by Salman Hameed
I'm not completely surprised that one of the television stations in Pakistan have run a short nice historical piece in Darwin. I have encountered numerous educated Pakistani who have no problem with evolution. At the same time, there is a general perception in the same population that everyone rejects evolution in Pakistan. This disconnect is interesting - and is perhaps due to the vocal opposition of religious-political parties (who do not win seats in the elections, but manage to dress their opposition in religious clothes). Similarly, I visited the Pakistan's Natural History Museum last summer, and it does a very nice job of presenting evolution, including that of humans. I even had a chance to talk to the curator who is an enthusiastic supporter of science and science education. Kudos to all these efforts.
Here is the Dunya News piece on Darwin. It takes a positive stance on his ideas even though it mentions some early religious opposition to the publication of Origin of Species. Overall, a nice 1-minute segment (tip from Ali Kazim Gardezi):
I'm not completely surprised that one of the television stations in Pakistan have run a short nice historical piece in Darwin. I have encountered numerous educated Pakistani who have no problem with evolution. At the same time, there is a general perception in the same population that everyone rejects evolution in Pakistan. This disconnect is interesting - and is perhaps due to the vocal opposition of religious-political parties (who do not win seats in the elections, but manage to dress their opposition in religious clothes). Similarly, I visited the Pakistan's Natural History Museum last summer, and it does a very nice job of presenting evolution, including that of humans. I even had a chance to talk to the curator who is an enthusiastic supporter of science and science education. Kudos to all these efforts.
Here is the Dunya News piece on Darwin. It takes a positive stance on his ideas even though it mentions some early religious opposition to the publication of Origin of Species. Overall, a nice 1-minute segment (tip from Ali Kazim Gardezi):
2 comments:
good to see that on a Pak TV since I have seen a few programmes shown on Pak TV channels trying to disprove Darwin which Nadeem F. Paracha talks about here:
http://blog.dawn.com/2009/07/16/darwinnama/
On the other hand there are British muslim medical students walking out of lectures on evolution:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/298903/uks-muslim-students-boycott-lectures-on-evolution/
I don't think something like that has ever happened in Pakistan's universities and hope it never happens.
Thanks Asad.
And yes, I will have a post about the British medics later today.
Thanks for the Paracha link.
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