences like physics, or the biological sciences like human biology.
So, Apple or Microsoft were not built based on hardcore science (engineering, computer science, math etc.) but somehow on the adoptation of scientific methods into other areas? I do not understand this at all.
The more specific physical and biological sciences and the more general sciences like mathematics are adapted within a social system based on critical understanding of phenomena, particularly the large scale social systems represented by societies.
I do not understand all these. It matters not where science is applied (or to what system it is applied). Science is, and will always be, science. You seems to be speaking in tongues....maybe our readers will benefit some more if you give specific examples.
The success of modern Western society is a demonstration of skilled social management, among other factors that made this quality of social management possible in the first place.
I disagree. Further, you did not define what ``social management" is.
One could describe technology also in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it can be described as the practical application of science, particularly in the creation of instruments.
Again, what makes this ``narrow"? Can you give any references (accepted by engineers) to justify your definition?
The narrow sense involves the metaphorical adaptation of the idea to involve management of knowledge in general.
I do not what this means.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
Technology, to me, is the application of scientific/engineering methods for practical purposes. It entails the creation/building of things for the benefit of the society (e.g., airplanes, computers, TVs, phones, automobiles, spoons, chairs etc.).
Abba insists that African societies, particularly Nigeria, need to be based on science and technology in order to succeed.
Absolutely.
Let us run through contemporary Nigerian social/ development challenges and try to see what role science and technology could play in addressing them. My argument will be that science and technology are useful but as methods and insights managed by social managers, not always using the tools and knowledge of the sciences in their core sense. Such social management is not based on physics or mathematics, or biology and medicine, but uses these disciplines to achieve the overarching goal of social management. I also also compare and contrast the Nigerian institutions represented by the oil industry, banking and Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
Again, you have not defined what ``social management" is and what the ``social managers" will actually be ``managing". Will the ``social managers" be in business if there was not real science in the first place?
A central challenge in contemporary Nigeria is security of life and property on account of the presence of terrorism, primarily from Boko Haram but also from MEND. Also critical in security challenges is the scourge of kidnapping.
This is the only area you and I agree on...so far.
The progress made against Boko Haram so far has been though information sourcing and tracking of their members. The role played by science in the sense of the specialized skills of particular scientific disciplines has been in the use of electronic tracking technology through which the terrorists' phones were tracked. Technology also played a role in the weapons used in battling the members of the sect.
Good. Remote sensing, GIS and other wireless tracking processes and devices were (reportedly/presumably) used by our intelligence people, in conjunction with the fine men and women working at the National Communications Commissions (a Commission that is based largely on advances in electrical/telecommunication engineering, computer science, quantum computing/physics,nanotechnology etc.) Do you see ``arts" playing any role here? Do you see any ``social managers" playing any role here? It is a clear demonstration of excellence science and technology at its best.
Does the use of technology in these two forms imply that these successes are due to the use of science and technology?
Of course, except if we do not believe what the law enforcement people say (they claimed that the suspects were tracked and apprehended based on using these...scientific...methods). Intelligence and law enforcement officers have other means as well...but it was clear (at least if the law enforcement people were to be believed) that science and technology played the most important role in making the arrest possible.
Only partly so, beceause the anti-Boko Haram operation necessarily involves a broad range of methods of which the use of electronic tracking technology and physical weapons are two factors.
How comes then the leaders were not captured much earlier? You can resolve this question by asking the law enforcement people if they would have been able to capture Abul qaga (or whatever his name is) without the use of technology. I have stated that law enforcement people have tons of arsenal (methods) at their disposal...however, it just turns out that, in this particular case, the use of technology was what made the arrest possible.
I expect the operation involves information sourcing by word of mouth from informants among members of the communities where Boko Haram members live. If the fight against Boko Haram is to succeed, such intelligence gathering from within the community needs to be intensified. The fight against Boko Haram needs to won primarily in the hearts and minds of Nigerians, which is the core arena of the war the sect has unleashed on the nation. The sect is seeking to prove to Nigerians that it represents a parallel government that embodies the aspirations of Northern Nigeria. That effort will fail when Northerners can be decisively convinced that Boko Haram represents only themselves and the pauperisation of the North.
You still did not disprove the fact that technology played the major role in the arrest of that BH individual...and you have also failed, up till this moment, to prove that science and technology is not the most important building brick/foundation for modern nations.
When people are convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
I think you digressed from the topic at hand.
Even after this stage of terrorism in Northern Nigeria is addressed, what is to be done with the region's educational and other social problems that make it a flash point for recurrent social upheavals? There seems to be an educational crisis in Northern Nigeria, with the Islamic educational system favored by many being ill equipped to manage the transition to a modern society. How is that to be addressed? Such issues seem to me to be more in the realm of educational theory and practice and politics, than physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences.
Again, this is not really in line with the topic at hand.
What about the issue of the marriage of very young girls, creating a ground for severe physical problems on account of the immaturity of the girls' bodies, removing them from the educational system and severely limiting their opportunities to operate productively in the work place, and ultimately swelling the ranks of the poor?
This has absolutely nothing to do with what we are debating about.
How is the religious background of this practice in the marriage of the prophet Muhammad to a pre-pubescent girl to be addressed?
This is irrelevant; and I am actually taken aback that you could invoke it. We can have a debate on the marriages of the Prophet (pbuh) if you wish. What has ``marriage" and even ``education" (as you seem to be defining it) got to do with the debate of the role of science vs. arts in nation building?
Some have called for greater reliance on indigenous wealth generation, as different from depending on oil revenue from the central government. How is this economic transition to be managed? I don't get the impression that physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences is going to be the knowledge base to be used. They can be adapted to the task but those who run those systems must be competent in a range of knowledge and skills, from economics, to social psychology and politics.
You are mixing two things here. Politicians and other administrators do their (admin) thing, and scientists do their own thing as well. I separate the two. Administrators (the good ones I mean) play an important role by helping to create the right atmosphere for the scientists and engineers to do their work. I know what they did in Malaysia, for example. The administrators (starting from the Prime Minister Mahathir) sought out to attract large multinational corporations to come and invest in their country.... they provided them with the land, infrastructure and tax incentives. The rest is history. I am not saying scientists will do everything: science as well as management, administration and politics. No. Scientists do need some others to do some of the necessary (admin) chores. However, let there be no doubt who is most important. There is absolutely no development without science and technology. The managers will have nothing to manage if there is no science. Etc.
How do we address the kidnapping problem?
Part of the problem must be economic. Another could relate to a sense of injustice projected by an awareness of corruption. It is also crucial to identify and destroy the kidnapping networks.
How are people to be enabled to gain employment without unnecessary difficulty? How can the cost of living be significantly reduced to make life easier and crime less compelling? How can the corruption be reduced significantly and hopefully eliminated so that people are less prone to consider themselves justified in using desperate methods against a society they see as having betrayed them? How can the kidnapping networks be identified and destroyed?
Addressing these questions would span a broad range of skills that go beyond such sciences as physics, chemistry and medicine.
You are digressing to social and security problems. I never claimed that science has all the answers to non-scientific problems. Science and tchnology, for me, is about builiding/manufacturing things. It is about building industries. It is about creating products for local and international markets. Etc.
Another challenge is energy, particularly the generation and distribution of electricity, this being critical to running a modern economy and society and to business and research in all fields.
Power generation is a demonstration of science and technology. Is Nigeria failing in achieving this basic task adequately because of a lack of scientists and engineers or because of inadequacies in the allocation of resources and their application to the task at hand? Can such failures of allocation and implementation be corrected by science and technology or do they operate in the more shadowy zone of political vision and commitment to the nation rather to political cliques?
Again, science does not addres all social problems. Science does not solve our corruption and incompetence problem. What science can do, though, is to offer additional alternative energy generation methods...such as using solar power or even some agro-based products (eg ethanol)
I don't get the impression that having skilled scientists running the country or even running the power and steel ministry automatically translates into efficient management of these resources.
No one says scientists have to run the country. Was the US, for example, led by scientists when they started their industrial revolution? It does not matter who runs the nation...as long as they understand the fact that modern nations are built based on knowledge-based economies rooted in advances in science and technology. Bush was the C-in-C for the USA for 8 agonizing years, for God's sake. Did he do anything to alter the deep-rooted mindset in America that science and technology is what builds nations? Did he mess up with Silicon Valley, for example? Did he mess up with university grants/funding? Did he cut the budget for science and technology research (NSF and related bodies)? Of course not. No self-respecting nation jokes with science and technology. It is, and will always be, the engine of the economy.
Such skill is necessary but is it the absence of such skill that has led to the country not being able to account for the huge sums of money allocated to developing the refineries and to Nigeria being largely an importer rather than a processor of its own oil? What role does the county and its indigenised companies play in oil exploration and extraction? Are the limitations of the country in this area due more to lack of skilled personnel than to inadequate political will and planning to develop and equip such personnel in the first place?
As it is, the only Nigerian industry in which its citizens demonstrate originality that enables them stand out as group in the global community and earn significant income for the nation on that basis is is Nollywood, an example of the very story telling that Abba derides as not being central to developing a modern society. This is the only industry in which Nigerians as a group demonstrate originality.
Science and technology is at the core of what Nollywood does. Will there be Nollywood if film and camera were not invented, for example? Who invented these things...storytellers or scientists and engineers? The arts industry in Nigeria (and anywhere else in the world) will be essentially non-existent if you take away advances in science and technology. This is, of course, very obvious.
It is also the most visible original export of the nation. I expect it is the highest foreign exchange earner of the nation from any original achievement of its citizens.
The Nigerian oil industry, as far as I know, is largely a buying and selling industry. Selling crude oil, buying processed petroleum. The banking industry is not known for any particular innovations, to the best of my very limited knowledge of banking. I also doubt if Nigerian banks have a significant global reach.
Will there be oil and/or banking industry without technology? I honestly do not understand why you are saying these things.
To what degree are they engaged in economic activities outside Nigeria and to what degree do they contribute to driving development in Nigeria?
This is not relevant. Will there be banking and oil industry if we had no technology? Will arts contribute at all in the development of oil and banking industries in Nigeria? This is the crux of the matter. Maybe you do not understand what I am arguing about. For me, modern nations are built based on science. There will, simply, be no oil industry if there was no technology. There won't be banking industry if there was no technology. There won't be Nollywood if there was no technology.
Do they fund genuine claims to scientific and technological achievement in Nigeria? To what degree do they fund the obvious success of Nollywood so that the industry can move beyond sheer volume to greater quality that can penetrate global markets beyond what is likely to be its Black African fan base at home and abroad? The stupendous budgets, which allied with a dazzling array of skills, enables Hollywood to rule the global film world must be based to a significant degree on backing by financial institutions. What role are similar institutions in Nigeria playing in this crying need?
Digression.
In sum, to describe any society as based on science and technology in the narrow sense of the physical and the biological sciences, talk less of claiming that African societies need to be based on science and technology to achieve modernity, is a very limited understanding of science and technology as well as of social development and management, talk less of the development of civilizations.
I totally disagree. You have not made a case for this at all.
It is accurate, instead, to describe modern societies as based on critical thinking, based on evidence and aspiration to social ideals that empower as many people as possible.
Good science is based on critical thinking and evidence (rigour)...there can be no innovation without such.Science also, in general, addresses the needs of society. So, what you say in this case is in line with what science is. It is merely a basic, not ``accurate", component of what constitutes good science.
These approaches are focused on rather than on speculation or religious faith. Within this context, science and technology are harnessed in concert with other disciplines in building and running these societies.
I absolutely have no idea what you mean here. Science has no connection with religion. I cannot see the connection. Science applied to other (non-science) disciplines is still science. What are you saying here?
To describe the role of the arts in Nigeria, and particularly of story telling, as very limited or irrelevant in relation to building a modern society is to ignore the facts of history, as demonstrated spectacularly in the economic and larger social impact of Nollywood, the most significant industry in Nigeria in terms of originality in relation to global reach.
Like I stated above, there will be no Nollywood without science and technology. Prove me wrong.
Abba
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Thanks, Abba and Ojo.
