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[Veidt]

I think this would have been better titled:

Arabic Civilization: How Religion Destroyed a Great and Woundrous Culture of Scientific Learning

Then you'd have a big problem. Since a number of the great scholars were non-Arabs. Bagdhad was filled with non-Arabs from all over the world united in their thirst for knowledge. And even within Arabs, most things and how the culture behaved were radically different from how Arabs originally conducted themselves.

 

[Dresden]

Then you'd have a big problem. Since a number of the great scholars were non-Arabs. Bagdhad was filled with non-Arabs from all over the world united in their thirst for knowledge. And even within Arabs, most things and how the culture behaved were radically different from how Arabs originally conducted themselves.

So how did faith contribute to scientific progress? Would you argue that these achievements would not have been made without the guiding light of Islam?

 

[cntr]

Bagdhad was filled with non-Arabs from all over the world united in their thirst for knowledge.

Also, your non-inclusion of "The Darker Impact of Islam on Europe" is highly suspect, especially when you make statements like these, because that segment clearly states that "The real ideological impression of Islam was not the enlightened thinking of Avicenna and Averroes,"

 

[Atrus]

I respect your opinion on the manner and wish you well.

Surely you would have an answer to that. After all, if the key motivator was Islam then the longest running Islamic societies would have had the greatest contributors, and not that of conquered lands that relied strongly on international trade routes and access to foreign cultures.

 

[Dresden]

Surely you would have an answer to that. After all, if the key motivator was Islam then the longest running Islamic societies would have had the greatest contributors, and not that of conquered lands that relied strongly on international trade routes and access to foreign cultures.

That was his answer to you. What he means is, "I have no answer, so screw you and I'll just learn to ignore it."

 

[Veidt]

Also, your non-inclusion of "The Darker Impact of Islam on Europe" is highly suspect, especially when you make statements like these, because that segment clearly states that "The real ideological impression of Islam was not the enlightened thinking of Avicenna and Averroes,"

Look up O'Neil. None of us can neither read his book on the manner, or have any tangible info on it or him. And even in his argument there, there are no sources cited. Hence, I can't come to a conclusion regarding that manner.

So how did faith contribute to scientific progress? Would you argue that these achievements would not have been made without the guiding light of Islam?

That's what we're here to explore. Faith and Science can indeed work together, and this civilization has shown that both can be utilized by great thinkers on a wide scale.

 

[harSon]

So how did faith contribute to scientific progress? Would you argue that these achievements would not have been made without the guiding light of Islam?

How exactly is the term "Western" any different?

 

[cntr]

How exactly is the term "Western" any different?

Because that's the area/direction in which they lived in?

 

[PantherLotus]

no offense, this thread is stupid. "Islam" wasn't a civilization. There were varoius Arab Caliphates (Ummayads, Abassids, etc) and the Ottoman Empire, those were actual civilizations under which scientific progress occurred. But saying it was an "Islamic" civilization is like saying that Europe from Constantine in 313 AD to the 20th century was a "Christian" civilization. It doesn't really make any sense.

I actually disagree on this. It's hard to separate the Christian Religion from pretty much anything that occurred in Western Europe over the past millenia and a half. Now, that doesn't make scientific progress "Christian Progress," but it's hard to call Europe anything other than a Christian Civilization.

 

[ascii42]

So how did faith contribute to scientific progress? Would you argue that these achievements would not have been made without the guiding light of Islam?

Well, that type of argument is tough to make for anything. There are often multiple causes that can lead to the same effect. For example, a football player makes a touchdown reception to win a game. Would the team have won without that player? Maybe, maybe not. It's certainly possible that someone else would have caught the same pass instead of that player. Or the game may have played out completely differently. And the touchdown was not the sole reason why the team won, every other play mattered as well.

 

[Salazar]

Tom Holland's next book is a history of Islam. Possibly the finest popular or narrative historian going.

 

[Nerevar]

in terms of history, it is written like Islamic civilization, Greek civilization, christen civilization.

Are you serious? I've never heard anyone ever use the term "Christian Civilization" - in fact you'd be ridiculed up and down if you did. What even constitutes "Christian" culture? Is it orthodox Christianity, as defined by the Byzantine empire? Is it the Catholic sphere of influence around Rome in the middle ages? The "Christian" western Roman empire? It's such a dumb concept it makes my head spin. Hell, even the large "Christian" army of the fourth crusade was assembled to invade and conquer the Christian city of Constantinople!

I've also never heard the term "Islamic" civilization in the academic world. The various caliphates were empires, not really any different than the collapsing Roman empires they replaced. They were led by different ethnic groups (Arabs, Mongols, Egyptians, Turks) who culturally came from different backgrounds and had different impacts on the conquered populaces. It's impossible to put all of them under a single banner as a civilization.

I actually disagree on this. It's hard to separate the Christian Religion from pretty much anything that occurred in Western Europe over the past millenia and a half. Now, that doesn't make scientific progress "Christian Progress," but it's hard to call Europe anything other than a Christian Civilization.

