Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

[StreetScooby 5]

I thought this was an interesting article. Islam, and Wahabism in particular, needs a reformation not unlike that experienced by the Christian religion some time ago.

I'm curious to see what other folks think of the article. It's a bit of a long read, but worth it.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science

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[quade 4]

Here is the key but somewhat inaccurate sentence in the article found well down in it.

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In other words, Islamic civilization did not have a culture hospitable to the advancement of science, while medieval Europe did.

Essentially correct when it comes to Islam, but only partially correct when it comes to Christianity.

I agree with the overall assessment that once the notion in Islamic society that all efforts should be directed toward religion little happened in terms of further scientific research, but the Christian church, in particular during the middle ages, did pretty much the exact same thing on most topics.

Hell, only recently did the Catholic church forgive Galileo for suggesting the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

Additionally, we see the same sort of BS when it comes to stem cell research and evolution right now.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[StreetScooby 5]

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At the heart of Ash’ari metaphysics is the idea of occasionalism, a doctrine that denies natural causality. Put simply, it suggests natural necessity cannot exist because God’s will is completely free. Ash’arites believed that God is the only cause, so that the world is a series of discrete physical events each willed by God.

I found this sentence interesting. Basically, everything is God's will, and there's no need to understand it any further than that.

It's disturbing how entrenched this appears to be even today.

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[yourmomma 0]

"To repeat an important point, scientific decline is hardly peculiar to Arabic-Islamic civilization."
That's the important bit. With the rise of "christian science" , the de-funding of NASA and schools the desire to inject god into the bits of our life that, regardless how much they (fundies) want to believe, has no historical precedent. All points to the fact that we too are on the same slope that lead to Islam being dominated buy the backwards extremists we see today.

[StreetScooby 5]

I agree that efforts should be continued to keep fundamentalists from hijacking science in our schools.

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[Skyrad 0]

Its an interesting question but the article is flawed because it also misses fundamental trans-national changes. Modern travel and working practices.
Gone are the days when a scientist had to work in the country he was born in and grew up in. These days outside of the USA in particular people travel often and migrate to work in countries other than their own. Western developed nations often pay more than developing ones. When you add the fact that the language of science is English and cheap transport the result is something of a brain drain from Arab countries towards the west. In the UK and in the USA and many other western countries there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Muslim & Arab scientists working in cutting edge science, medicine and ICT (There are 5 million Muslims in the UK alone).
The days of a scientist working alone on the light bulb etc are finished. These days advances in science are masses of tiny incremental gains usually collaborative in nature. Often that collaboration is trans-national in nature.
Also leading scientific innovative companies are rarely owned by the nation in which they're based. This means that US and UK companies may be getting the benefit and glory for work done by scientists in the UAE. It also means that companies based in Europe and the USA may well be owned or funded by Arabs or Arab nations. Not such a clear cut picture in real life as they paint in the article.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[StreetScooby 5]

Sounds like you missed the point of the article. It's the attitude of the culture towards science that's being discussed. Granted, there are exceptions to this, and most of those exceptions are found in Western societies.

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[Skyrad 0]

No I didn't miss the point, I'm just saying that its a simplistic argument by the author.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Andy9o8 2]

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Sounds like you missed the point of the article. It's the attitude of the culture towards science that's being discussed. Granted, there are exceptions to this, and most of those exceptions are found in Western societies.

He's not missing the point, but I think you're missing one of his points. One of the things that make hard sciences (and their various progeny) slow to gain popular acceptance in Third World countries is the brain drain to which he refers: those who become well-educated, and who would tend to influence popular knowledge and attitudes if they remained in their home countries, tend instead to emigrate and spend most of their adult lives away- and thus their educational and social influence is not felt at home. It becomes a circular and self-maintaining process.

[StreetScooby 5]

I do see his point. How did this situation come about? Because of the long term attitude towards science in that culture. And that attitude continues today.

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[Andy9o8 2]

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I do see his point. How did this situation come about? Because of the long term attitude towards science in that culture. And that attitude continues today.

And much of that cultural attitude is maintained because the well-educated simply leave (or stay away). If more would remain, the attitude would evolve at a greater rate. It's not just restricted to the Arab world or the Third World. The attitudes prevailing in much of the poor, under-educated population of rural Appalachia in the US are similarly stagnated for similar reasons.

[riddler 0]

The article is conceived by someone with western (i.e. democratic) bias. The very question of why fewer Arabs choose careers in science is itself biased. I think the answer is more simple - money. There has been a historically smaller wealth distribution in Arab countries for the last several hundred years. Long gone is the golden age, where arts and science were supported by the Arab aristocrats. I'm sure there are many young people that would love to become scientists, engineers, western-medicine doctors in the Arab world that simply don't have the chance because they are poor.

Of course, there are a few exceeding wealthy Arab countries that have exploited their natural resources, and are using some of that money to reinvest in their people. I went to an oil college and studied alongside several students from the UAE, Iraq, etc. They were the exception, a few extremely bright students that were hand-picked out of millions of kids to study abroad, and funded by their government. Most kids in those countries weren't as lucky.