You make the debate truly challenging.
I will respond to Abba first and to Ojo in another post.
Response to Abba
Dear Toyin,Thank you for, yet another, nice scholarly response. I disagree with most of it. My comments are interspersed in yours (in bold font).
The Nigerian writer and social activist Wole Soyinka's insistence that the terrorism of Boko Haram is the unanticipated outcome of Nigerian support for Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria as well as the direct expression of the ambitions of some disgruntled Northern politicians has sparked various kinds of response. Some of these have been dismissive, particularly coming from some commentators from Northern Nigeria.
I must say that this part is a little misleading. I never, for example, condemned Soyinka for his stance on Boko Haram (BH). To the contrary, he and I share the same view of utter condemnation for what the atrocities committed by the BH thugs. So, I think it is important you place things in proper context. You cannot prove that I condemned Soyinka for what he said about BH. Hence, somehow invoking my name (as you did below) in this context seems inappropriate.
One such, by Abba Gummel, dismisses Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature on the grounds of literature and the arts as being of little value in building modern societies, particularly in the face of the development challenges faced by Nigeria, arguing that modern societies are built on the foundations of science and technology.
This is where the problem with your piece is. There is a clear disconnect between your central premise (Soyinka's view on BH) and what you are attributing to me now (my comment on his Nobel Prize vis-a-vis Nigeria's science-inspired development). The two issues are totaally unrelated. Regardless of what Soyinka would say about BH, my views about Nobel Prizes on things that don't matter (such as his own prize) remain the same. I hope you can update your piece accordingly (I noticed it is already published in the web)...I feel misrepresented (and I do not think that's your intention; nonetheless, I feel it is always better if things are put in proper context and people are properly reperesented...if you have to include my name in the piece, I feel it is only fair you do so in the context within which my contribution on the subject was made). I said the above not as a criticism, but as a reminder (in a collegial spirit) that people should always be quoted within proper context.
Another issue is that the debate on whether or not arts had any role in science and technology was not a regional one (your first paragraph seems to suggest that only people from the North are against Soyinka and the value of his prize...I think if you follow the thread carefully, you would see that some from the South also share my view that modern nations are built based on excellence in science and technology). In anycase, your opening paragraph has all sorts of problems in my view...and I hope you can fix it (a scholarly writeup should be free of such misrepresentations in my view).
No society has ever been built primarily on science and technology.
I bet to differ on this. How did the Asian Tiger nations, for instance, transform from being poverty-stricken to the robust (and respected) economies they are today? How did the G8 nations develop their economies? Take away science and technology, will the US be the global super power she is today? The answer is a resounding no. I can stop the debate right here...because I think I made my case already..but I will carry on to do justice to your comprehensive response.
To claim that modern society is built on science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious attitude to science.
I disagree. Modern societies have a number of things in common, one of which is excellence in science and technology (this is something at their core; they never joke with it; they invest heavily on it). Others are quality services, education, infrastructure, healthcare etc. Modern nations manufacture things. Modern nations greatly invest in science and technology (there is a reason why their school curricula always emphasize science and math). Modern nations value and strive on innovation. Modern nations create enabling atmosphere to attract foreign direct investments.
To argue that what African countries need to become modern societies is advances in science and technology is to demonstrate a superstitious reverence for science, rather than an understanding of the role of science in building societies.
You keep saying this without giving a single reason to support your claim. Asian Tigers built their economies based on science and technology (I lived in one of such nations and saw things with my own eyes). Africa needs to do same in order to develop.
Such superstitious attitudes, based on ignorance on the nature of Western social management and modernity may be partly responsible for African backwardness, even in the face of long standing misguided reverence for science.
You keep using the term ``supersititious" without actually justifying it. Let's see what your definition of ``Western social management and modernity" is.
The fact is that modern societies are based partly on the management of science and technology not on science and technology.
I am not sure I understand you. Will there be anything to ``manage" if there was no ``science and technology" in the first place? I totally disagree with this.
The narrow sense involves the study of the physical character of the universe using methods that can be replicated and assessed by others adequately skilled to do so. In that sense, we have sciences that deal with living and non-living systems, such as physics, chemistry and biology, as well as sciences that straddle both, such as mathematics.
I can accept the above as a definition of the word ``science". What makes it ``narrow" is something I cannot understand. The above is (generally) what science is. Can you provide suitable references (accepted by scientists) that support your characterization of the the above (standard definition of science) as a ``narrow" definition?
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
My focus was not just on physics chemistry and medicine, but other important natural and engineering sciences such as biology, engineering and math. I said Physics, Chemistry and Medicine because they are the non-arts discilpines awarded prizes by the Nobel Committee (I added Economics too).
The essential scientific character of such disciplines is not in their subject matter but in the manner in which they address that subject matter, as Dominic Ogbonna observed in this debate.
I do not agree. Are you saying the essential nature of Chemistry is not Chemistry but how Chemistry addresses some aspects of Chemistry? This is unclear to me... I do not expect any scientists to agree with you on this and the ``narror definition" claim. I assume you are not a scientist (if you are, sorry for my wrong assumption). If this is the case, shouldn't you be using the definition used by scientists? Do you really have to tell others what they are...particularly when what you say differ from what they say they are?Over the centuries and even now, various disciplines engage with those same subjects without being understood as scientific.
This is unclear. Please give us some specific examples.
The broad understanding of science is in the adaptation of critical methods associated with science to other disciplines.
I do not understand what you mean here. What are ``critical methods"? So, ``science" is about using scientific ``methods" in other (presumably non-scientific) disciplines? Let me understand this correctly. It is ``science" if I, for instance, use the method of designing a vaccine in one of Soyinka's plays, but it is not science if I actually design a vaccine? I do not understand....applying science to other areas is science but doing science itself is not science? Am I missing something? I totally disagree with this ``broad definition". This is surely not accepted within the scientific community. This is (I think) a classical case of non-scientists defining what science is or isn't.
In doing that, however, it is vital to observe broad variations between the character of living and non-living systems , and broad variations within the character of living systems. Along the lines of adapting scientific methods to a broader range of disciplines, there exist the social sciences of economics and sociology, and even linguistics, described as the scientific study of language.
Science is science. Applying science to other disciplines is still science. For examples, people in Chemistry apply their work sometimes in biology....does that make their Chemistry not Chemistry? Those in math apply their work almost everywhere...does that make their math not mathematics? One of the beauties of most of the sciences is that they can be applied in many different scenarios...there are some that are not really applicable anywhere (those in mathematical sciences, for example, know what I mean), but focus on building the theoretical (rigorous) foundation of the discipline/science.
This broad understanding is better understood, not as science, but as the adoption of a critical method to the study pf phenomena.
You have not justified your ``broad definition". You have not given any supporting references (accepted by scientists). You have not given any specific examples. I would be curious to see if any serious scientist would agree with you on this.
The success of modern Western society is in the adoption of critical methods, not on science, in terms of the physical sciences like physics, or the biological sciences like human biology.
So, Apple or Microsoft were not built based on hardcore science (engineering, computer science, math etc.) but somehow on the adoptation of scientific methods into other areas? I do not understand this at all.
The more specific physical and biological sciences and the more general sciences like mathematics are adapted within a social system based on critical understanding of phenomena, particularly the large scale social systems represented by societies.
I do not understand all these. It matters not where science is applied (or to what system it is applied). Science is, and will always be, science. You seems to be speaking in tongues....maybe our readers will benefit some more if you give specific examples.
The success of modern Western society is a demonstration of skilled social management, among other factors that made this quality of social management possible in the first place.
I disagree. Further, you did not define what ``social management" is.
One could describe technology also in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it can be described as the practical application of science, particularly in the creation of instruments.
Again, what makes this ``narrow"? Can you give any references (accepted by engineers) to justify your definition?
The narrow sense involves the metaphorical adaptation of the idea to involve management of knowledge in general.
I do not what this means.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics, chemistry and medicine.
Technology, to me, is the application of scientific/engineering methods for practical purposes. It entails the creation/building of things for the benefit of the society (e.g., airplanes, computers, TVs, phones, automobiles, spoons, chairs etc.).
Abba insists that African societies, particularly Nigeria, need to be based on science and technology in order to succeed.
Absolutely.
Let us run through contemporary Nigerian social/ development challenges and try to see what role science and technology could play in addressing them. My argument will be that science and technology are useful but as methods and insights managed by social managers, not always using the tools and knowledge of the sciences in their core sense. Such social management is not based on physics or mathematics, or biology and medicine, but uses these disciplines to achieve the overarching goal of social management. I also also compare and contrast the Nigerian institutions represented by the oil industry, banking and Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
Again, you have not defined what ``social management" is and what the ``social managers" will actually be ``managing". Will the ``social managers" be in business if there was not real science in the first place?
A central challenge in contemporary Nigeria is security of life and property on account of the presence of terrorism, primarily from Boko Haram but also from MEND. Also critical in security challenges is the scourge of kidnapping.
This is the only area you and I agree on...so far.
The progress made against Boko Haram so far has been though information sourcing and tracking of their members. The role played by science in the sense of the specialized skills of particular scientific disciplines has been in the use of electronic tracking technology through which the terrorists' phones were tracked. Technology also played a role in the weapons used in battling the members of the sect.
Good. Remote sensing, GIS and other wireless tracking processes and devices were (reportedly/presumably) used by our intelligence people, in conjunction with the fine men and women working at the National Communications Commissions (a Commission that is based largely on advances in electrical/telecommunication engineering, computer science, quantum computing/physics,nanotechnology etc.) Do you see ``arts" playing any role here? Do you see any ``social managers" playing any role here? It is a clear demonstration of excellence science and technology at its best.
Does the use of technology in these two forms imply that these successes are due to the use of science and technology?
Of course, except if we do not believe what the law enforcement people say (they claimed that the suspects were tracked and apprehended based on using these...scientific...methods). Intelligence and law enforcement officers have other means as well...but it was clear (at least if the law enforcement people were to be believed) that science and technology played the most important role in making the arrest possible.
Only partly so, beceause the anti-Boko Haram operation necessarily involves a broad range of methods of which the use of electronic tracking technology and physical weapons are two factors.
How comes then the leaders were not captured much earlier? You can resolve this question by asking the law enforcement people if they would have been able to capture Abul qaga (or whatever his name is) without the use of technology. I have stated that law enforcement people have tons of arsenal (methods) at their disposal...however, it just turns out that, in this particular case, the use of technology was what made the arrest possible.
I expect the operation involves information sourcing by word of mouth from informants among members of the communities where Boko Haram members live. If the fight against Boko Haram is to succeed, such intelligence gathering from within the community needs to be intensified. The fight against Boko Haram needs to won primarily in the hearts and minds of Nigerians, which is the core arena of the war the sect has unleashed on the nation. The sect is seeking to prove to Nigerians that it represents a parallel government that embodies the aspirations of Northern Nigeria. That effort will fail when Northerners can be decisively convinced that Boko Haram represents only themselves and the pauperisation of the North.
You still did not disprove the fact that technology played the major role in the arrest of that BH individual...and you have also failed, up till this moment, to prove that science and technology is not the most important building brick/foundation for modern nations.
When people are convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
I think you digressed from the topic at hand.
Even after this stage of terrorism in Northern Nigeria is addressed, what is to be done with the region's educational and other social problems that make it a flash point for recurrent social upheavals? There seems to be an educational crisis in Northern Nigeria, with the Islamic educational system favored by many being ill equipped to manage the transition to a modern society. How is that to be addressed? Such issues seem to me to be more in the realm of educational theory and practice and politics, than physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences.
Again, this is not really in line with the topic at hand.
What about the issue of the marriage of very young girls, creating a ground for severe physical problems on account of the immaturity of the girls' bodies, removing them from the educational system and severely limiting their opportunities to operate productively in the work place, and ultimately swelling the ranks of the poor?
This has absolutely nothing to do with what we are debating about.
How is the religious background of this practice in the marriage of the prophet Muhammad to a pre-pubescent girl to be addressed?
