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Use and Misuse / Oxford comma
« on: August 21, 2011, 12:27:13 PM »
What do you think of initiatives to do away with the serial comma a.k.a as the Oxford comma?
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Education and Teaching / Re: PNoy’s science policy insults scientists
« on: August 21, 2011, 01:47:01 AM »
Re: Roger Posadas’s comments on “PNoy science policy insults scientists”
While Dr. Posadas may be right, there are other technologies that the Philippines can prioritize in order to catch up. But I don’t think a monorail is it.
Also I do not subscribe to the thesis that Japan became technologically advanced first before becoming a scientific powerhouse. This thesis is too Western. Japan already had a literate population, its own indigenous science and technology and medical science prior to Commodore Perry’s port call and the Meiji restoration. Japan was already advanced in Japanese science (partly contributed by “Dutch Knowledge” in Nagasaki when the country was closed), thus it is was quite easy for Japan to “catch up” with the West! Historical accounts by the Protestant Europeans who were allowed to trade with the Closed Country all say that the Japanese were not that interested with technology as with the science behind it.
One evidence of Japan’s prior preparation in science and technology is that world-class international publications were accepted in the best science journal in Asia during the first decade of the 20th century. Japanese results in basic medical sciences and medical technology were published in the Philippine Journal of Science (PJS) starting 1908! Many of the findings, most especially in cancer research and tropical medicine, were cited by the West.
The American colonial establishment, in a sense, tried to implement a Japanese kind of science and technology prioritization. This was further supported by Quezon’s Commonwealth. Indigenous technologies coupled with ensuring that these were vetted by scientific research as published in PJS gave the journal good credibility. In World War II, this preparation allowed Filipino scientists to alleviate the hardships of the Japanese occupation especially in medicine and food technology. After WWII, however, the Philippines did not follow through and took a less focused approach by developing local technologies without developing their basic science capabilities and ramping up scientific publication. The quality of PJS suffered as a result.
Japan had the science when they started developing the technologies. The model proposed by Dr. Posadas is exactly the other way around. We have the technology and then find out the science behind it. And if we have done so, then what? Dr. Posadas’ model is not the one that is now powering translational science research in Korea, Singapore, and Thailand and is increasingly being adopted by the ASEAN countries. Translational research is the one that attracts the investors sooner and not the S&T model Dr. Posadas promotes. Why? It is because our economy is not as competitive now than—let me say the mantra—“When the Philippines was second to Japan in Asia.” Whatever technologies we develop should meet an unmet need that has wide global marketing potential, and this should be our priority. We are just too late in the LED TV market but we can try to do that if we can attract Samsung to transfer some of their techie knowhow here. But I doubt if a Pinoy LED TV will be as competitive as the made-in- China LED TVs that CDR king sells! Thus, if DOST comes up with a technological product like this, will the investors form a beeline to develop it? I doubt it. It will end up like any of the nice ideas that live and die in SMEx inventors’ fairs!
Let me suggest a science and technology sector that DOST should put its money in. These include technologies in helping people cope up with climate and environmental changes. First, environmental sensors technology. The country has good expertise in this; it is just a matter of prioritizing it. There is money to be made here and it should generate serious climate-change research in the country. Any search on the Internet would show that the technology here is relatively undeveloped but any knowledgeable Pinoy knows that country has the knowhow. We need not copy Japanese/Korean technology here but develop that knowhow. If you cross over the Ateneo campus, in fact, some of the undergrad students are already into it—but for a different application. The science is sound but the technology isn’t. Does DOST know this?
What we need are serious prioritization of science and technology development.
Ben
ABOUT DR. VALLEJO:
Dr. Benjamin M. Vallejo, Jr., is a faculty member of the College of Science and affiliate faculty in geography of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He has a PhD in Marine Biology from the James Cook University in Australia, and his fields of interest are pure and applied biogeography, coral reef malacology, and aquarium science.
While Dr. Posadas may be right, there are other technologies that the Philippines can prioritize in order to catch up. But I don’t think a monorail is it.
Also I do not subscribe to the thesis that Japan became technologically advanced first before becoming a scientific powerhouse. This thesis is too Western. Japan already had a literate population, its own indigenous science and technology and medical science prior to Commodore Perry’s port call and the Meiji restoration. Japan was already advanced in Japanese science (partly contributed by “Dutch Knowledge” in Nagasaki when the country was closed), thus it is was quite easy for Japan to “catch up” with the West! Historical accounts by the Protestant Europeans who were allowed to trade with the Closed Country all say that the Japanese were not that interested with technology as with the science behind it.
One evidence of Japan’s prior preparation in science and technology is that world-class international publications were accepted in the best science journal in Asia during the first decade of the 20th century. Japanese results in basic medical sciences and medical technology were published in the Philippine Journal of Science (PJS) starting 1908! Many of the findings, most especially in cancer research and tropical medicine, were cited by the West.
The American colonial establishment, in a sense, tried to implement a Japanese kind of science and technology prioritization. This was further supported by Quezon’s Commonwealth. Indigenous technologies coupled with ensuring that these were vetted by scientific research as published in PJS gave the journal good credibility. In World War II, this preparation allowed Filipino scientists to alleviate the hardships of the Japanese occupation especially in medicine and food technology. After WWII, however, the Philippines did not follow through and took a less focused approach by developing local technologies without developing their basic science capabilities and ramping up scientific publication. The quality of PJS suffered as a result.
Japan had the science when they started developing the technologies. The model proposed by Dr. Posadas is exactly the other way around. We have the technology and then find out the science behind it. And if we have done so, then what? Dr. Posadas’ model is not the one that is now powering translational science research in Korea, Singapore, and Thailand and is increasingly being adopted by the ASEAN countries. Translational research is the one that attracts the investors sooner and not the S&T model Dr. Posadas promotes. Why? It is because our economy is not as competitive now than—let me say the mantra—“When the Philippines was second to Japan in Asia.” Whatever technologies we develop should meet an unmet need that has wide global marketing potential, and this should be our priority. We are just too late in the LED TV market but we can try to do that if we can attract Samsung to transfer some of their techie knowhow here. But I doubt if a Pinoy LED TV will be as competitive as the made-in- China LED TVs that CDR king sells! Thus, if DOST comes up with a technological product like this, will the investors form a beeline to develop it? I doubt it. It will end up like any of the nice ideas that live and die in SMEx inventors’ fairs!
Let me suggest a science and technology sector that DOST should put its money in. These include technologies in helping people cope up with climate and environmental changes. First, environmental sensors technology. The country has good expertise in this; it is just a matter of prioritizing it. There is money to be made here and it should generate serious climate-change research in the country. Any search on the Internet would show that the technology here is relatively undeveloped but any knowledgeable Pinoy knows that country has the knowhow. We need not copy Japanese/Korean technology here but develop that knowhow. If you cross over the Ateneo campus, in fact, some of the undergrad students are already into it—but for a different application. The science is sound but the technology isn’t. Does DOST know this?
What we need are serious prioritization of science and technology development.
Ben
ABOUT DR. VALLEJO:
Dr. Benjamin M. Vallejo, Jr., is a faculty member of the College of Science and affiliate faculty in geography of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He has a PhD in Marine Biology from the James Cook University in Australia, and his fields of interest are pure and applied biogeography, coral reef malacology, and aquarium science.
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