Re: Are There Scientists In Ghana?

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Kofi 9 years ago

Whats up with "the adoption of the evil economic system of communism" and "copying the achievement of the free world – America, Britain and the rest." Are you writing this to promote the West? If communism is all evil and c ...
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Whats up with "the adoption of the evil economic system of communism" and "copying the achievement of the free world – America, Britain and the rest." Are you writing this to promote the West? If communism is all evil and capitalism is the all around best, where do we(Ghana) belong? How do we compare with Cuba economically? At least they are working on extracting their own oil find rather than begging arrogant companies take advantage of their natural resources.
Nii 9 years ago

Dear Mr. Baidoo.
You made a good point about the challenges of the economy and its impact on our scientists. I had expected you to provide some practical solutions for the country. An example will be a government/private par ...
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Dear Mr. Baidoo.
You made a good point about the challenges of the economy and its impact on our scientists. I had expected you to provide some practical solutions for the country. An example will be a government/private partnership to fund some of the scientific innovations.
OKOE 9 years ago

I READ YOUR ARTICLE MR. BAIDOO AND IT IS ONLY THE LAST PARAGRAPH THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION AND WORTHY OF COMMENTING ON. YES, IF WE EMBRACE CAPITALISM WHOLEHEARTEDLY, GHANA WOULD BE BETTER OFF THAN SHE IS AT THE MOMENT. THE PRO ...
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I READ YOUR ARTICLE MR. BAIDOO AND IT IS ONLY THE LAST PARAGRAPH THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION AND WORTHY OF COMMENTING ON. YES, IF WE EMBRACE CAPITALISM WHOLEHEARTEDLY, GHANA WOULD BE BETTER OFF THAN SHE IS AT THE MOMENT. THE PROBLEM I HAVE WITH YOUR CONCLUSION IS THAT, YOUR SUGGESTION IS SIMPLISTIC. DR. NKRUMAH EMPTIED THE COFFERS BECAUSE AT THE TIME, AND MAY BE NOW THE MAJORITY OF THE CITIZENS OF GHANA HAVE VERY LITTLE CAPITAL TO VENTURE INTO ANY MEANINGFUL ENTERPRISE. HE USED THE STATE TO BUILD WHAT THE COUNTRY ENJOYS NOW AND THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IF SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS DID NOT SELL OF HIS INDUSTRIES. ONE NEEDS CAPITAL AND THE SOURCES OF CAPITAL CAN ONLY COME FROM ONESELF, RELATIVES, FRIENDS OR THE BANKS. LET US PUT EMPHASIS ON BANKS FOR SOURCING CAPITAL THAN THE REST I MENTIONED. THE BANKS NEVER GIVE LOANS WITHOUT MEANS IF PAYMENT OR A COLLATERAL. MY QUESTION IS MR. BAIDOO, HOW CAN WE EMBRACE CAPITALISM WITHOUT CAPITAL BASE BY THE GREATER MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION?. ONE COUNTRY I KNOW THAT PRACTICES COMMUNISM AND SOON MAY BE TAKING OVER AS ONE OF THE ECONOMIC GIANTS OF THE WORLD IS A COMMUNIST COUNTRY. HOW COME? I AM NOT AN ECONOMIST SO PARDON MY COMMENTS. IS CHINA A COMMUNIST OR CAPITALIST COUNTRY. I AM NOT SUGGESTING GHANA TO GO COMMUNIST YET IT LIKES COMMUNIST MONEY.
OKOE 9 years ago

SORRY I LEFT THE QUESTION MARK ON MY SUBJECT

SORRY I LEFT THE QUESTION MARK ON MY SUBJECT
Kalahariman 9 years ago

We have people going to school to learn science but we do not have scientist yet. Common Malaria, we cannot come up with a home grown science to fight that. The government and industries do not TAP into the Universities for S ...
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We have people going to school to learn science but we do not have scientist yet. Common Malaria, we cannot come up with a home grown science to fight that. The government and industries do not TAP into the Universities for Scientific research for technology - yet you have teachers taking research allowances. What??? research did you do...monies given for reseach are chopped by the universities - from head to toe.