This is irrelevant; and I am actually taken aback that you could invoke it. We can have a debate on the marriages of the Prophet (pbuh) if you wish. What has ``marriage" and even ``education" (as you seem to be defining it) got to do with the debate of the role of science vs. arts in nation building?
Some have called for greater reliance on indigenous wealth generation, as different from depending on oil revenue from the central government. How is this economic transition to be managed? I don't get the impression that physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences is going to be the knowledge base to be used. They can be adapted to the task but those who run those systems must be competent in a range of knowledge and skills, from economics, to social psychology and politics.
You are mixing two things here. Politicians and other administrators do their (admin) thing, and scientists do their own thing as well. I separate the two. Administrators (the good ones I mean) play an important role by helping to create the right atmosphere for the scientists and engineers to do their work. I know what they did in Malaysia, for example. The administrators (starting from the Prime Minister Mahathir) sought out to attract large multinational corporations to come and invest in their country.... they provided them with the land, infrastructure and tax incentives. The rest is history. I am not saying scientists will do everything: science as well as management, administration and politics. No. Scientists do need some others to do some of the necessary (admin) chores. However, let there be no doubt who is most important. There is absolutely no development without science and technology. The managers will have nothing to manage if there is no science. Etc.
How do we address the kidnapping problem?
Part of the problem must be economic. Another could relate to a sense of injustice projected by an awareness of corruption. It is also crucial to identify and destroy the kidnapping networks.
How are people to be enabled to gain employment without unnecessary difficulty? How can the cost of living be significantly reduced to make life easier and crime less compelling? How can the corruption be reduced significantly and hopefully eliminated so that people are less prone to consider themselves justified in using desperate methods against a society they see as having betrayed them? How can the kidnapping networks be identified and destroyed?
Addressing these questions would span a broad range of skills that go beyond such sciences as physics, chemistry and medicine.
You are digressing to social and security problems. I never claimed that science has all the answers to non-scientific problems. Science and tchnology, for me, is about builiding/manufacturing things. It is about building industries. It is about creating products for local and international markets. Etc.
Another challenge is energy, particularly the generation and distribution of electricity, this being critical to running a modern economy and society and to business and research in all fields.
Power generation is a demonstration of science and technology. Is Nigeria failing in achieving this basic task adequately because of a lack of scientists and engineers or because of inadequacies in the allocation of resources and their application to the task at hand? Can such failures of allocation and implementation be corrected by science and technology or do they operate in the more shadowy zone of political vision and commitment to the nation rather to political cliques?
Again, science does not addres all social problems. Science does not solve our corruption and incompetence problem. What science can do, though, is to offer additional alternative energy generation methods...such as using solar power or even some agro-based products (eg ethanol)
I don't get the impression that having skilled scientists running the country or even running the power and steel ministry automatically translates into efficient management of these resources.
No one says scientists have to run the country. Was the US, for example, led by scientists when they started their industrial revolution? It does not matter who runs the nation...as long as they understand the fact that modern nations are built based on knowledge-based economies rooted in advances in science and technology. Bush was the C-in-C for the USA for 8 agonizing years, for God's sake. Did he do anything to alter the deep-rooted mindset in America that science and technology is what builds nations? Did he mess up with Silicon Valley, for example? Did he mess up with university grants/funding? Did he cut the budget for science and technology research (NSF and related bodies)? Of course not. No self-respecting nation jokes with science and technology. It is, and will always be, the engine of the economy.
Such skill is necessary but is it the absence of such skill that has led to the country not being able to account for the huge sums of money allocated to developing the refineries and to Nigeria being largely an importer rather than a processor of its own oil? What role does the county and its indigenised companies play in oil exploration and extraction? Are the limitations of the country in this area due more to lack of skilled personnel than to inadequate political will and planning to develop and equip such personnel in the first place?
As it is, the only Nigerian industry in which its citizens demonstrate originality that enables them stand out as group in the global community and earn significant income for the nation on that basis is is Nollywood, an example of the very story telling that Abba derides as not being central to developing a modern society. This is the only industry in which Nigerians as a group demonstrate originality.
Science and technology is at the core of what Nollywood does. Will there be Nollywood if film and camera were not invented, for example? Who invented these things...storytellers or scientists and engineers? The arts industry in Nigeria (and anywhere else in the world) will be essentially non-existent if you take away advances in science and technology. This is, of course, very obvious.
It is also the most visible original export of the nation. I expect it is the highest foreign exchange earner of the nation from any original achievement of its citizens.
The Nigerian oil industry, as far as I know, is largely a buying and selling industry. Selling crude oil, buying processed petroleum. The banking industry is not known for any particular innovations, to the best of my very limited knowledge of banking. I also doubt if Nigerian banks have a significant global reach.
Will there be oil and/or banking industry without technology? I honestly do not understand why you are saying these things.
To what degree are they engaged in economic activities outside Nigeria and to what degree do they contribute to driving development in Nigeria?
This is not relevant. Will there be banking and oil industry if we had no technology? Will arts contribute at all in the development of oil and banking industries in Nigeria? This is the crux of the matter. Maybe you do not understand what I am arguing about. For me, modern nations are built based on science. There will, simply, be no oil industry if there was no technology. There won't be banking industry if there was no technology. There won't be Nollywood if there was no technology.
Do they fund genuine claims to scientific and technological achievement in Nigeria? To what degree do they fund the obvious success of Nollywood so that the industry can move beyond sheer volume to greater quality that can penetrate global markets beyond what is likely to be its Black African fan base at home and abroad? The stupendous budgets, which allied with a dazzling array of skills, enables Hollywood to rule the global film world must be based to a significant degree on backing by financial institutions. What role are similar institutions in Nigeria playing in this crying need?
Digression.
In sum, to describe any society as based on science and technology in the narrow sense of the physical and the biological sciences, talk less of claiming that African societies need to be based on science and technology to achieve modernity, is a very limited understanding of science and technology as well as of social development and management, talk less of the development of civilizations.
I totally disagree. You have not made a case for this at all.
It is accurate, instead, to describe modern societies as based on critical thinking, based on evidence and aspiration to social ideals that empower as many people as possible.
Good science is based on critical thinking and evidence (rigour)...there can be no innovation without such.Science also, in general, addresses the needs of society. So, what you say in this case is in line with what science is. It is merely a basic, not ``accurate", component of what constitutes good science.
These approaches are focused on rather than on speculation or religious faith. Within this context, science and technology are harnessed in concert with other disciplines in building and running these societies.
I absolutely have no idea what you mean here. Science has no connection with religion. I cannot see the connection. Science applied to other (non-science) disciplines is still science. What are you saying here?
To describe the role of the arts in Nigeria, and particularly of story telling, as very limited or irrelevant in relation to building a modern society is to ignore the facts of history, as demonstrated spectacularly in the economic and larger social impact of Nollywood, the most significant industry in Nigeria in terms of originality in relation to global reach.
Like I stated above, there will be no Nollywood without science and technology. Prove me wrong.
Abba
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OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
I needed to give myself time to do justice to his rejoinder.
Thanks, Abba.
You make the debate truly challenging.
In order to respond adequately to your protests against my description of your response to Soyinka on Boko Haram, it is helpful to present again your post of Feb 21 that sparked this debate:
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Feb 21 |
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Nafata,
With all due respect to Wole Soyinka, but his Nobel Prize (in literature) isn't exactly anything to brag about in the grand scheme of things. If he had won on subjects that truly matter...such as Chemistry, Physics or Medicine, then yes...we will all shout hooray (the Nobel in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, and to some extent, Economics are the ones most celebrated...I cannot recall anyone who pays much attention to awards in Literature; and if you press me, I cannot name two winners in the literature category). What Africa needs is real advances in science and technology...and not the art of story telling (with all due respect to those whose job/hobby it is to tell stories or to entertain us with their prowess in the language of Shakespeare). Besides, there are many others in Africa who are probably as, or even more, deserving of the literature prize (Achebe is surely one).
Disclaimer: I consider Soyinka to be a tribalist of the highest order. So, you may wish to read the above bearing this in mind. I strongly doubt, though, if my view about the importance of the literature prize (vis-a-vis Africa's development) will change regardless who the recipient is. I like and respect the art...greatly; but I also know that what we do need, and need desperately, at the present time in Africa is excellence in science and technology...Nobel prizes in those areas are the ones that truly matter to us (and dare I say everyone else).
Netters, I do not intend to offend anyone...I just felt we should place things in proper context.
Abba
Now to Abba’s detailed rejoinder to my essay as well as my counter to Abba’s rejoinder.
The points being discussed are numbered 1-36. The first paragraph under each number will be my initial comment, which Abba responds to. That is followed by Abba’s rejoinder. My response to Abba’s rejoinder then follows. Each comment is listed under its writer’s name.
On Wole Soyinka in Relation to Boko Haram and Soyinka’s Nobel Prize for Literature
1. Toyin : The Nigerian writer and social activist Wole Soyinka's insistence that the terrorism of Boko Haram is the unanticipated outcome of Nigerian support for Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria as well as the direct expression of the ambitions of some disgruntled Northern politicians has sparked various kinds of response. Some of these have been dismissive, particularly coming from some commentators from Northern Nigeria.
Abba : I must say that this part is a little misleading. I never, for example, condemned Soyinka for his stance on Boko Haram (BH). To the contrary, he and I share the same view of utter condemnation for what the atrocities committed by the BH thugs. So, I think it is important you place things in proper context. You cannot prove that I condemned Soyinka for what he said about BH. Hence, somehow invoking my name (as you did below) in this context seems inappropriate.
Toyin : You dismissed Soyinka in connection with his comments about Boko Haram as being the handiwork of disgruntled Northern political leaders. You dismissed Soyinka in your response to Nafta’s critique of Adamu’s dismissal of Soyinka’sessay making that claim about Boko Haram. You stated :
' I consider Soyinka to be a tribalist of the highest
order. So, you may wish to read the above bearing this in mind.'
Since you described Soyinka as a tribalist, that means you see him as
identifying with one tribe against other tribes.
In describing Soyinka as a tribalist, you indirectly align yourself with Adamu, who, focusing on Soyinka’s distinction in creating art out of his Yoruba culture describes Soyinka as a pagan tribalist. Adamu condemns what he describes as Soyinka’s paganism as based in his ethnic identification and you condemn what you describe as Soyinka’s tribalism as based in his ethnic identification. So, Adamu and yourself focus on Soyinka’s ethnic identification as a means of condemning him.
While Adamu condemns Soyinka’s paganism as expressed in his art, you also dismiss Soyinka’s art, describing it as peripheral in building modern society and his Nobel prize for literature as not significant since only science prizes are significant, in your view.
Is it possible, then, to disengage your dismissal of Soyinka as a tribalist and his global artistic achievement as of little significance from the issue you were responding to, namely Soyinka’s description of Boko Haram as the handiwork of desperate Northern politicians and of a Northern Nigerian culture of Islamic extremism? I don’t think so because that position of Soyinka’s on Boko Haram is the source of the dismissal of Soyinka by Adamu and yourself. That dismissal of Soyinka by you in that context suggests you are unhappy with Soyinka’s argument and see him as anti-North since the North is the ethnic region where the politicians and religious attitudes Soyinka is criticising come from. Since you say he is a tribalist, what tribe do you see him as working against except the tribe represented by his argument about the sources of Boko Haram, since your words suggest that his critique of some Northern politicians and of the region’s Islamic culture is a demonstration of tribalism rather than critical insight into Nigerian social reality? You were not necessarily condemning Soyinka’s condemnation of Boko Haram but dismissing his description of Boko Haram as the work of some Northern politicians and as rooted in Northern Nigerian Islamic extremism.
2. Toyin : One such, by Abba Gummel, dismisses Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature on the grounds of literature and the arts as being of little value in building modern societies, particularly in the face of the development challenges faced by Nigeria, arguing that modern societies are built on the foundations of science and technology.
