KARACHI:
The appeal of ‘crackpot’ science is soaring in a country which spends a monstrous budget on scientific research, but still witnesses immense following for quacks like Agha Waqar who popularise incorrect concepts of science, said Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy.
Speaking at a gathering of students and science enthusiasts at The 2nd Floor (T2F), Karachi, Dr Hoodbhoy said that Agha Waqar’s fame is the direct result of neglect towards science. Waqar, an ‘inventor’ from Khairpur, had earlier claimed to produce a ‘fuel replacement’ for cars, which allows one to supplant fossil fuels with water. In a furious confrontation on national television, he had debunked Waqar’s claims.
Dr Hoodbhoy has repeatedly said that such a fuel replacement goes against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. “Crackpots like Agha Waqar are in every country. However, never has such a fraud won backing from the government,” he said. “Imagine cabinet ministers and the president himself endorsing such an invention. The comedy, however, is the country’s top-rated scientists are championing the ‘invention’ without a thorough investigation.”
In the past seven to eight years, the Higher Education Commission has sponsored an overwhelming number of research projects and PhDs in science subjects, Dr Hoodbhoy added. However, this serves as a poor indicator of scientific progress, as much of the produced research is shoddy and plagiarised. “An approved PhD thesis [on the quantitative study of chromotherapy], supervised by a leading faculty member of a country’s prominent university, was reviewed with shock by physics Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, who said that the candidate hardly deserved a doctorate,” said Hoodbhoy.
Throwing money towards science was not the solution to widespread ignorance, rather emphasis should be laid on fine-tuning teaching practices at schools and colleges, Dr Hoodbhoy claimed. He added that crackpot science will win attention when there is aversion towards scientific rationality, and the problem could only be nipped in the bud through education.
Lamenting Waqar’s fraudulence, Dr Hoodbhoy said that as a people, Pakistanis were constantly in search of extraordinary solutions to problems. “We are desperate for miracles. We are desperate for anything which might ease things for us, even if it comes in the form of nonsensicalities. Scientific solutions don’t come through shortcuts, instead, they come through years of rigorous training and hard work.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2012.
COMMENTS (25)
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The original source of the myth that a motor car can be run on water may be John E Worrell Keely. In 1872 he claimed to have discovered a new type of motor. He was able to demonstrate this motor in his research laboratory and was able to refine it to the stage where it ran on nothing but air and a thimbleful of water. He publicised his water-powered car and managed to get plenty of funding for the project.
It was only after he died in 1898 that the scam came to light. On demolishing his laboratory a large compressed air tank was found in the basement. He'd been running all his motors off a compressed air tank.
The scam was so successful that many people to this day have attempted to duplicate, update and exploit the idea that a water-powered car is possible.
@Nosherwan Shaikh:
Yes, totally agree with you.
@just_someone: Good comment BUT Pervez HoodBhoy personally contacted the nobel laureate through his mit.edu email address. I read the email conversation a while back. A person like you getting 4 likes is another reassurance of opinion without knowledge - not only yours, but also the four followers. anyways. CHILL.
@Umer: You mind your own business.
That's why they are called miracles and not science :D
@MB,,,"@just_someone If Weinberg can take time out to meet “just someone”, he can sure spend two minutes reading a phd dissertation."..........simply wittty Sir.
Kudos to Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy. It still amazes me that some of your most prominent scientist immediately backed the water car - tells me that they are either didn't deserve their PHD's or have no moral compass (maybe both). One would think that every time one of these "so called" experts gets on the stage he would be hounded by reporters asking him about his boneheaded decision to support a moronic concept like the water car. Anywhere else in the World these experts would lose all credibility.
@Ali S: PH used to lecture at T2F well before joining LUMS and will continue to do so well after leaving LUMS. Why so much spite?
@Mushtaq Alam: there is an ugly smear campaign in the blogosphere against PH too. the great degree of details given about PH's activities on campus point directly to one/more persons within the LUMS administration. If you even suspected that PH might bring this up at T2F, you have no idea what the man is made up of.
@just_someone: i'm a physicist who has seen the dissertation in question. the claims and premises on which they are built are so utterly against the principles of science (that water becomes electrically charged when exposed to sunlight!) that one really does not have to plough through the gibberish to arrive at a conclusion. my question to you: why do we have such a soft corner for psuedoscience crackpots. is it our desperate desperate desire to acieve something worthwhile without the hard work and brain power required for distinction?
My question is: what is the status of Agha Maqar's Water Kit? He was supposed to be working with "investors" from around the world to bring a Rs. 60,000 water kit to mass market by the end of this year. We need Hamid Mir, idiot par excellence, to do another "sensational" show to demo it by fixing the worthless gadget on Syed Khurshid Shah, Pervez Rashid, Talat Hussain, all the brains dead scientists from the government's cars and his own car,
@just_someone If Weinberg can take time out to meet "just someone", he can sure spend two minutes reading a phd dissertation.
From LUMS visiting faculty to T2F, quite a fall eh?
Thank you for the clarification all, I can see Weinberg as a person who would read it just to know the standard of advanced education in Pakistan.
PH should mind his own business. Other scientists in Pakistan also know about science. The easiest approach is to criticize others. A positive approach requires encouragement and support; not just criticism. Regards.
@just_someone:
Read this email exchange between Hoodbhoy, Weinberg and the Chairman of HEC. This is what Hoodboy was referring to:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/mehran-gul/nobel-laureates-to-hec-the-vice-chancellor-of-your-1-ranked-university-is-an-idi/10150879805482846
Mr. Hoodbhoy should learn restraint and quit spitting venom and name calling. Sure, Agha Waqar was a rot, is a rot but that in no way allows Mr. Hoodbhoy to frame him as a fraud.
Let alone Agha Waqar, his name calling attitude needs to go.
Where is Mr Waqar and those who praised his "discovery" including the so called Scientists of Pakistan. All faculty ,journalist ,Ministers and government servants who praised Mr Waqar's discovery should be given "water" allowance instead of free petrol quota
@just_someone: The dissertation was forwarded to him by Hoodbhoy.
This is the clarity and crispness which no other intellectual in Pakistan has
@just_someone: Steven Wienberg read the thesis on the request of Dr Hoodbhoy when Dr. Leghari who is the present chairman of HEC refused to accept the reservations of Dr Hoodbhoy. Dr. Leghari actually supervised this crazy thesis :) You can find Dr. Wienberg's letter commenting on this thesis on the internet which was addressed to Dr. Hoodbhoy.
@just_someone
Steven Weinberg did not read his on his own initiative...Hoodboy requested him to do so...and that had to be done because other crackpot intellectuals would not have believed Hoodboys' point of view about the education system...the video of Hoodboy mentioning the same is available on youtube.
Saw this yesterday and enjoyed it.
Was very very happy that LUMS issue did not come up. Glad Pervez did not rase this and have been very impressed at the patience and dignity shown by LUMS and its Vice Chancellor, Dr. Najam, in the restraint they have shown despite all the ugly comments hurled at both.
Ive actually met Steven Weinberg a couple of times. Eventhough he is still very active in research, he hardly seems like a man who wastes his time reading dissertations of fresh PhDs coming out of Pakistan. I would be surprised if he even reads the dissertations of most fresh PhDs coming out of US universities.