Funds are given to MIT and other schools by companies to research and come up with a better product for manufacturing - Main reason why Dr Nkrumah came up with KNUST
Kalahariman 9 years ago

Don't confuse a scientist to someone who assembles already known technology

Don't confuse a scientist to someone who assembles already known technology
Kalahariman 9 years ago

They left Ghana long ago for UK and USA - The now work for NASA, ETC ETC...why should they stay and rot...

They left Ghana long ago for UK and USA - The now work for NASA, ETC ETC...why should they stay and rot...
Nana Kwesi 9 years ago

Can you name one of them Kalahariman

Can you name one of them Kalahariman
Concerned 9 years ago

Philip, in general your article raises some important issues we need to address as a nation but some of your analysis needs careful thought.
I will focus on the beginning and end. The balance sheet a analysis was quite misl ...
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Philip, in general your article raises some important issues we need to address as a nation but some of your analysis needs careful thought.
I will focus on the beginning and end. The balance sheet a analysis was quite misleading. You wrote that the good balance sheet left by the British was depleted by the time Nkrumah was overthrown. Can i point out to you that a balance sheet is not made up of cash alone but it includes fixed assets as well. The fixed assets also can be broken up into tangible and intangible assets. Valuation of the intangible assets is a very subjective and difficult area so analyst tend to ignore it and it does not appear on the balance sheet. I am not in a position to write detailed explanations but let's look at the state of the country when Nkrumah took over. The education level of the people was very low. The roads network was limited to getting raw materials from the source to the docks. We hardly had any factories. Health facilities were limited. Akosombo and similar projects were financed by loans which created huge liabilities on the balance sheet but the corresponding assets are there today or at least the ones which have not been sold off by successive governments. In a nutshell, the nature of the balance sheet had changed dramatically by the time Nkrumah was overthrown, it was less liquid but the corresponding fixed assets was higher. Intangible fixed assets like an educated population was not included because maybe it could not be measured or it did not suit his political opponents to acknowledge it.
To come to the end of your article, you said seek first the POLITICAL Kingdom was wrong but it should be the economic Kingdom. The economic Kingdom is important but it must be preceded by the political Kingdom. Nkrumah was referring to the governance. Without good governance a country or corporate body cannot function properly. I will keep it short by asking you to tell us how come that the K4 government managed to d
Concerned 9 years ago

I. just wanted to add that with good governance, ie the political Kingdom, the k4 government achieved more for Ghana than the current one is doing even with oil. Please forgive the errors in the previous comments as I acciden ...
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I. just wanted to add that with good governance, ie the political Kingdom, the k4 government achieved more for Ghana than the current one is doing even with oil. Please forgive the errors in the previous comments as I accidentally posted it without reading over it.
Benny 9 years ago

There is no Scientist in Ghana. Ghana we have talking Scientist or in Short Bookscientist and not discoveryscientist. If we go out of bookknowlege our traditionalmedicine men and women could use herbs to make medicine to comb ...
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There is no Scientist in Ghana. Ghana we have talking Scientist or in Short Bookscientist and not discoveryscientist. If we go out of bookknowlege our traditionalmedicine men and women could use herbs to make medicine to combact malaria and then this hilarious Doctor Ebola which is hampering out world but if this traditional medicine per say come out with their acquired knowledge medicine this bookscientist will tell them it must be tested in the lab. But medicineman no no lab.
Kalahariman 9 years ago

There is a plant called CURARE, after an observer saw a local hunter use the juice of it on his hunting bow and arrow to shoot down a deer, the deer only traveled a few feet and was paralyzed. Th observer started a scientifi ...
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There is a plant called CURARE, after an observer saw a local hunter use the juice of it on his hunting bow and arrow to shoot down a deer, the deer only traveled a few feet and was paralyzed. Th observer started a scientific research on rats - how much doze of the leaf will paralyze it and then later on humans - Today, that is the medicine that they give you for spinal anesthesia when you go to the hospital. Tell me any University or person, organisation who has taken it on themselves to research some of our local herbal medicines to come up with some medicine our hospitals can use?
Kwame 9 years ago

