This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.History is full of episodes and examples of people who, for having been a bit more clairvoyant, thoughtful, humanistic, or heterodox than...
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
"Nostalgia for the Light" looks absolutely fantastic!
by Salman Hameed
This year can be absolutely fascinating for thoughtful science-themed documentaries. First, we have Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams that looks at some of humanity's earliest expressions of art. But check out the trailer for Nostalgia for the Light. It is set in Atacama desert in Chile. The desert is high and dry - and is now serving home to some of the best observatories in...
Friday, February 25, 2011
AAAS Meeting: Quantum Leap in the Search for Other Earths (and Life)
This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.
As I mentioned in my previous report...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
At Whitman College for a symposium on Global Media, Global Spectacles
by Salman Hameed
I'm currently in Seattle (for the first time), on my way to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. First of all, I can vouch that the west coast (and especially the north-west) is really far from the east coast. This is now an empirical and emotional observation. Second, the Seattle of my imagination has turned out to be exactly right: Rainy, cold, and dreary. But no Eddie Vedder!!...
Extrasolar planets and religious implications of ET at the AAAS - Part 1
by Salman Hameed
Following Nidhal's post, here are some of my impressions from last week's AAAS meeting. I will have another post on it tomorrow.
One of the most interesting sessions I attended was on the implications of the discovery of exoplanets and possibly extraterrestrial life – where Nidhal was one of the speakers. But before that, let me first digress to mention that I also had...
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Integrating science in Muslim societies
by Salman Hameed
One of the advantages of attending conferences is that you get to meet other academics and researchers who are working in related areas. At the AAAS meeting last week, I had a chance to meet Naser Faruqui, the director of science policy at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada (yes, they still insist on spelling "center" the wrong way :) ). The meeting ended...
Monday, February 21, 2011
Nidhal's report from the AAAS: General impressions, Kuwaiti-research, and evolution
This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.
This is my first participation in an AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Meeting, and I have found it just great....
Saturday, February 19, 2011
On the use of social media in the uprisings in the Middle East
by Salman Hameed
Things are turning for worse in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. Every country is facing its local variables. For example, Yemen is the poorest of the states, and with no discernible middle class, Bahrain uprising linked with the dissatisfaction of predominantly the majority Shi'a population, and Libya has an absence of dense city centers. All of these variables are very different than...
Thursday, February 17, 2011
At the annual AAAS meeting in Washington D.C.
I have just arrived in D.C. for the annual AAAS meeting. This year's theme is "Science Without Borders". I will definitely have posts from the conference. But here is one of the cool things: Nidhal (Guessoum) will also be here - so we will have an IRTIQA mini-get-together.
You can check the vast vast program of the meeting here. I'm on a panel The Challenge of Teaching Evolution in the Islamic World....
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sagan on Life looking for Life
Wonderfully done. Here are some nice visuals added to Sagan's audio book of Pale Blue Dot. No need to fear the dark and the unknown. We are searching for life in the unknown. Indeed, "life looks for life".
...
Monday, February 14, 2011
A review of ‘Flickering Pixels: how technology shapes your faith’
This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.
I continue to be highly interested...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Education and Jobs in the Middle East
Still hard to believe the events in Egypt of the past couple of weeks. Here is an interesting article that talks about the combination of rising education and unemployment rates in Tunisia, Egypt and some other countries in the Middle East. But here is the key point about technology with which I completely...
Friday, February 11, 2011
YES!! Mubarak Gone!
It is absolutely riveting to watch what has been unfolding in Egypt. The next few days will be crucial to see how the next set-up will be like. Nevertheless, lets celebrate for now! The last 18 days have been absolutely incredible. Its got to shake things even more in the Middle East. C'mon Libya...
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Get ready for Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"
Classes have started and it is still cold with lots of snow around. In other words, the world is looking very bleak right now and the semester is seriously kicking my butt. But wait. I see some light. Ah...its a new film by Werner Herzog: Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Not only that, it is about some of world's first art pieces, in Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in Southern France. These cave...
Monday, February 07, 2011
Statistical Analyses to Predict the Next Revolution(s)
This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.The Tunisian revolution took everyone by surprise. And immediately afterwards, aftershocks occurred in nearby countries (Algeria, Libya,...
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Celebrating anti-intellectualism and ignorance with Javed Chaudhry
Last Sunday I had posted about the astonishing display of intellectual ignorance by Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston. For a change of language, below is a clip of a popular Pakistani TV anchor, Javed Choudhry, displaying an equal level of ignorance about evolution, and about the pursuit of knowledge, in general. Even if you don't speak Urdu, just play the clip for a few minutes, and you will detect...
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Protecting Egyptian Museum in Cairo
I had a chance to see the Egyptian Antiquities Museum this past December - and it is absolutely amazing. It is not often that one has a chance to see, up close, statues and other objects 3000-4000 years old! Many of these artifacts are in very good condition. And then you have the mummies. It is quite...
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Getting closer to finding habitable planets!
An artist's conception of the 6-planet system of Kepler 11
This is absolutely stunning! Kepler mission has so far detected 1235 candidate planets (see here for details on how Kepler detects planets). Out of these, 68 are the size of the Earth! Wait. This is not all. Astronomers usually get...
A wind farm and the 'sacredness' of wind
From time to time I try to bring issues of science and religion interactions that are not related some of the big world religions nor are they about issue of origins and scientific explanations. I find issues of science and native (American and Hawaiian) religions quite complex and often deeply tied...
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