Abba : This is where the problem with your piece is. There is a clear disconnect between your central premise (Soyinka's view on BH) and what you are attributing to me now (my comment on his Nobel Prize vis-a-vis Nigeria's science-inspired development). The two issues are totally unrelated. Regardless of what Soyinka would say about BH, my views about Nobel Prizes on things that don't matter (such as his own prize) remain the same. I hope you can update your piece accordingly (I noticed it is already published in the web)...I feel misrepresented (and I do not think that's your intention; nonetheless, I feel it is always better if things are put in proper context and people are properly represented...if you have to include my name in the piece, I feel it is only fair you do so in the context within which my contribution on the subject was made). I said the above not as a criticism, but as a reminder (in a collegial spirit) that people should always be quoted within proper context.
Another issue is that the debate on whether or not arts had any role in science and technology was not a regional one (your first paragraph seems to suggest that only people from the North are against Soyinka and the value of his prize...I think if you follow the thread carefully, you would see that some from the South also share my view that modern nations are built based on excellence in science and technology). In any case, your opening paragraph has all sorts of problems in my view...and I hope you can fix it (a scholarly writeup should be free of such misrepresentations in my view).
Toyin : You cannot successfully disconnect your comments on Soyinka as tribalist and as a practitioner of the arts, which you describe as peripheral to Nigerian development, from the context that inspired those comments of yours, namely Soyinka’s description of Boko Haram as the work of disaffected and desperate Northern politicians and as the unanticipated outgrowth of Northern Islamic extremism, because, without the context of Soyinka’s comments about Boko Haram we would not have your own comments which are a direct response to Soyinka.
Your focus on ethnic affiliation as a means of critiquing Soyinka is best seen, therefore, as a dismissal of his opinion on a particular group of politicians from a particular ethnicity, the indigenous population of Northern Nigeria, and of his views on Boko Haram as fed on a culture of violent Islamic extremism rooted in Northern Nigeria.
Like Adamu, you did not explain why you think Soyinka’s argument about the origins of Boko Haram demonstrate an ethnic bias. I am convinced you were both unable to even attempt proving such a point because the entire nation knows that some Northern politicians threatened exactly what Boko Haram is doing now. The nation also knows that violent Islamic extremism has been a recurrent feature of Northern Nigeria for decades. So, an effort at debunking Soyinka’s link between Boko Haram and some Northern politicians and Islamic extremism in Northern Nigeria seems to have been too difficult to sustain by Adamu and yourself. Adamu and yourself found it more convenient, therefore, to dismiss Soyinka, Adamu, on the grounds of his paganism and you for what you describe as his tribalism.
Is it realistic to dissociate your dismissal of Soyinka’s Nobel prize from your dismissal of Soyinka’s social vision in the name of his alleged tribalism? I don’t think so because this criticism is part of your effort to discredit Soyinka by describing his person and achievements as of little significance at both the local and global level, using your declaration that he is a tribalist and your argument that only the science Nobels are significant. Through this strategy, therefore, you indirectly dismiss Soyinka’s argument on Boko Haram. The underlying argument of your response is “ Why pay attention to the views on Boko Haram of this tribalist who assumes a significance he does not have, being engaged in pursuits peripheral to national development?”
People beyond Nigeria question the significance of the arts. Yeye Rolling in the course of this debate describes Soyinka’s importance as of little consequence. Your own comments on Soyinka as social critic and artist, however, demonstrate a scope and denigrative determination that go far beyond challenging the arts or challenging Soyinka’s significance in a genuinely critical spirit.
Rather than trying to demonstrate what is lacking in Soyinka’s description of Boko Haram as the work of some Northern politicians, politicians of your own ethnicity, and as the outgrowth of decades old tolerance of Islamic fundamentalism in Northern Nigeria, Islam being the dominant religion of the Northern region which is your ancestry, and perhaps your own religion too, you dismiss Soyinka as “a tribalist of the highest order”. Through your dismissal of Soyinka as the worst kind of tribalist you thereby indirectly condemn Soyinka’s description of Boko Haram as the work of some Northern politicians, politicians of your own ethnicity, and as the unanticipated metamorphosis of Northern centred Islamic fundamentalism. You suggest indirectly, but unmistakably, on account of the context of your comments, that those views of Soyinka on Boko Haram are a demonstration of tribalism, a social disease you suggest is fundamental to Soyinka’s identity.
The context and content of your post, therefore, suggest decisively that all comments you make in your post are primarily directed at denigrating Soyinka and only secondarily at any other subject you introduce into your comments, such as your claim about the peripheral significance of the arts in modern nation building.
You reinforce your explicit dismissal of Soyinka’s social vision and national interventions in describing him as “a tribalist of the highest order”, by dismissing his global achievements as represented by his Nobel Prize in Literature :
With all due respect to Wole Soyinka, but his Nobel Prize (in literature) isn't exactly anything to brag about in the grand scheme of things. If he had won on subjects that truly matter...such as Chemistry, Physics or Medicine, then yes...we will all shout hooray (the Nobel in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, and to some extent, Economics are the ones most celebrated...I cannot recall anyone who pays much attention to awards in Literature; and if you press me, I cannot name two winners in the literature category). What Africa needs is real advances in science and technology...and not the art of story telling (with all due respect to those whose job/hobby it is to tell stories or to entertain us with their prowess in the language of Shakespeare). Besides, there are many others in Africa who are probably as, or even more, deserving of the literature prize (Achebe is surely one).
Is it realistic to describe these comments of yours as inspired purely by your views on the peripheral value of the arts in nation building?
No.
It is not realistic to do so on account of the tone, content and context of your comments. You are focused on denigrating Soyinka as a person of little consequence in the context of his views on Boko Haram. You describe him as a tribalist without stating why you think so. You add to these dismissals your view that others are as deserving or more deserving of the literature Nobel than him, thereby suggesting that his professional distinction is overblown. You add to that a dismissal of his Nobel prize as insignificant.
Are these comments of yours primarily a critique of the arts in relation to the sciences or a critique of Soyinka in the context of his linking Boko Haram explicitly with Northern Nigerian political and Islamic extremism? Are your comments on the arts, which you might have held independently of the Soyinka context, not introduced at this point, and in such a manner as to further denigrate Soyinka beceause of his views on the origins of Boko Haram? :
“With all due respect to Wole Soyinka, but his Nobel Prize (in literature) isn't exactly anything to brag about in the grand scheme of things. If he had won on subjects that truly matter...
I cannot recall anyone who pays much attention to awards in Literature; and if you press me, I cannot name two winners in the literature category)”
The context, content and tone of your comments, therefore establish that your primary goal is a dismissal of Wole Soyinka and only secondarily a position on the arts and the sciences in relation to national development.
The Soyinka critics from Northern Nigeria I have read do not address the recorded fact that some Northern politicians, most prominently the unsuccessful Presidential candidate Abubakar Atiku, threatened violence if Northern Nigeria was not awarded the Presidency in the last elections. An escalation of Boko Haram terrorism and a marked politicisation of its activities and comments, describing itself as on a mission to humble the elected government and restructure the nation through terror, followed these threats from Northern Nigerian politicians.
These Soyinka critics from Northern Nigeria I have encountered also do not address the culture of Islamic extremism and random but periodic violence that has marked Northern Nigeria for decades, expressed with particular prominence in recurrent pogroms against people not of Northern ethnicity living in the North as well as Christians, a culture that is rightly described as the seedbed for the systematization of the pogrom culture represented by Boko Haram. These Soyinka critics, except Zainab Usman in “APeople in Terminal Decline”, also do not address Soyinka’s argument that the creation of a class of impoverished young people in the name of the Islamic students known as almajiris created a socially disenfranchised, gullible and volatile group readily available for violence against those perceived as enemies.
SamNda-Isaiah and Mahmud Jega make a vigorous effort in grappling with the Boko Haram problem in the context of their critique of Soyinka’s position on the terrorist group, even as they avoid addressing the historical fact of the threat from the Northern politicians exemplified by Atiku as well as the recurrent anti-Southern and anti-Christian pogroms in the North, along with the problems with Northern Islamic education, the complex of factors Soyinka describes as being the roots of Boko Haram. Zainab Usman’s essay addresses only the educational problem out of these factors, while contextualizing the relevant issues in a broad socio-economic context that has earned wide admiration from readers.
At the same time, however, in spite of the immediate inspiration and context of your critique of the arts in relation to science and technology, you raise important questions about those subjects in relation to the development of modern society, questions that need to be addressed because they represent central challenges in the understanding of various approaches to human creativity and its role in shaping society.
I expect your challenge to the arts also has some relationship with the views of others who do not share your implicit dismissal of Soyinka’s comments on Boko Haram or of Soyinka’s person. Your challenge to the arts also resonates with similar questions in various cultures across time.
Science, Technology and the Foundations of Successful Modern Societies
3. Toyin : No society has
ever been built primarily on science and technology.
Abba : I bet to differ on this. How did the
Asian Tiger nations, for instance, transform from being
poverty-stricken to the robust (and respected) economies they
are today? How did the G8 nations develop their economies? Take
away science and technology, will the US be the global super power she is
today? The answer is a resounding no. I can stop the debate right
here...because I think I made my case already...but I will carry on to do
justice to your comprehensive response.
Toyin : By 'primarily', I am not
disputing the centrality of science in modern society. Without science, Western
modernity would lose much of its
identity. I use Western modernity
as the central model non-Western countries adapt. I am not using examples from
Asia beceause I am less informed about their history and because I am
focusing on the roots of modern science
in Europe. Some argue that the roots of
modern science are in the Arab and
Islamic world, but I am less informed on that perspective, although its true
that the Arab and Islamic civilizations seem to have achieved a high point
before the West and contributed fundamentally to Western civilization.
I am arguing that even more central to Western societies than science is a social culture
that allows science to flourish. That social culture has been developed over
the centuries through various strands, and has also been fed by science, such
as the science that invented the printing press, thereby contributing to mass
literacy.
4. Toyin
: To claim that modern society is built on science and technology is to
demonstrate a superstitious attitude to science.
Abba : I disagree. Modern societies have a number of things in common, one of which is excellence in science and technology (this is something at their core; they never joke with it; they invest heavily on it). Others are quality services, education, infrastructure, healthcare etc. Modern nations manufacture things. Modern nations greatly invest in science and technology (there is a reason why their school curricula always emphasize science and math). Modern nations value and strive on innovation. Modern nations create enabling atmosphere to attract foreign direct investments.
Toyin : To argue that advances in science and technology is what African countries need to become modern societies is to demonstrate a superstitious reverence for science, rather than an understanding of the role of science in building societies.
Abba : You keep saying this without giving a single
reason to support your claim. Asian Tigers built their economies based on
science and technology (I lived in one of such nations and saw things with my
own eyes). Africa needs to do same in order to develop.
Toyin : By 'superstitious
reverence for science' I refer to a reverence that appreciates science but
gives it a value different from its actual value, like a religious person
ascribing unrealistic expectations to religion. I see descriptions of science and technology that
places those disciplines at the apex of society as superstitious because it
ignores the strategic role of non-scientists in those societies, roles which I
describe as foundational and as actually managing the development and
application of science and technology. Such roles are not understood by such
limited celebrators of science and technology because they are dazzled by the
obvious achievements of these disciplines.
But perhaps your position and mine need refinement to achieve greater balance
with reality.
5. Toyin : The fact is that modern societies are based
partly on the management of science and technology not on science and
technology.
Abba : I am not sure I understand you. Will
there be anything to ``manage" if there was no ``science and
technology" in the first place? I totally disagree with this.
Toyin : Those who
manage societies manage science and technology as well as manage other aspects
of social existence beyond science and technology. Science and technology are
central to modern societies, but their centrality is part of a tight network
where they play a role with other skills to which I see them as being subordinated.
Science and technology do not produce the skills used
in creating political and social systems but contribute to those skills.
Scientific and technological skills are not identical with those used in
developing policies but they contribute to such development through
research contributions about demographics, health and disease etc.
Also, scientists are often not the decision makers of society who decide on
resource allocation and application. Such people are often politicians, not
scientists. The US President, the UK Prime Minister, the French PM, to mention
a few G8 member countries, are neither scientists nor engineers and many of their cabinet members are not
either and I expect the same holds
in Asia. But these non-scientists and engineers
work with scientists and engineers in the relevant capacities.