There are scientist in Ghana, and on the social aspect I am one of them. Science is divided into the natural and humanities, thus one can not talk or write about science without referring to both natural and social aspect of ...
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There are scientist in Ghana, and on the social aspect I am one of them. Science is divided into the natural and humanities, thus one can not talk or write about science without referring to both natural and social aspect of human edeavour.
There are Ghanaian scientists who teach in our schools and first of all pedagogy is a science which all teachers and lecturers have knowledge and skills about.
Ghanaian scientists have not only come out with the theory and methods to enhance the property of some seeds and turn them into oil and facts. Those in the agricultural sector have introduced better crops, chicken and life stork.
There are a lot of research and practical introduction by our doctors, chemists and biologists, both in the field of biology and technology.
Also in the building sector a lot of inventions have been made and some of them are being put into practical use.
A Ghanaian mechanical engineer has just invented a machine that will produce all serials and tubers in Ghana in an already cooked powder form. Another has limited the fueling time for airplanes by chemically letting six gallons of fuel to fit into one gallon.
The fact remain that there will not be any England if the British were to have still been under the colonialism of both the French and the Germans. The United States of America, China and Russia will not be countries if they were to have still remain colonies.
Philip Kobina Baidoo, I wrote some few weeks ago that the lot of you educating in Western Europe and U.S. do not have scholarship, just like your counterparts that advice their governments, hence the problems western foreign policies have created for mankind. Philip Kobina Baidoo, in this your article you deprive logic limbs to animate. You totally put logic on its head, depriving it of locomotion.
The fact is that before Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 Ghana had free medical care, eduction, sanitary, free tap water and a human resource better than any African country. The British left us with few school, but by February 1966 we build hundred of educational institutions, factories, roads, research institutions, the Tema Motorway and Akosombo Hydroelectricity power station and the State House.
Philip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

Kwame, I don’t dispute all those wonderful things Nkrumah achieved; not for a minute. And it will be disingenuous for me to do that. However, the institutions he created carried within it the seed for our own destruction. A ...
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Kwame, I don’t dispute all those wonderful things Nkrumah achieved; not for a minute. And it will be disingenuous for me to do that. However, the institutions he created carried within it the seed for our own destruction. And that is exactly what we are grappling with currently. Of course, it gives ammunition to those who cannot read between the lines to blame our scientists for the deplorable conditions we find ourselves.
OLDMAN GYASI 9 years ago

in ghana we have specialist,DR-prophet,experts,profs,engineers,pastors,elders but AND HONOURABLE THIEVES IN THE GOV but not a single scientist.

in ghana we have specialist,DR-prophet,experts,profs,engineers,pastors,elders but AND HONOURABLE THIEVES IN THE GOV but not a single scientist.
Kwame 9 years ago

Philip Kobina Baidoo, you will also agree with me that it is the same type of institutions that China, Cuba,India, North and South Korea use to propel their economy.
The past president and prime minister of China sat in the ...
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Philip Kobina Baidoo, you will also agree with me that it is the same type of institutions that China, Cuba,India, North and South Korea use to propel their economy.
The past president and prime minister of China sat in the same class with some Ghanaians in the then Soviet Union.
Thus it is a fact that all developing countries both capitalist and socialist use the same type of institutions to get to where they are today. In the case of Ghana we have rather retrogress. The problem with us is that since 1966 we have been thought by our so called development partners not to think anymore and even perform activities in accordance with our knowledge and skills.
PhiIip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

You have completely lost me. Can you please further explain yourself.

You have completely lost me. Can you please further explain yourself.
PhiIip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

You have completely lost me. Can you please further explain yourself.

You have completely lost me. Can you please further explain yourself.
John Daniels -KUMASI 9 years ago

Mr Baidoo you make a great linear analysis. But you forgot to start with the obvious. Let me help you :
How many Kente Weavers are in netherlands? Or how many snow-blowing tractors do we have in Ghana?
NONE of course to bot ...
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Mr Baidoo you make a great linear analysis. But you forgot to start with the obvious. Let me help you :
How many Kente Weavers are in netherlands? Or how many snow-blowing tractors do we have in Ghana?
NONE of course to both EXTREME questions. So that is where to start. If we needed scientists as we needed cocoa farmers we will have developed them.
When you say we should choose capitalism over other equally "foreign" philosophies, I am assuming that what you really mean is the idea of an open, free, productive and egalitarian society.
But we have that now in Ghana.In more ways than one we have what the UK, the US and Japan etc have. Our problem it seems is that we have no idea what we have and so we either do not know how to maintain and improve it or even simply manage it.
I wish we could discuss this in more detail some other time.
But to understand what I am referring to try to answer this question: EXACTLY WHO IS A SCIENTIST? or WHAT IS THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD? You will see that we have plenty of scientist in ghana. From farmers, fishermen, carpenters, masons , school teachers and even journalist. These people develop and apply the SCIENTIFIC METHOD of repeated enquiry, studying new phenomenon and using the knowledge to improve their lives and the lives of others. The only difficulty is that THERE IS NO ONE RECORDING and publicising this useful knowledge. This has been going on for centuries now.
What the perpetual wailers in Ghana are doing is not new.
EVERYONE SEEMS TO BE WAITING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO COME BE A SCIENTIST, AN HONEST POLITICIAN, A GOOD TEACHER, ETC. ETC.
If Vodafone, MTN, Chinese Galamsay architects, and even Agya-Koo CAN MAKE THE SYSTEM WORK for them then why should there be a problem?
Philip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

