Iran needs to present a united front on science

摘要

Iranian officials last month unveiled the Mustafa Science and Technology prizes, for researchers in Islamic countries. The creation of the four US$500,000 prizes illustrates the growing importance to the Iranian leadership of domestic science and the nurturing of scientific cooperation and exchange with other nations. The Iranian government has already developed a cadre of distinguished scientists. State-run media routinely vaunt advances made by Iranian researchers, often new military systems. Iran hosted the Fifth International Conference of Cognitive Science in Tehran last year. And Hessamaddin Arfaei, a physicist at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in Tehran, visited the United States in April 2005 to deliver a lecture at a meeting of the American Physical Society and to continue his efforts "to establish interaction between Iranian scientists and the international scientific community". His trip was presumably carried out with the blessing of Iranian officials.