Charen: NASA's "Muslim Outreach" is Not Surprising
In her weekly column, Mona Charen argues that it is not surprising that Obama encouraged NASA to focus on outreach to the Muslim world:
It’s not really surprising that President Obama told NASA administrator Charles Bolden that his highest priority should be “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science . . . and math and engineering.” It fits with so much that we already knew about the president.
It is consistent with his wildly exaggerated concept of governmental and presidential power and competence. Samuel Johnson wrote: “How small, of all that human hearts endure / that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” Mr. Obama believes the opposite — that his presidency can be a transformative moment not just for the nation, but for the world. He will halt global warming and stop the rise of the oceans, transition America to a green energy future, end the “cycle of boom and bust” in the economy, provide universal health care while spending less than before, cushion “underwater” mortgage holders without rewarding profligate borrowers, increase taxes on the “rich” without harming the middle class, solve the problem of excessive public debt by amassing more public debt, and so on.
How in the world would NASA help Muslim nations to “feel good” about themselves? Would NASA hold science fairs in Tripoli or Tehran? Produce and circulate propaganda films about Great Muslim Men (careful, never women) of Science? Stress our global debt to Muhammad ibn Masa al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra? (That’s risky, since al-Khwarizmi reportedly learned his math from the Indians.) How would Mr. Obama’s NASA chief undertake to alter the civilizational self-esteem of a billion people?
Of course, it’s entirely possible (pace Bernard Lewis) that the Muslim world does not lack for self-esteem on the matter of science or anything else. Certainly scientific know-how has not been lacking in nuclear-armed Pakistan, or (would-be) nuclear Iran. Besides, hasn’t Mr. Obama heard? The whole self-esteem myth has been exploded. Though millions of tax dollars and God only knows how many wasted instructional hours have gone toward making American kids think they are really, really special, it turns out that there is zero correlation between such drilled self-esteem and academic performance. (See Scientific American, January 2005.)
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