Thumbs up for your comments. I will be very happy to take up your challenge for further discussion on the topic. As you know I can be reached via the email provided.
Thank you very much for your input.

Thumbs up for your comments. I will be very happy to take up your challenge for further discussion on the topic. As you know I can be reached via the email provided.
Thank you very much for your input.
C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

Philip,

I am not at all surprised at many of the statements you made! Compare what you wrote to my article of today and the previous one. Yours is simply an apologia for the intellectually bankrupt academics, of whom the s ...
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Philip,

I am not at all surprised at many of the statements you made! Compare what you wrote to my article of today and the previous one. Yours is simply an apologia for the intellectually bankrupt academics, of whom the scientists form a part. Who are supposed to create the conditions you enumerated must exist for them to function? What have book and research allowances done to advance that? Was it not Busia and his so-called most educated people who advised the little educated soldiers to shut down all the great scientific projects Nkrumah stated? Have you been to behind the Physics Dept at Legon and seen the massive foundations of buildings left there?

Your excuses are borne out of your ignorance about the subjects and areas you wrote about, even though you appeared as someone who has read quite well; even the classics. I can take one by one and show how wrong you are about certain claims you made.

From the bottom, by the mid-80s, Western academics had written books
to show that the State in the Asian Tigers played the dominant roles in the economic transformation. My State Building Seminar Group leader, Dr Thorvald Gran, wrote a book to prove same for Norway. I figured that for myself when I took the Grunnfag in the Economic History of Norway and Western Europe. The hand of the state was everywhere in the devt of the Scandinavian countries to the best countries to live in today. You can buy Playboy and some choice pornos in the state run tobacconist chain, Narvesen!:-) Ha! ha! ha!

China hasn't adopted capitalism. They are simply doing what Marxism-Leninism said the state should do, turning the running of the factors of production and distribution to the citizens, while the state withers away. But the role of the state is still very, very dominant in China.

How you try to downplay the role religion in holding back devt is also borne out of your ignorance. Stein Rokkan led European Project had clearly established that the Catholic world of southern Europe fell behind devt in Europe and same for N. America compared to Latin America thanks to Catholicism.

Christianity adoption of the Aristolean flat earth view, instead of the prevailing spherical earth view which Pythagoras also shared, and other primitive ideas led to the Dark Ages while the same old science of the Greeks/Romans flourished in the Islamic World until they also banned the study of science and declined rapidly. Today, some Muslims like to point out those scientific claims, pre-dating Islam of course, which found their way into the Qu'ran as divine revelations to Muhammed. Just bunkum nonsense of course.

Religion had been used as a means of rationalisation of exploitative systems, as both Christianity and Islam were used, to build empires and civilizations but not in today's world. Even in Turkey and Iran, they serve the purposes of rhetorical ethics (Marimba Ani), quite disjointed from the reality on the ground.

Man! I don't have the time to take you on now, so I am off! But before I go, let me inform you that Nkrumah inherited only £19m from the British when he became leader of Govt Business. Whatever was in the coffer when we got indep was saved by his Internal Rule regime through the infamous "anchor of safety" advice of Sir Arthur Lewis which led to the formation of the NLM. He didn't squandered that but invested them wisely into the many industries subsequent govts have been selling up to today! That's, those not abandoned to rot and rust by your dead brain ideological masters! Can you tell us how much they have made so far from those sales?

Andy-K
Philip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

Why do you wait so late to spring this on me. I am tired; and I am going to bed. I can’t write a rebuttal now. The good news is I have got your email, and will definitely send you my responds.
Thank you.

