Mr. Fouad Laroui, Moroccan economist and writer

Over the past two millennia, human knowledge has progressively split into two distinct branches: on one side, the so-called 'hard' sciences, with physics as the paradigm, and on the other, the humanities, such as sociology or anthropology. This separation, undoubtedly necessary for reasons of efficiency, has had serious, perhaps even disastrous, consequences, especially in the Arab world. The aim of this lecture is to explain why, and then to advocate for a revision of scientific teaching programs: the 'humanities' must occupy a prominent place alongside the hard sciences, even in engineering schools.