Nature 442, 719-720(17 August 2006)

Whatever its motivation, Iran’s support for education and science is to be welcomed.

In eleventh-century Persia, it is said that three school friends pledged to serve their country and share their fortunes. Very different fortunes, it turned out.

Nizam al-Mulk became prime minister to two consecutive Persian kings. He built a network of roads across the country, and established the chain of ‘Nizamiyya’ schools, which taught theology, science and mathematics, adhering to a national curriculum.

Hassan-i Sabbah became the head of a fanatical religious group, the Hashshashin, which operated an almost independent government, protected by a string of castles. The many attempts by Persian kings to overthrow the Hashshashin failed, and Nizam al-Mulk was eventually assassinated by Sabbah’s followers.

Omar Khayyam became the greatest astronomer and mathematician of his age. He invented, for example, the Khayyam triangle — better known as the Pascal triangle, after Blaise Pascal who described it hundreds of years later. Khayyam also provided his country with a solar calendar, more accurate than the gregorian calendar we use today. And he became one of Persia’s most popular poets.

In the millennium since the three school friends parted company, the country we now know as Iran has witnessed a sometimes glorious, often sad, political history. Along with the rest of the Middle East, Iran’s scientific power declined as Europe’s ascended with the Renaissance. But the nation’s cultural respect for study never died.

Science regained its foothold during the 1970s, under the Shah, even though his oppressive regime drove many intellectuals into exile. It faltered at the start of the Islamic revolution in 1979, but gained momentum in the 1990s when Iran became the most scientifically productive country in the Middle East apart from Israel. About 4,000 papers from Iran were published in 2005, according to the Institute for Scientific Information, compared with just over 500 in 1995. (Nature’s first all-Iranian research paper was published last week.)

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Nature 443, 271(21 September 2006)

Iran: support for science does not outweigh crimes

Itamar Rabinovich

Office of the President, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Sir:

I was horrified to read the text of your Editorial “Revival in Iran” (Nature 442, 719–720; 200610.1038/442719b). I cannot comprehend how one of the world’s leading scientific journals could publish an article calling for scientists to adopt a benign attitude towards the present Iranian regime.

I was impressed by the sentence in the Editorial citing the fact that one of the current government’s “first acts was to wipe out the debts accrued by universities”.

Nevertheless, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has also called publicly for my own country to be “wiped out” — from the map of the Earth. He has also been a consistent Holocaust denier, even organizing an exhibition of cartoons poking fun at the Holocaust.

At the same time, human rights are being trampled in Iran, as noted by independent organizations such as Amnesty International (see http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/irn-summary-eng). The regime commits many other crimes at home and abroad; it is described by the US State Department, for example, as the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism” (see http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2006/65559.htm).

One needs a unique degree of detachment to commend the regime for a presumably liberal attitude to science and higher education, while looking away from the dominant aspects of its essence and policies. I strongly urge Nature to reconsider its position.

Iran is sixth, not second, in Middle East publication list

Eran Meshorer

National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 41 Library Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA

Sir:

Your Editorial “Revival in Iran” (Nature 442, 719–720; 200610.1038/442719b) states that, in the 1990s, “Iran became the most scientifically productive country in the Middle East apart from Israel”. This is a misleading statement, true only when ignoring relative population size.

With a population of 68 million, Iran is the second largest country in the Middle East. It is impossible to compare small countries such as Lebanon, with 3.9 million inhabitants, or Jordan (5.9 million) to one that is 10 times more populous by merely counting the number of scientific publications. Population size should be normalized.

When the number of publications (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entrez) is corrected for population size, Iran becomes only the sixth in terms of scientific productivity. Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia top the list.

Iran’s progress towards nuclear capability is no joke

Guy Goodwin

University Department, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK

Sir:

One might have thought it was 1 April, rather than 17 August, on reading your indefensible celebration of Iran’s nuclear programme, supposedly promoting science and education (”Revival in Iran” Nature 442, 719–720; 200610.1038/442719b). Perhaps when the fruit of this programme explodes in London, you will be writing an explanation of the humanistic ethics involved.

APS (American Physical Society) News, August/September 2006
by Dr. Hamid Javadi*

Formation of a network group for US physicists with Iranian heritage appears to be timely. Already, three distinct groups form a nucleus for US physicists with Chinese, Korean, and Indian cultural heritage–the Oversees Chinese Physics Association (OCPA), American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association (ACIPA), and Association of Korean Physicists in America (AKPA). Each of these groups has established bylaws which govern their activities.

In the same way that those organizations have enhanced linkages throughout their community, this article intends to be an open invitation to all APS members that respect diversity and value dialog, to form an Iranian-American Physicists (IrAP) network group.

First, some personal thoughts as an Iranian-American physicist, regarding the motivation for creating such a network:

It is important to nurture diversity in its true sense. Some cultures may not be equipped to deal with challenges of the future. The key to success in the field of science is also pen-mindedness and high receptivity. While our political world today does not always portray tolerance, I believe that the human spirit heralds a bright and friendly future for all of us.

Diversity resonates with teachings of Sufism (the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam [1]) that tolerates aspect of human endeavors as manifestation of ubiquitous God. Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi (Iran’s most revered poet, 1207-1283 A.D.) drove these teachings to the heart and mind of many generations of Iranians. He promoted the idea that every thing (no matter how insignificant it may seem) is important and valuable as it plays its role in God’s arena. Rumi in one of his celebrated poems; “The Elephant in the Dark House” [2] describes
many individuals who enter a dark room where an elephant is kept. Each person learns about the animal from his/her point of reference, namely the elephant’s specific anatomy that he/she has touched. The tales of observers are widely different but the whole picture comes only when one combines their descriptions.

This poem addresses the variation of human perceptions of the world and to an extent can be applied to a physicist’s approach in understanding the world. To be accurate though, science starts with hypothesis and solidifies when it is confirmed with observation. As such, science is a precise endeavor of the human being.

This digression brings me to enumerate the goals of the proposed Iranian-American Physicists (IrAP) network group in promoting diversity and dialogue.

Read the rest of the letter here.

*Hamid Javadi is in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Submillimeter Wave Advanced Technology Group.