In these senses, therefore, these non-scientists and engineers manage science,
scientists and engineers.
Even in warfare, where science can give a leading edge, armies are also not necessarily run by scientists. A run through the chiefs
of staff of the military of various industrialised societies will prove this, a point that remains accurate even in spite of the
huge military research and development budget of a country like the US, and the large R and D budgets I expect of other nuclear
powers Russia, Israel, Pakistan and
India, along with Iran, in its struggles
to become a nuclear power.
In fact, it seems that scientists and engineers are marginalized in terms of
political power. This might be because the skills required for science are
quite different from those of politics and the social life of the scientist is
different from that of the politician. The scientist is busy in the lab,
office, etc, working for years while the politicians builds the necessary
social capital to climb the political ladder. Many scientists are also not interested in political power.
Narrow and Broad Understanding of Science
6. Toyin : The narrow sense [of understanding what science is ] involves the study of the physical character of the universe using methods that can be replicated and assessed by others adequately skilled to do so. In that sense, we have sciences that deal with living and non-living systems, such as physics, chemistry and biology, as well as sciences that straddle both, such as mathematics.
Abba : I can accept the above as a definition of the word ``science". What makes it ``narrow" is something I cannot understand. The above is (generally) what science is. Can you provide suitable references (accepted by scientists) that support your characterization of the above (standard definition of science) as a ``narrow" definition?
Toyin : By 'narrow' I don’t mean the
word pejoratively. I simply mean that there is a strict and a more general
definition of science. Linguistics, for example, is described as the scientific study of
language but it cannot be a science in the sense of the physical or biological
sciences.
As for scientists describing science along the lines I gave, see the
following :
A. Aristotle, one of the most
influential scientists in history, and, I expect, the creator of a significant degree of the
organization of science as it is known
today, as well as the of structure of knowledge as a whole as it is
understood in Western scholarship, is
described by Wikipedia as developing
this broader meaning of science before a
narrower interpretation emerged :
'Science (from Latin scientia, meaning
"knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in
the form of testable explanations and predictions
about the universe[1]. An
older and closely related meaning still in use today is that found for example
in Aristotle,
whereby "science" refers to the body of reliable knowledge itself, of
the type that can be logically and rationally explained'.
This article quotes :
^ Aristotle,
ca. 4th century BCE "Nicomachean Ethics Book VI, and Metaphysics Book I:". "In general
the sign of knowledge or ignorance is the ability to teach, and for this reason
we hold that art rather than experience is scientific knowledge (epistemē);
for the artists can teach, but the others cannot." — Aristot.
Met. 1.981b
Note, though, that the same Wikipedia article describes the term 'scientist' as coming into being many centuries after Aristotle, so
its use with reference to him is an interpretation of his meaning rather than a
direct translation.
Science from Art, Art from Science
With reference to ‘art’ in the translation of Aristotle, that could be a reference to critical study of a phenomenon, as different from experience without critical study. The understanding of ‘art’ and ‘science’ as sharply distinct as is understood in modern Western scholarship might not have held in older civilizations. Such sharp distinctions might be difficult to justify with reference to classical African, Asian, Arab and Persian thought, for example, as demonstrated by the multidisciplinary constitution of particular expressive forms, such as the mathematical structures of Orisa Ifa and Hindu yantra and the more recent explication of the mathematical significance of Akan and Gyaman Adinkra visual symbols by Akwadapa.
The mathematical possibilities of classical Adinkra are alluded to by the supersymmetry physics of Sylvester James Gates and Michael Fox. They created visual forms which they named Adinkras in reference to the ideational range of Akan and Gyaman Adinkra, an ideational range encapsulated by the ability of Adinkra artistic forms to suggest a breath of ideas that are difficult to express in words. Gates and Fox justify their creation of images as a means of generating mathematical ideas in stating that the manipulation of the visual images enable the development of equations in a moreefficient manner than trying to develop the equations without the aid of the images. Gates declares that one Adinkra is worth ten thousand equations (p.101) and invokes Aristole’s summation “Thought is impossible without an image” (p.100).
B. Bertrand
Russell, the famous mathematician and philosopher:
“Science, as its name implies, is primarily knowledge; by convention it is
knowledge of a certain kind, the kind, namely, which seeks general laws
connecting a number of particular facts. Gradually, however, the aspect of
science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of
science as the power of manipulating nature.”
From The Scientific Outlook. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1931. p.
10-11.
Russell describes a general, broader and more specific, narrower view of
science. The broader view is applicable to any field, and is applied in the
arts and the social sciences. Examples in the arts are the literary theories
which try to develop general laws that describe the character of literary
forms. Examples of this range from Aristotle’s Poetics, on drama, to the present day, as Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Literary Criticism which tries
to arrive at categorisations of literary forms in general terms of the
motifs, central ideas and images they demonstrate.
Ferdinand de Saussure is described as developing linguistics into the scientific study of
language because of his focus on making generalisations about language
from the study of particular languages.
The fact that literary theory and criticism, and linguistics, in a different
manner, though, than literary study, use methods related to those in the
sciences does not make them science. This is because, even though this point
may be controversial, they do not demonstrate the level of
precision and of mutual assessability vital for science.
Russell goes on to describe a narrower view of science, which is in agreement
with the Wikipedia description
of two ways of understanding what science is, stating that ‘ "science"
continued to be used in a broad sense denoting reliable knowledge about a
topic, in the same way it is still used in modern terms such as library
science or political science.’
The article develops this broad sense of science further, distinguishing it from the narrow and more focused sense :
“In modern use, "science" is a term which more often refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, and not the knowledge itself. It is "often treated as synonymous with ‘natural and physical science’, and thus restricted to those branches of study that relate to the phenomena of the material universe and their laws, sometimes with implied exclusion of pure mathematics. This is now the dominant sense in ordinary use."[4] This narrower sense of "science" developed as a part of science became a distinct enterprise of defining "laws of nature", based on early examples such as Kepler's laws, Galileo's laws, and Newton's laws of motion. In this period it became more common to refer to natural philosophy as "natural science". Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with scientific method, a disciplined way to study the natural world including physics, chemistry, geology and biology. This sometimes left the study of human thought and society in a linguistic limbo, which was resolved by classifying these areas of academic study as social science. Similarly, several other major areas of disciplined study and knowledge exist today under the general rubric of "science", such as formal science and applied science.”
C. Isaac Newton: “...whatever is not deduced from the phenomena, is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability, the mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of motion and of gravitation, were discovered.”
From Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy in On the Shoulders of
Giants : The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. ed Stephen Hawking.
London : Running Press, 2002. p. 733-1160. Quote from p. 1159.
Newton describes his practice in a manner similar to that of the broader
understanding of science as presented by Russell and the Wikipedia essay on
science. The method of deriving propositions from observation of phenomena, and
the generalisation of those propositions, is a method used in greater or lesser
degree, in every discipline in modern scholarship. I also understand this
method is evident in various disciplines as far back as the Greeks and
the Arab and Islamic civilizations as demonstrated by Plato, among others, and
the sociology and philosophy of history of the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun.
The Wikipedia essay on
this work describes its pioneering use of scientific method: "Ibn Khaldun
often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of
historical data." As a result, he introduced the scientific
method to the social sciences, which was considered something
"new to his age", and he often referred to it as his "new
science" and developed his own new terminology for it."
JAW, a reviewer at the Amazon site of the book describes him as an anti-Black African racist, however, an uncritical style of thought: "You can chisel out the sections on temperature and race, temperature and behavior, for these are silly and offensive. He compares Sub-Saharan Africans as just a hair above dumb animals, and he slams Arabs and Bedouin in other ways. However, his sections on economics and social politics are still valid, and he was a pioneer in areas that other Westerners tend to get credit for."
I think, though, that the translation of Newton’s distinction between hypothesis and propositions is
confusing while his description of scientific method does not seem to be
representative of the practices of scientific methods in their totality but
only of a segment of such methods. The biologist Peter Medawar, for example, in TheArt of the Soluble:
Creativity and Originality in Science argues against
confining descriptions of scientific method to observation and consequent
generalisation as described by Newton, arguing that science may begin from
speculation rather than from deriving propositions from observation of
phenomena, a view that seems to be supported by other scientists like Einstein
as summed up by a science writer:
“From time to time science involves working with current knowledge and then, in order to break new ground, moving on to speculation, imagination, and even fantasy for inspiration. It was Einstein who remarked that: “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” and: “If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ”
From “Do We Need A New Kind of Science?” By Rusty Rockets
Russell expresses a view on science and art as a
follow up to the quote above, which I present here to show his comparison of
art and science. Russell goes on after this to argue that science has
fundamentally reshaped even the organisation of societies and family life
'resulting from the new forms of organisation that scientific technique
demands' :
'It is because science gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has
more social importance than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal,
but not the superior of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little
intrinsic value, has a practical importance to which art cannot aspire'
I will not examine the validity of
Russell's position but reference the Wikipedia essay on science on Criticism of Science.
On Methods in Science
7. Toyin : The essential scientific
character of such disciplines is not in their subject matter but in the
manner in which they address that subject matter, as Dominic Ogbonna
observed in this debate.
Abba : I do not agree. Are you saying the essential nature of Chemistry is not Chemistry but how Chemistry addresses some aspects of Chemistry? This is unclear to me... I do not expect any scientists to agree with you on this and the ``narrow definition" claim. I assume you are not a scientist (if you are, sorry for my wrong assumption). If this is the case, shouldn't you be using the definition used by scientists? Do you really have to tell others what they are...particularly when what you say differ from what they say they are?
Toyin : I needed to frame that more carefully. The more
accurate description is 'The essential scientific character of such disciplines
is the manner in which they address that subject matter and the knowledge
arrived at through those methods'.
Its true, though, that various disciplines belonging to the ancient knowledge
of various principles, from Africa to Asia, also study the subject matter of
science but their status of these studies as science, as it is currently known,
needs to be carefully examined. Doctors in classical African medicine are able
to effect cures through their knowledge of the body, of herbs and even a degree
of magic and religion. But does the fact that they can achieve this
automatically make them acceptable as science in the conventional sense?
Biomedical doctors also study and heal the body using plant based medication,
among others but are they identical in their science with the doctors of
classical African medicine?
8. Toyin : The broad understanding
of science is in the adaptation of critical methods associated with science to
other disciplines.
Abba : I do not understand what you mean here. What are ``critical methods"? So, ``science" is about using scientific ``methods" in other (presumably non-scientific) disciplines? Let me understand this correctly. It is ``science" if I, for instance, use the method of designing a vaccine in one of Soyinka's plays, but it is not science if I actually design a vaccine? I do not understand....applying science to other areas is science but doing science itself is not science? Am I missing something? I totally disagree with this ``broad definition". This is surely not accepted within the scientific community. This is (I think) a classical case of non-scientists defining what science is or isn't.
Toyin : The adaptation of critical
methods associated with science to other disciplines involves using critical
methods, such methods being what science is associated with. The methods of assessment of the validity of
those ideas may differ between science and other disciplines, however. Science
is centred in mutual verification of ideas. Other disciplines adopt the
criterion of mutual assessment but not
necessarily mutual verification. A
scientific theory needs to be accepted by a broad consensus of scientists if it is to be
accepted as a valid scientific theory
but the same does not hold in non-scientific disciplines, even though they
employ critical methods. An example of philosophical discourse, for example,
can be appreciated as valid by philosophers without their all having to agree
that it is correct on the issues
discussed. Philosophical discourse does not need consensus as to correctness
for acceptance by philosophers. Scientific ideas, on the other hand, are dependent on the acceptance of the global community
of scientists for them to be declared part of mainstream science.
9. Toyin : In doing that, however, it is vital to observe broad variations between the character of living and non-living systems , and broad variations within the character of living systems. Along the lines of adapting scientific methods to a broader range of disciplines, there exist the social sciences of economics and sociology, and even linguistics, described as the scientific study of language.