I believe there is a rational argument for a limited degree of socialism, when it comes to education. Our public schools are funded by taxes (socialism), and I personally would not have been able to complete my degree without student loans and scholarships (socialism). The benefit to our capitalist government is that I make more money as an educated adult, and pay higher taxes back to the government. It's a long-term plan, and it can work. My ex-wife, on the other hand, owes a huge amount in student loans, never finished her degree, and never paid them back. So it's not a perfect system. But overall, the western system of publicly-funded education has been a boon to science.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[StreetScooby 5]

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And much of that cultural attitude is maintained because the well-educated simply leave.

That's a valid point.

In the case of Islam, as discussed in this article, those folks either left or had their head cut off by a sword swinging Sunni.

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[Skyrad 0]

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I do see his point. How did this situation come about? Because of the long term attitude towards science in that culture. And that attitude continues today.

And much of that cultural attitude is maintained because the well-educated simply leave (or stay away). If more would remain, the attitude would evolve at a greater rate. It's not just restricted to the Arab world or the Third World. The attitudes prevailing in much of the poor, under-educated population of rural Appalachia in the US are similarly stagnated for similar reasons.

Indeed in the UK we have seen the same problem, science in the Uk is poorly paid so a lot of scientists head over to the USA as the money is better and thats where the money for research is. The net result is that it is becoming harder to attract youngsters in the UK into science. Ironically we are now seeing high end ICT scientists disappearing to the UAE for much the same reasons.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Andy9o8 2]

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And much of that cultural attitude is maintained because the well-educated simply leave.

That's a valid point.

In the case of Islam, as discussed in this article, those folks either left or had their head cut off by a sword swinging Sunni.

"Scary Arab" rhetoric aside, that process, even within the Third World, is still not a necessarily a process of Muslim culture. I have a friend who is a cardiologist, who was born and raised in a predominately Hindu area of India. He's spent his entire adult life in the UK and now the US. The process and attitudes back home that he describes is much the same, and virtually none of it has anything to do with scary Muslims..

[StreetScooby 5]

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Ironically we are now seeing high end ICT scientists disappearing to the UAE for much the same reasons

What is ICT?

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[StreetScooby 5]

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The process and attitudes back home that he describes is much the same, and virtually none of it has anything to do with scary Muslims..

I work with several Indians. Extremely competent, hard working, upstanding folks. It's a pleasure to have them on the team.

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[Skyrad 0]

Information Communication Technology.

short article on the UK's current problem with the science brain drain. It will only get worse when Universities are allowed to charge up to £9K a year starting in Sept
2011.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/30/science-research-spending-cuts

Right, I'd better get back to my Thesis

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[StreetScooby 5]

That's a frightening trend.

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[Skyrad 0]

Yep.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Andy9o8 2]

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The process and attitudes back home that he describes is much the same, and virtually none of it has anything to do with scary Muslims..

I work with several Indians. Extremely competent, hard working, upstanding folks. It's a pleasure to have them on the team.

I was taught Chemistry by an Egyptian Muslim. I once had a job where one of my supervisors was a Pakistani Muslim. Extremely competent, hard working, upstanding guys. It was a pleasure to have them on my team.

[Skyrad 0]

I was once taught Arabic by a retired Royal Navy officer from Pakistan, he was a bit of a prick. Just saying.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[lawrocket 3]

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Hell, only recently did the Catholic church forgive Galileo for suggesting the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

This is not really how it happened. It's a fine anti-religious spin, but it's not what happened. When Galileo proved that the planets - including earth - go around the sun, it was not initially blasphemous. As Cardinal Baronius said (translated) "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

Galileo's science was NOT what caused the problem. He ran into trouble when he started performing his OWN interpretations of scripture based upon it. It's why Galileo went almost 25 years after publishing his findings before he was tried for heresy. The Catholic church didn't like people interpretin scripture. Check out what Martin Luther did a half century before. And not for another 15 years would the Treaty of Westphalia be signed.

No, the Catholic church did not tolerate the reinterpretation of scripture. But it didn't stamp down on science until the reinterpretation based on it happened.

It's not a matter of "Look what Catholic Chruch did to science." Had Galileo stayed a scientist and not stepped on the Pope's toes then he likely would have gotten away with it.

* Note - Copernicus was himself a devoutly religious church deacon. Johannes Kepler was a Lutheran. Newton was deeply religious and spent much time working in alchemy who pored through the Bible searching for scientific information.

Religion and science have existed side-by-side for eons. IT seems only recently that religion has been so viewed as anti-science. Sure, there are some good reasons, but painting a broad brush on it doesn't seem to be very enlightened.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,150]

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Hell, only recently did the Catholic church forgive Galileo for suggesting the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

This is not really how it happened. It's a fine anti-religious spin, but it's not what happened. When Galileo proved that the planets - including earth - go around the sun,.

Galileo "proved" no such thing. His theory of tides, which he considered a proof, was and still is WRONG.

As for the Bible, it is WRONG too.

1 Chronicles 16:30 "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved."

The Bible is, of course, wrong about a lot of things.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[regulator 0]

Pretty sure theres some science in making roadside bombs...just saying.