Why do you wait so late to spring this on me. I am tired; and I am going to bed. I can’t write a rebuttal now. The good news is I have got your email, and will definitely send you my responds.
Thank you.
Philip Kobina Baidoo 9 years ago

Hello Andy,

I would like you to know from the word go that I will treat you like an intellectual adversary, and not like the condescending tone of your comments.
To start with, I am not a statist and you are so we walk on ...
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Hello Andy,

I would like you to know from the word go that I will treat you like an intellectual adversary, and not like the condescending tone of your comments.
To start with, I am not a statist and you are so we walk on two divergent trajectories on our thinking, and we will never cross path. You cannot convince me with the basis of your argument neither can I. What you believe in is anathema to me so let’s leave it as that.
I wouldn’t like to hear any Marxist basis for discussion, or anything pertaining to his lunacy, because his Das Kapital and communist manifesto is full of boyish nonsense that should be believed by people who have just written their O-Level exams.
The so-called allowance you have written about with flourish, who instituted it as you alluded in your piece? Of course, it was the statist NDC government headed by that brute Rawlings. In my world, such a policy will never see the light of day. That is what I will say on that.
Tax and spend is different from when government is in the business of running factories. The Scandinavian countries are tax and spend economies. And if they will tax their golden hen that lay they golden egg to hell that is their cup of tea. The Norwegian economy is not a special case. It is the same thing that is being replicated in places like Qatar and United Arab Emirate. The citizens of countries, for example, Kuwait have comparable lifestyle, because of their population in relation to their natural resources. You must be absolute brainless not to be able to manage such abundant indispensable natural resources.
If you want to engage in a serious intellectual discussion devoid of derisory connotation you don’t choose a country like Norway, but Japan that has little natural resources, yet has been able to transform their economy through industry and hard work. Even if the Asian tiger economies were state influenced it was powered by market forces; unlike what happened in Ghana. In the case of Norway, the test will come when a new form of energy come on stream, which is going to happen, because the world cannot continue to rely on fossil fuel to light, heat and power our homes and industries.
I will digress to the golden boy of that Scandinavian system – Sweden. Their ascendency was propelled by the Germans armament leading to the Second World War. When the gravy was tasty, the socialist government was kept in power till the hour glass began emptying out. As the resource from the Hitler era dwindled, Of course, they started voting with their feet with their union rank reducing in numbers over the years. Then they started selling the state own enterprises to private companies. Currently, we cannot fathom the wastage in the Norwegian model until the going gets tough.
Lastly, with your onslaught, or perhaps a better word crusade on religion that is where you made your biggest booboo. Well, I am not a big fun of religion and I don’t denigrate what people believe in unless it is absolute nonsense like Trokosi. Were you trying to suggest to me that there is difference between Catholicism and Protestantism? If that is what you think then it’s interminably waste of time arguing with you. The difference between the two is a doctrinal issue. Northern Europe is Protestant and Southern Europe is Catholic. The surge in intellectual pursuit was pioneered by intellectuals like Newton, Leibniz, Pascal who were all devout Christians. It is the competitive spirit of the Protestant ethics that separated the northern Europeans from the pack.
The poverty of South American has got nothing to do with Catholicism and your Stein Rokkan assertion is not worth the paper it was written on. France remained Catholic after the Reformation and still is. However, they achieved the equivalent scientific and economic development in the Protestant countries i.e. England, Germany and Holland. South America degenerated because Simón Bolívar could not put in place the right institution when they separated from Spain like it happened in North America courtesy of George Washington.
I am not going to dispute you on the Nkrumah’s figures; however, there was something in the coffers when he took over. On the other hand, it was depleted when Ghanaians saw his back. It amounts to the same thing mismanagement. In my book you don’t spend what you don’t have. Prodigality was the bane of Nkrumah.
The problem Ghana is facing right now is an ancient problem. If you have read your bible carefully, which I presume you would have for intellectual purposes. In the book of Nehemiah, what we are going through had its documented debut, and has been replicated throughout the ages by conquered people when they break their chains.
The tactics you and Dr Sarfo are advocating is just like holding a gun to your victims’ head and then asking him to think. I call it dictatorship with pens instead of guns. Our views are too divergent for us to have any serious discourse. This is what I sign off with.
Thank you
Philip Kobina Baidoo.

Re: Are There Scientists In Ghana?

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