Abba : Science is science. Applying science to other disciplines is still science. For examples, people in Chemistry apply their work sometimes in biology....does that make their Chemistry not Chemistry? Those in math apply their work almost everywhere...does that make their math not mathematics? One of the beauties of most of the sciences is that they can be applied in many different scenarios...there are some that are not really applicable anywhere (those in mathematical sciences, for example, know what I mean), but focus on building the theoretical (rigorous) foundation of the discipline/science.
Toyin : I need to modify this to
read “Along the lines of adapting
critical methods to a broader range of disciplines”. I have already explained
what I mean by “critical methods” and why their application in science is
related to but not identical with their application in other disciplines. At the centre of that difference is the
criterion of mutual verification. There are other differences, though,
involving conceptions of meaning and truth, such as differences in the use of
metaphors in science and the arts, even though both employ critical methods in
their study.
10. Toyin : This broad understanding
is better understood, not as science, but as the adoption of a critical method
to the study of phenomena.
Abba : You have not justified your ``broad definition". You
have not given any supporting references (accepted by scientists). You
have not given any specific examples. I would be curious to see if
any serious scientist would agree with you on this.
I have addressed this above.
11. Toyin : The success of modern
Western society is in the adoption of critical methods, not on science, in
terms of the physical sciences like physics, or the biological sciences like
human biology.
Abba : So, Apple or Microsoft were not built based on hardcore science (engineering, computer science, math etc.) but somehow on the adaptation of scientific methods into other areas? I do not understand this at all.
Toyin : Apple and Microsoft are examples of the symbiosis between science and larger social factors that empower the development of science. These social factors are related to a culture of critical approaches to reality that foster the development of science. These factors also include a robust capitalist system that enabled moneyless entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to find investment that enabled them develop their companies. Their scientific acumen alone was not enough for such success. If it was, those Nigerian manufacturers of mechanical constructs who have not been funded would have become very visible but they are not because the economic and manufacturing environment has not been helpful to them. Scholars, such as Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and the discourse that has grown around his work, argue that the capitalist system that enables the science that plays a central role in Western modernity was fed at its foundation by a host of factors, of which religion is one.
Without a robust investment environment, technology might never develop to the point of making a significant impact on society. Science and technology on their own are not likely to build a society unless aided by factors like economic structures. To insist, therefore, as you do, that science and technology are more important than non-scientific elements of society that feed them is missing the point.
Which came first in Western history, science or the non-scientific factors that made science possible?
Science is relatively new in Western modernity and was made possible by a host of factors, factors that were often not due to the kind of centralized planning that you advocate, valuable as such planning can be, though. In fact, Western science and technology did not always initially emerge as planned developments. It was the success of the correlation between unanticipated and planned emergence of science that led to what is now science organised by governments in the West, a model the Asians are adopting. One can run through the major advances in science and technology that were central to shaping Western modernity and observe that often they did not emerge from centralised planning up till the 19th century. The argument here is that the origins of Western science is often a largely unanticipated development of larger social factors beyond science.
I am arguing that the success of Western society is based on factors that go
beyond science but include science.
12. Toyin : The more specific
physical and biological sciences and the more general sciences like mathematics
are adapted within a social system based on critical understanding of
phenomena, particularly the large scale social systems represented by
societies.
Abba : I do not understand all these. It matters not where science is applied (or to what system it is applied). Science is, and will always be, science. You seems to be speaking in tongues....maybe our readers will benefit some more if you give specific examples.
Toyin : By this, I mean that social
managers use scientific methodologies in decision making and implementation,
without their being scientists, and within activities that are not wholly
scientific.
Examples :
Science is used to prospect for oil and its exploration has damaged the Niger
Delta. But the damage is not caused by science and technology but how it was
applied without care for the ecological and social systems affected. The
decision to allocate a percentage of revenue to the Niger Delta is a logical
decision, and logic is central to science. But that policy decision is not an
example of science in the strict sense.
If Nigeria were to develop a welfare policy, that policy should include
using scientific methods in deciding who
should benefit and how they should be helped. At the very least, electronic
data management methods of beneficiaries will prove vital. The
integration of science into the methods of implementing social policy, however,
does not mean that those policies are examples of science.
13. Toyin : The success of modern
Western society is a demonstration of skilled social management, among other
factors that made this quality of social management possible in the first
place.
Abba : I disagree. Further, you did not define what ``social management" is.
Toyin : Social management is the
management of large groups of people, particularly those organized in terms of
long standing communities. I argue that skilled management of their societies,
using various knowledge and skills, is why the West is so successful. Science
and technology play a central role in that success but they are components of a larger whole. Democracy and
freedom to study and apply knowledge, as well as capitalism, are central to
Western society's success and to the growth of science in the West. Democracy,
freedom of thought and capitalism, however,
are neither examples of science and technology nor are they products of science and technology although
science and technology contribute significantly to them. All these social forms have a long history of
development which did not always include the effects of science but which paved
the way for science to blossom, although science plays
a central role in promoting those values.
On the Nature of Technology
14. Toyin : One could describe technology also in a narrow and a broad sense. In the narrow sense, it can be described as the practical application of science, particularly in the creation of instruments.
Abba : Again, what makes this ``narrow"? Can you give any references (accepted by engineers) to justify your definition?
Toyin : The narrow sense consists in
a focus on manufactured mechanical products. The broad sense involves the
metaphorical adaptation of the idea to involve management of knowledge in
general.
I do not [know] what this means.
I expect Abba is referring to the narrow meaning in his focus on physics,
chemistry and medicine.
Abba : Technology, to me, is the application of scientific/engineering methods for practical purposes. It entails the creation/building of things for the benefit of the society (e.g., airplanes, computers, TVs, phones, automobiles, spoons, chairs etc.).
Toyin : Again, by narrowness, I mean
a more precise rather a general sense of the term.
Supporting definitions by an engineer:
A. W. Brian Arthur, B. Sc. Electrical Engineering, M. A. Operational Research, M. A. Mathematics, Ph.D. Operations Research, M. A. Economics.
External Faculty Member at the Santa Fe Institute, IBM Faculty Fellow, Visiting Researcher in the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC (formerly Xerox Parc). Former Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University.
“I will define a technology in this paper quite simply as a means to fulfill a human purpose.
The purpose may be explicit: to power an aircraft say, or to sequence a DNA sample; or it may be hazy, multiple, and changing: a computer has no single, explicit purpose. But whether its purpose is well defined or not, a technology is a means to carrying out a purpose.
A power station supplies electricity. The Haber process produces ammonia. As a means to fulfill a purpose, a technology may be a method or process or device: a particular speech recognition algorithm, say, or a filtration process in chemical engineering, or a type of diesel engine.
The word technology has two other legitimate meanings: a body of practices and components, such as electronics or optical data transmission; and “the totality of the means employed by a people to provide itself with the objects of material culture (Webster).”
From “The Structure of Invention” in Research Policy 36 (2007) 274–287
[In his book The Nature of Technology: What it is and How It Evolves W. Brian Arthur “defines “technology” in three ways: (1) a means to fulfill a human purpose, (2) an assemblage of practices and components and (3) a collection of devices and engineering practices available to a culture.”
From By Michael R. Nelson W.Brian Arthur’s The Nature ofTechnology: What it is and How It Evolves
Accessed 9 March 2012
[Brian Arthur]points to the human propensity to solve problems as the force that leads to new generations of technology through recombination of existing technologies. Technology is “alive” in the sense that a coral reef is alive. The reef is an ecological system with many species, and technology in the broadest sense is an elaborate and constantly changing structure made up of thousands of discrete technologies, themselves composed of separate technologies.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
John Markoff “RethinkingWhat Leads the Way: Science, or New Technology?”
in The New York Times, October 19, 2009
The Wikipedia essay on technology expounds the term along similar lines -
“Technology is the
making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods
of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function.”
Note that this definition involves both mechanical forms and methods of
organisation. Such methods might not include building a mechanical object but
simply consist in running an
organisation, for example.
Wikipedia goes on to provide
views of various scholars that support the specific and narrow and broad
and general views of technology :
“Dictionaries and scholars have offered a variety of definitions.
...
Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, or more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator. Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as computer software and business methods, fall under this definition of technology.[10]
The word "technology" can also be used to refer to a collection of techniques. In this context, it is the current state of humanity's knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfil needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. When combined with another term, such as "medical technology" or "space technology", it refers to the state of the respective field's knowledge and tools. "State-of-the-art technology" refers to the high technology available to humanity in any field.
Technology can be viewed as an activity that forms or
changes culture.[11]
Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the arts for
the benefit of life as it is known. A modern example is the rise of communication
technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction and, as a result,
has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of cyberculture
has, at its basis, the development of the Internet and
the computer.[12] Not
all technology enhances culture in a creative way; technology can also help
facilitate political oppression and war via tools such as
guns. As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering,
each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.’
The Wikipedia links provide the necessary references for these views.
It also includes critiques
of technology, such as 'Technicism...an
over reliance or overconfidence in technology
as a benefactor of society.'
Science, Technology and Contemporary Nigerian Social Challenges
Social Management and Technology
15. Toyin : Let us run through contemporary Nigerian social/ development challenges and try to see what role science and technology could play in addressing them. My argument will be that science and technology are useful but as methods and insights managed by social managers, not always using the tools and knowledge of the sciences in their core sense. Such social management is not based on physics or mathematics, or biology and medicine, but uses these disciplines to achieve the overarching goal of social management. I also compare and contrast the Nigerian institutions represented by the oil industry, banking and Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry.
Abba : Again, you have not defined what ``social management" is and what the ``social managers" will actually be ``managing". Will the ``social managers" be in business if there was not real science in the first place?
Toyin : I described social management in section 13 as the management of large groups of people, particularly those organized in terms of long standing communities. The management of society predates the rise of sophisticated science. Your core perspective, however, is focused on modern, not older societies. My argument is that science is pervasive in successful modern societies but as part of a larger fabric. I have given some examples of this above. I argue that skilled management of their societies, using various knowledge and skills, is why the West is so successful. Science and technology play a central role in that success but they are components of a larger whole. Democracy and freedom to study and apply knowledge, as well as capitalism, are central to Western society's success and to the growth of science in the West. Democracy, freedom of thought and capitalism, however, are neither examples of science and technology nor are they products of science and technology although science and technology contribute significantly to them.
Social Management, Science, Technology and the Fight against Islamic Terrorism
16. Toyin : The progress made
against Boko Haram so far has been though information sourcing and tracking of
their members. The role played by science in the sense of the specialized
skills of particular scientific disciplines has been in the use of electronic
tracking technology through which the terrorists' phones were
tracked. Technology also played a role in the weapons used in battling the
members of the sect.
Abba : Good. Remote sensing, GIS and other wireless tracking processes and devices were (reportedly/presumably) used by our intelligence people, in conjunction with the fine men and women working at the National Communications Commissions (a Commission that is based largely on advances in electrical/telecommunication engineering, computer science, quantum computing/physics,nanotechnology etc.) Do you see ``arts" playing any role here? Do you see any ``social managers" playing any role here? It is a clear demonstration of excellence science and technology at its best.
Toyin : Are the security services run as scientific establishments? They can be described as military establishments. As military establishments, they are not run by scientists. Even if scientists happen to run them that is more by chance than design. The same goes for the highly technologically oriented US and Israeli and other Western militaries.
17. Toyin : Does the use of
technology in these two forms imply that these successes are due to the use of
science and technology?
Abba : Of course, except if we do not believe what the law enforcement people say (they claimed that the suspects were tracked and apprehended based on using these...scientific...methods). Intelligence and law enforcement officers have other means as well...but it was clear (at least if the law enforcement people were to be believed) that science and technology played the most important role in making the arrest possible.
Toyin : Wrong statement from me here. I got carried away by the need to counter what I see as an extreme argument from you. Its more accurate to state than science and technology played a central role, as they were mobilised by the security forces.
18. Toyin : Only partly so, because the anti-Boko Haram operation necessarily
involves a broad range of methods of which the use of electronic tracking
technology and physical weapons are two factors.
Abba : How comes then the leaders were not captured much earlier? You can resolve this question by asking the law enforcement people if they would have been able to capture Abul qaga (or whatever his name is) without the use of technology. I have stated that law enforcement people have tons of arsenal (methods) at their disposal...however, it just turns out that, in this particular case, the use of technology was what made the arrest possible.
