Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt, on page 745 of the August 8 2008 (Vol. 321) issue of Science stated in his Editorial on Science in Muslim Countries:
"There is a central core of universal values that any truly modern society must possess, and these are very much the values that science promotes: rationality, creativity, the search for truth, adherence to codes of behavior, and a certain constructive subversiveness. Science requires much more than money and projects. Science requires freedom; freedom to enquire, to challenge, to think, and to envision the unimagined. We must be able to question convention and arbitrate our disputes by the rules of evidence. It is the content of scientific work that matters, not the persons who produced it, regardless of the color of their skin, the god they choose to worship, the ethnic group they were born into, or their gender. These are the values of science, but even more, they are societal values worth defending, not just to promote the pursuit of science but to have a better and more humane society."
I was moved by Serageldin's very profound and very-well stated message. All in Wakulla County and Florida and the rest of our country need to take his message to heart. It is a message that is applicable to our conduct of democratic politics and governing. True democratic politics and governing requires freedom to enquire, to challenge, to think, and to envision the unimagined. They require freedom to question convention and ability to arbitrate disputes by the rules of evidence. It is the ideas and the implementation of policies that matters, not the persons who produced them, regardless of the color of their skin, the god they choose to worship, the ethnic group they were born into, or their gender.
Victor W. Lambou
Crawfordville
This letter originally published on August 21, 2008.
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