Pakistan, July 14 -- While sitting at the dining table recently, I was watching Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. In one memorable scene, Cooper reflects on humanity's determination to confront extraordinary challenges: "We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible."

The statement captures the spirit of scientific progress. Humanity has confronted disease, hunger, environmental threats and technological limitations through observation, experimentation and the application of knowledge. Such a scientific outlook does not suddenly emerge at university level. Its foundations are laid much earlier, in school classrooms, where children first learn to observe, question, investigate and reason.

Pakistan, however, con...