Toyin : You could be right on this.
19. Toyin : I expect the operation involves information sourcing by word of mouth from informants among members of the communities where Boko Haram members live. If the fight against Boko Haram is to succeed, such intelligence gathering from within the community needs to be intensified. The fight against Boko Haram needs to be won primarily in the hearts and minds of Nigerians, which is the core arena of the war the sect has unleashed on the nation. The sect is seeking to prove to Nigerians that it represents a parallel government that embodies the aspirations of Northern Nigeria. That effort will fail when Northerners can be decisively convinced that Boko Haram represents only themselves and the pauperisation of the North.
Abba : You still did not disprove the fact that technology played the
major role in the arrest of that BH individual...and you have also failed,
up till this moment, to prove that science and technology is not the most
important building brick/foundation for modern nations.
Toyin : I don’t disagree that science and technology played a major role. My
argument is that the complete management of the security services and the fight
against terrorism would need more than the use of science and technology to
succeed.
You exaggerate the role of science and
technology in building modern societies because
you give scientists and engineers
roles they don’t play. They are not necessarily politicians, who run society.
They man some scientific establishments but these establishments are only a
part of modern societies.
Social Management and the Struggle for the Soul of Northern Nigeria Against Islamic Extremism
20. Toyin : When people are convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
Abba : I think you digressed from the topic at hand.
Democratic Government and Western Education as Key Conduits of Modern Society
Toyin : This is not a digression because your focus is on science and technology in building modern societies, particularly in Nigeria. One of the challenges of building such societies, particularly in Nigeria, is combating extremists. If they are not defeated, how will development occur? Boko Haram bombs ravage Northern Nigeria in the name of attacking the Nigerian government, thereby destroying the security necessary for development. They also destroy schools, thereby reinforcing the understating that their name means ‘Western education is a sin’.
Western education and scholarship are central to the creation of modern societies, most of which are adaptations of the model developed in Europe and apotheosised, taken to a higher level, by the United States of America. One of the values at the heart of this educational system is a critical culture, itself exemplified with particular force by science and technology, of which Western education is the central conduit in the modern world.
Can such a critical culture survive in an environment dominated by fundamentalist religious terror?
Even if one wants to adapt the Western educational model, the central qualities that have made this educational system central to modern society and its science and technology will have to be distilled and adapted to any modification to create another educational system.
Boko Haram justify their destructive culture in the name of Islam, thereby identifying with the region’s dominant religion in the name of a unified regional identity. If Northern Nigeria is to develop a modern society, talk less a scientific civilisation, such retrogressive attitudes must be defeated.
In fact, modern Western societies grew to a significant degree because they
defeated Christian extremism for the battle for legitimacy, so that democracy, freedom
of study and other values centred in human ability to direct their own
existence could be won from the Church.
The Protestant
Reformation began the struggle in earnest, rolling back the evils of the
Inquisition, where a scholar like Giordano Bruno was
executed by the Church for views contrary to Church doctrine and Galileo
Galilei was tried and sentenced for arguing that the earth revolves round the
sun.
Tackling the roots of Boko Haram in
crude understandings of Islam, particularly emerging from limited education
that is ignorant of the central role of Islam in what is known as Western
education and modern science in the
contribution of Islamic civilization to this body of knowledge and skills known as Western education will be
crucial to the development of a modern society in Northern Nigeria.
21. Toyin : When people are
convinced that they have more to lose than to gain by keeping
silent about people suspected or known to be Boko Haram members, and that
they are protected in revealing them to the government, then the fight is being
won. Until then, even if this group is suppressed, another one might emerge in
its place, as has been the pattern for some time in Northern Nigeria, from the
pre-Maitasine era to Boko Haram.
Abba : I think you digressed from the topic at hand.
Toyin : How will a modern society grow if citizens identify with enemies of
modernity, perceived as fighting a so called enemy government? Whatever the
limitations of the country’s democratic system, it is a central vehicle of the country’s movement
into modernity.
How will a modern society grow if these anti-modernists are being sheltered in the name of religious and ethnic identification and fear? They are dealing a devastating blow to the North’s hopes for modernity by presenting their retrogressive ideology as more powerful than a nation struggling to enter into the modern era.
Islamic and ethnic
identification and fear seem to me to be
major reasons why Boko Haram survives in the North. Remove these and
they become vulnerable.
Educational Challenges of Northern Nigeria
22. Toyin : Even after this stage of terrorism in Northern Nigeria
is addressed, what is to be done with the region's educational and other social
problems that make it a flash point for recurrent social upheavals? There seems
to be an educational crisis in Northern Nigeria, with the Islamic educational
system favored by many being ill equipped to manage the transition to a modern
society. How is that to be addressed? Such issues seem to me to be more in the
realm of educational theory and practice and politics, than physics,
chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences.
Abba : Again, this is not really in line with the
topic at hand.
Toyin : It is not a digression. What is the topic? The
role of science in building modern societies, particularly in Nigeria. I argue
that the scale of the challenge to build modern societies in Nigeria goes
beyond science but includes science. The central challenge to modernity in
Nigeria is crude approaches to Islam and the negative impact of aspects
of Islamic education and society that need overhauling or elimination.
Can you have a scientific culture, for example, in an environment dominated by
religious faith? Do you see the role of
Islam in Northern Nigeria as conducive to the development of sophisticated
science? What is the level of critical engagement with the Quran in Northern
Nigeria, for example? Part of the method used in diluting the power of the
Church was criticism of the Bible, destroying spurious ideas in the Bible about
nature, such as literal interpretations of the creation of the world in six
days etc. Do you see any such widespread
critical engagement with religious dogma in the North or in Islam as a
whole?
If a scientific and technological
civilisation is to emerge in Northern
Nigeria, the challenge of Islamic dogma
must be dealt with.
Social Development in Relation to Islamic Dogma in Early Girl Marriage
23. Toyin : What about the issue of the marriage of very young girls, creating a ground for severe physical problems on account of the immaturity of the girls' bodies, removing them from the educational system and severely limiting their opportunities to operate productively in the work place, and ultimately swelling the ranks of the poor?
Abba : This has absolutely nothing to do with what we are debating about.
Toyin : How will you build a modern
society when such fundamentally backward social practices are the norm? Your
argument is about building modern societies, which you argue are based on
science. I argue that science plays a central role in such societies but that
that role is integrated within larger roles, such as democratic aspiration to
equality, freedom of speech and association, freedom to study etc. Such
qualities are not notable in Islamic societies. The marriage of very young
girls, against all scientific logic demonstrated by the negative biological,
educational and social effects on these girls, is part of the culture of being
locked in a pre-modern mind-set that is part of the reason Islamic societies are backward, even if they
are rich, as in Saudi Arabia, where women do not drive and where women and men
do not mix, while the rest of the world leaves them behind to their petty focus
on such trivialities.
David Bornstein, in “Africa’s Girl Power” in The New York Times March 7, 2012, summarizes research on early marriage for girls:
In recent years, leaders in the field of international development have come to agree that the most powerful way to bring lasting social benefits to a country is to expand educational and economic opportunities for girls. What has become known as the Girl Effect is dramatic: A girl who doesn’t attend school or marries young, for example, is at far greater risk of dying in childbirth, contracting H.I.V., being beaten by her husband, bearing more children than she would like, and remaining in poverty, along with her family. By contrast, an educated girl is more likely to earn higher wages, delay childbirth, and have fewer, healthier children who are themselves more likely to attend school, prosper, and participate in democratic processes
The link in the text is to a very powerful video on the subject after which comes a website for addressing the problem. Bornstein also links to a World Bank research report on the subject “Girl’s Education in the 21st Century”, which I attach to this post.
The Uncritical Veneration of Muhammed and the Challenge of a Critical Culture in Building Modern Societies
25. Toyin : How is the religious background of this practice in the marriage of the prophet Muhammad to a pre-pubescent girl to be addressed?
Abba : This is irrelevant; and I am actually taken
aback that you could invoke it. We can have a debate on the marriages of
the Prophet (pbuh) if you wish. What has ``marriage" and even
``education" (as you seem to be defining it) got to do with the debate
of the role of science vs. arts in nation building?
Toyin : This is relevant because of the reasons I have stated in points 19 to 24
above and because if the hold of religious veneration is not broken, modern
societies will not develop. Prominent Islamic societies continue to be based on
reality denying conceptions derived from Islam, one of which is the uncritical
veneration of Mohammed. The Prophet married a pre-pubescent girl, in my view,
making sure he preserved a child for his exclusive attention, out of all the
adults he could have chosen. He
had relations with this young girl while she was still at a young age, an
age when in modern times, the girl should still be in school. Contemporary
Muslims imitate this practice in uncritical veneration of Mohammed. How will
they develop modern societies with such a mind-set? It is argued that the
decline of scholarship in the Islamic world came about through the emerging
supremacy of religion.
Northern Nigerian Economy and the Development of a Modern Society
25. Toyin : Some have called for greater reliance on indigenous wealth generation, as different from depending on oil revenue from the central government. How is this economic transition to be managed? I don't get the impression that physics, chemistry, medicine or any of the traditional sciences is going to be the knowledge base to be used. They can be adapted to the task but those who run those systems must be competent in a range of knowledge and skills, from economics, to social psychology and politics.
Abba : You are mixing two things here. Politicians and other administrators do their (admin) thing, and scientists do their own thing as well. I separate the two. Administrators (the good ones I mean) play an important role by helping to create the right atmosphere for the scientists and engineers to do their work. I know what they did in Malaysia, for example. The administrators (starting from the Prime Minister Mahathir) sought out to attract large multinational corporations to come and invest in their country.... they provided them with the land, infrastructure and tax incentives. The rest is history. I am not saying scientists will do everything: science as well as management, administration and politics. No. Scientists do need some others to do some of the necessary (admin) chores. However, let there be no doubt who is most important. There is absolutely no development without science and technology. The managers will have nothing to manage if there is no science. Etc.
A central problem with your argument is that you conflate uncritically the
following points:
- Modern societies are rooted in science and technology
- b. The social managers will have nothing to manage if these is no science.
- Scientists are the most important members of society.
- The value of administrators is primarily to create the right atmosphere for scientists and engineers to do their work. Others do administrative chores while scientists do the most important work for building modern societies.
These points do not necessarily imply each other. Also, for you to adequately prove these points, even if you don’t succeed in demonstrating decidedly that they are not fallacious, which I seem them as being, you will need a more rigorous analysis than you are doing.
The core of my response is that of demonstrating the fallacious nature of your arguments, including quoting fellow scientists and engineers to support my views. In the course of this debate, I have also presented a survey of the origins of Western science, the globally dominant scientific culture, in its roots in bodies of knowledge closer to the arts than to science, which you have not addressed.
Science and technology are vital to modern development
but they are part of a larger whole,
which includes politics and other disciplines and practices. Do the
scientists run the country as a science project? No.
Addressing the Security Challenge Embodied by Kidnapping
26. Toyin : How do we address the kidnapping problem?
Part of the problem must be economic. Another could relate to a sense of
injustice projected by an awareness of corruption. It is also crucial to
identify and destroy the kidnapping networks.
How are people to be enabled to gain employment without unnecessary
difficulty? How can the cost of living be significantly reduced to make life
easier and crime less compelling? How can the corruption be reduced
significantly and hopefully eliminated so that people are less prone to
consider themselves justified in using desperate methods against a society they
see as having betrayed them? How can the kidnapping networks be identified and
destroyed?
Addressing these questions would span a broad range of skills that go beyond
such sciences as physics, chemistry and medicine.
Abba : You are digressing to social and security problems. I never claimed that science has all the answers to non-scientific problems. Science and technology, for me, is about building/manufacturing things. It is about building industries. It is about creating products for local and international markets. Etc.
Toyin : If you are not able to address social and security
problems how will you develop a modern society? Will the building and
manufacturing of things and of industries, creating products for local and
international markets of themselves
create successful social systems?
Yes, science makes the products. Do scientists sell those products? Do they manage the economy? Run the complex national system? Science is used by economists, as in mathematics, but does that make them scientists?
