Re:Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)
by pvaldes on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:10PM
(#24733328)
You don't need to have a democracy to do science. Many great scientists in Europe or Asia were able to work in the context of absolute monarchies, terrible dictators or a context of patronage. None of those were "democratic" at all.
Having a true democracy would be a bless for sure, but don't think that will magically produce scientists, or revolutionary new points of view. You need to seed, nurture, care for and harvest decades later. And this is one of the causes of decline of science. Everybody is now planned, arranged and forced to fit in chunks of 4 years, so the people now in power can take all the credit.
As bad as dictators are, a stable dictatorship could ironically lead to a much more comfortable environment for scientists than a democracy. The first thing that many politicians do after stepping in power is to fire the scientists identified with the previous government (or discredit their work, or remove their funds...).
Having a true democracy would be a bless for sure, but don't think that will magically produce scientists, or revolutionary new points of view. You need to seed, nurture, care for and harvest decades later. And this is one of the causes of decline of science. Everybody is now planned, arranged and forced to fit in chunks of 4 years, so the people now in power can take all the credit.
As bad as dictators are, a stable dictatorship could ironically lead to a much more comfortable environment for scientists than a democracy. The first thing that many politicians do after stepping in power is to fire the scientists identified with the previous government (or discredit their work, or remove their funds...).