I see your entire perspective as giving science more than its due.
Power Generation, Technological Strategies and Political Will
27. Toyin :
Another challenge is energy, particularly the generation and distribution of
electricity, this being critical to running a modern economy and society and to
business and research in all fields.
Power generation is a demonstration of science and technology. Is Nigeria failing in achieving this basic task adequately because of a lack of scientists and engineers or because of inadequacies in the allocation of resources and their application to the task at hand? Can such failures of allocation and implementation be corrected by science and technology or do they operate in the more shadowy zone of political vision and commitment to the nation rather to political cliques?
Abba : Again, science does not address all social
problems. Science does not solve our corruption and incompetence
problem. What science can do, though, is to offer additional
alternative energy generation methods...such as using solar power or even some
agro-based products (eg ethanol)
Toyin : Excellent. We are in total
agreement here. If so, then what is the true scope of science, even when
we acknowledge the centrality of science
in modern society?
28. Toyin : I don't get the
impression that having skilled scientists running the country or even
running the power and steel ministry automatically translates into efficient
management of these resources.
Abba : No one says scientists have to run the
country. Was the US, for example, led by scientists when they
started their industrial revolution? It does not matter who runs the
nation...as long as they understand the fact that modern nations are built
based on knowledge-based economies rooted in advances in science and
technology. Bush was the C-in-C for the USA for 8 agonizing years, for
God's sake. Did he do anything to alter the deep-rooted mindset in
America that science and technology is what builds nations? Did he mess
up with Silicon Valley, for example? Did he mess up with university
grants/funding? Did he cut the budget for science and technology research
(NSF and related bodies)? Of course not. No self-respecting nation jokes
with science and technology. It is, and will always be, the engine of the
economy.
Toyin : Our disagreement here is on your statement that
“science and technology is what builds nations.”
and your earlier assertion that
scientists and engineers are the most important members of modern society and
other disciplines are peripheral, and at best,
simply support for science and technology.
I have been arguing that Western society is
built through a long history in which modern science and technology are
later developments, developments made possible by developments in
non-scientific aspects of social existence, and reinforced by the effects of science. Modern nations in general might look as if they are
based on science on of its ubiquitous and fundamental presence but it is more
accurate to describe science and technology as a central, inalienable component of these societies rather than
their foundations. I argue these societies
are based on particular social principles and values, not on science in isolation from
those values and not always as the origin of the values. These principles and
values contribute to science and science helps to strengthen them, but they are
not identical with science.
Nollywood and the Nigerian Banking and Oil Industries in Relation to Humanpower Development, Technological Enablement and Political Initiative
29. Toyin : Such
skill is necessary but is it the absence of such skill that has led to the
country not being able to account for the huge sums of money allocated to
developing the refineries and to Nigeria being largely an importer rather
than a processor of its own oil? What role does the county and its indigenised
companies play in oil exploration and extraction? Are the limitations of the
country in this area due more to lack of skilled personnel than to
inadequate political will and planning to develop and equip such personnel in
the first place?
As it is, the only Nigerian industry in which its citizens demonstrate originality that enables them stand out as a group in the global community and earn significant income for the nation on that basis is Nollywood, an example of the very story telling that Abba derides as not being central to developing a modern society. This, to me, is the only industry in which Nigerians as a group demonstrate a globally marked level of originality.
Abba : Science and technology is at the core of what Nollywood does. Will there be Nollywood if film and camera were not invented, for example? Who invented these things...storytellers or scientists and engineers? The arts industry in Nigeria (and anywhere else in the world) will be essentially non-existent if you take away advances in science and technology. This is, of course, very obvious.
Toyin : The arts existed, and in a
vibrant form, well before the advent of science and technology. Your own
country’s most significant achievement is created by story tellers using
technology to tell stories. Those stories cannot be told by scientists. Without
actors, directors, producers, merchants, no Nollywood. Technology on its own,
cannot produce Nollywood. It needs the vision of the artists and their
financiers to create Nollywood. Without the story telling skills of the human
beings, the technology and the engineers who created it would not produce
Nollywood.
30. Toyin
: [Nollywood] is also the most visible
original export of the nation. I expect it is the highest foreign exchange
earner of the nation from any original achievement of its citizens.
The Nigerian oil industry, as far as I know, is largely a buying and selling industry. Selling crude oil, buying processed petroleum. The banking industry is not known for any particular innovations, to the best of my very limited knowledge of banking. I also doubt if Nigerian banks have a significant global reach.
Abba : Will there be oil and/or banking industry without technology? I honestly do not understand why you are saying these things.
Toyin : Oil is made possible by technology. Technology is vital to banking. But
even though we have technology, oil/banking, what is the level of achievement
there? Does technology of itself ensure achievement?
So far, the only group of people achieving at marked creative levels are the
storytellers of Nollywood. The fact that the others are not performing at that
level shows that technology and science
do not grantee success. The human element, represented by the vision of
Nollywood actors, directors, producers, marketers, is what makes Nollywood.
Technology is the tool they use. That tool provides a medium for their
vision but is not identical with that vision. If such vision existed in the oil
and banking industries, we shall see how technology can be more
creatively used by its non-scientist,
non-engineer users.
Nollywood would do well to sponsor technological
research and development from their
earnings, since scientists and engineers
often depends on other sectors,
including the arts, business and politics for funding. The key issue is that of availability of sources of capital
from any source and Nollywood can be a
key source of investment capital in indigenous science and technology
which could be developed in relation to enhancing the science and technology
used in Nollywood.
31. Toyin : To what degree [is
Nigeria’s financial industry] engaged in
economic activities outside Nigeria and to what degree do they contribute to
driving development in Nigeria?
Abba : This is not relevant. Will there be banking and oil industry if we had no technology? Will arts contribute at all in the development of oil and banking industries in Nigeria? This is the crux of the matter. Maybe you do not understand what I am arguing about. For me, modern nations are built based on science. There will, simply, be no oil industry if there was no technology. There won't be banking industry if there was no technology. There won't be Nollywood if there was no technology.
Toyin : You ignore the role of financial activities in developing a modern economy, in enabling the financial lifeblood that energises the economy. Without such economic enablements, how will you develop a modern society, talk less finance the heavy investment required to develop modern science and technology?
There were banks before the development of modern science and technology. So, its not true that there would not be a banking industry if there no science and technology. Financial industries play a central role in building science and technology and science and technology enhance the efficiency of the financial industry.
My second argument is that the presence of science and technology in banking or any industry does not necessarily imply that that industry will play a striking role in developing a modern society, as demonstrated by the much weaker achievements of the Nigerian baking industry compared to Nollywood as well as the low level of achievement of the Nigerian oil industry.
In relation to the role of financial institutions in enabling development of modern societies I ask the questions in no. 32 below:
32. Toyin : Do [ Nigerian financial
institutions ] fund genuine claims to scientific and technological achievement
in Nigeria? To what degree do they fund the obvious success of Nollywood so
that the industry can move beyond sheer volume to greater quality that can
penetrate global markets beyond what is likely to be its Black African
fan base at home and abroad? The stupendous budgets, which allied with a
dazzling array of skills, enables Hollywood to rule the global film world might
be based to a significant degree on backing by financial
institutions. What role are similar institutions in Nigeria playing in
this crying need?
Abba : Digression.
Toyin : Not a digression because it relates to national development in the
context of the use of technology. Such use will not by itself promote
development. It has to be applied judiciously for that to be achieved.
Technology alone, as used by the banks, will not promote development. They need
to invest in industries, artistic and technological. Such investment has a
spiralling effect on the economy,
including science and technology. Who funds new technologies if not business
and government?
Critical Thinking as Foundational to Modern Societies
33. Toyin : In sum, to describe any society as based on science and technology in the narrow sense of the physical and the biological sciences, talk less of claiming that African societies need to be based on science and technology to achieve modernity, is a very limited understanding of science and technology as well as of social development and management, talk less of the development of civilizations.
Abba : I totally disagree. You have not made a
case for this at all.
Toyin : I have argued that science and technology are vital but as parts of a
larger system including other skills and knowledge not from science.
34. Toyin : It is accurate,
instead, to describe modern societies as based on critical thinking, based on
evidence and on aspiration to social ideals that empower as many people as
possible.
Abba : Good science is based on critical thinking and evidence (rigour)...there can be no innovation without such.
Science also, in general, addresses the needs of
society. So, what you say in this case is in line with what science
is. It is merely a basic, not ``accurate", component of what
constitutes good science.
Toyin : Critical thinking emerges in democratic representation through a majority
but it is not science. Critical thinking emerges in social and economic policy,
but that is not science. Using science in assessing social needs is done in
concert with those who provide the money to mass market technologies, fund
science and integrate it into social programmes. Most of the time those people
are not scientists. They adapt science
to human needs.
Critical thinking emerges in all disciplines, from the arts to the sciences.
Its subject matter and methodological specificity in science make science different.
35. Toyin : These approaches are focused on rather than on speculation
or religious faith. Within this context, science and technology are harnessed
in concert with other disciplines in building and running these
societies.
Abba : I absolutely have no idea what you mean
here. Science has no connection with religion. I cannot see the
connection. Science applied to other (non-science) disciplines is still
science. What are you saying here?
Toyin : An omission in my sentence. It should read ' These approaches are focused on critical thinking
rather than on speculation or religious faith. Within this
context, science and technology are harnessed in concert with other
disciplines in building and running these societies.'
I argue that critical thinking is centred on logic rather than speculation or
faith. Science is also based on logic, but in building societies, it works with
the critical thinking of other disciplines, disciplines that actually use science without their being science. The US army used electronic
surveillance to find Bin Laden and guns to kill him. That does not make the
assault a scientific enterprise. It was, rather, one where science played a central role in its
use by the military.
Hans Belting alludes to the tension between faith and religion in the influence of science on art in the histories of Islamic and Western civilisation in his A New Perspective on Florence and Baghdad, as described in this summary from the publishers:
Belting reveals the sensational fact that the “invention” of perspective in the West is actually due to a discovery that had already been made in the Arabic World centuries before the Renaissance. The Arab mathematician Alhazen developed an optical theory—in the middle of a culture largely devoid of images—which later formed the basis for Western perspective painting. Belting explains why Islamic art wasn’t influenced by the discovery, due to its religious, cultural and scientific contexts. He also explains why the effects on European art didn’t appear until later:
The rationalism dominant in the era when Arab science reached its peak could not bear fruit in the West until the modern period, since it was based on scientific experiments liberated from every kind of theological baggage. During the epoch that we in the West call the Middle Ages, the subjects of mathematics and astronomy were popular in the Arab world, which had not yet come under the kind of dogmatic constraints so prevalent later.
As Belting puts it elsewhere: “The Arab theory of optics was known at European universities by the thirteenth century, but it did not become a theory of pictures until the fifteenth century. The grounds for its transformation were not scientific but cultural.”
There’s much to digest here. Work like Alhazen’s came from a period when Arab societies were open to scientific inquiry that was remarkably free of theology in a way that Christian science and society were not. At the time of Alhazen’s development of the theory of perspective, there was simply too much “theological baggage” for the concept to yet begin to influence Western art.
One may also see Aldo Matteucis' critical Amazon review, although it doe not address what is being discussed here.
36. Toyin : To describe the role of the arts in Nigeria, and particularly of story telling, as very limited or irrelevant in relation to building a modern society is to ignore the facts of history, as demonstrated spectacularly in the economic and larger social impact of Nollywood, the most significant industry in Nigeria in terms of originality in relation to global reach.
Abba : Like I stated above, there will be no Nollywood
without science and technology. Prove me wrong.
Toyin : My argument is that the existence of technology cannot by itself ensure
the existence and success of Nollywood,
as shown by the relative performances of the Nigerian oil and banking
industries. Is technology the most important component of Nollywood? No. It is
the vision of the actors, writers, directors, producers who USE the technology that is the heart of
Nollywood, making their success possible.
If technology alone guarantees great success , the Nigerian oil and banking
industries would have been much more
successful.
thanks
toyin
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