Calling Europe "Christian" and calling it a "Christian civilization" are two vastly different things. For a group to be a civilization it implies certain shared cultural values, of which Europe as a whole certainly did not share. The closest you could come would probably be the later stages of the Roman empire, pre-dissolution into eastern and western empires, but even then it's a stretch to say it's a "Christian" civilization.

 

[Dennis]

So how did faith contribute to scientific progress?

It didn't. Any progress made was in spite of religion.
Just because someone born in the muslim world happens to make some contribution to science it isn't really sensible to credit Islam as such.
Is every achievement by a scientist born in a predominantly Christian nation somehow a testiment to the awesomeness of christianity? No.

The notion that Islam or Christianity is the reason for scientific progress is silly and ignorant.

 

[harSon]

Because that's the area/direction in which they lived in?

Region is only part of the word's meaning. The terms "Western", "Eastern", etc were created by the West to draw cultural (as well as regional and physical) distinctions between themselves and other parts of the world.

 

[Dennis]

I've also never heard the term "Islamic" civilization in the academic world.

Well I have but I agree that it is somewhat of a misnomer.

 

[CurseoftheGods]

Didn't most of the great Arabic/Persian contributions to science/math actually occur before Mohammed?

Haha, no. :lol

 

[PantherLotus]

Are you serious? I've never heard anyone ever use the term "Christian Civilization" - in fact you'd be ridiculed up and down if you did. What even constitutes "Christian" culture? Is it orthodox Christianity, as defined by the Byzantine empire? Is it the Catholic sphere of influence around Rome in the middle ages? The "Christian" western Roman empire? It's such a dumb concept it makes my head spin. Hell, even the large "Christian" army of the fourth crusade was assembled to invade and conquer the Christian city of Constantinople!

I've also never heard the term "Islamic" civilization in the academic world. The various caliphates were empires, not really any different than the collapsing Roman empires they replaced. They were led by different ethnic groups (Arabs, Mongols, Egyptians, Turks) who culturally came from different backgrounds and had different impacts on the conquered populaces. It's impossible to put all of them under a single banner as a civilization.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the known educated world disagree with you. But hell, maybe you're more entrenched in academics than I'm aware of.

 

[levious]

Faith and Science can indeed work together, and this civilization has shown that both can be utilized by great thinkers on a wide scale.

more so than other civilizations? No, come on...

 

[cntr]

Region is only part of the word's meaning. The terms "Western", "Eastern", etc were created by the West to draw cultural (as well as regional and physical) distinctions between themselves and other parts of the world.

I agree with this. Therefore, you should also agree that throwing everything in a region under a single religious banner is also wrong?

 

[Nerevar]

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the known educated world disagree with you. But hell, maybe you're more entrenched in academics than I'm aware of.

To what, the concept of an Islamic civilization? Please, the usage of "islamic civilization" in historical writings is in a completely different context, and mostly done to sell books. For the most part they're using "Islamic civilization" as a metaphor for the Arabic and Turkic / Ottoman Caliphates that ruled the middle east / asia minor / north africa / spain from the 7th century to the 20th century. And even then they're stretching the definition of a "civilization".

 

[Salazar]

The notion that Islam or Christianity is the reason for scientific progress is silly and ignorant.

Well, I tend to think that part of the reason that textual accuracy and interpretative (read exegetical) care are conceived as a moral as well as intellectual achievement lies in the ecclesiastical roots of much Western scholarship and scholastic institutions - in the humanities, at any rate. It would be silly and ignorant to argue too strongly in another direction.

 

[speculawyer]

Newton was something of a deranged heretic anyway. It's difficult to imagine him as an atheist, considering he explicitly was attempting to understand God. Even though his own laws mechanized motion, he said:

I doubt evolution would have made much more of an impression on him.

Oh, I'm guessing it would have. Back then, they really had no good scientific explanation for the origin of things. So a God was an easy answer . . . after all, it had been the accepted answer by most people (and still seems to be).

But if Newton was given all of the science we have today on evolution . . . well, I think his views would be different.

 

[Dali]

Region is only part of the word's meaning. The terms "Western", "Eastern", etc were created by the West to draw cultural (as well as regional and physical) distinctions between themselves and other parts of the world.

The west created The West? I thought it was more of a mutual creation. Westerners say "Western" to describe the white 1st world and Easterners use it as a catchall for things they hate.

 

[PantherLotus]

To what, the concept of an Islamic civilization? Please, the usage of "islamic civilization" in historical writings is in a completely different context, and mostly done to sell books. For the most part they're using "Islamic civilization" as a metaphor for the Arabic and Turkic / Ottoman Caliphates that ruled the middle east / asia minor / north africa / spain from the 7th century to the 20th century. And even then they're stretching the definition of a "civilization".

If you can't even be asked google the damn thing to see that "Islamic Civilization" is an entire course of study, you're missing the point that regardless of semantics, people acknowldege the general geographic boundaries of the religion share the general geographic boundaries of the civilization.

And maybe I'm missing some point as well. Is this similar to the difference between "Oriental" and "Asian?"

 

[PflargBlarg]

more so than other civilizations? No, come on...

Except he never said that. The OP is simply a list of contributions that came out of the middle east (ostensibly Islamic I guess?). I really can't say whether he means to say these discoveries were driven by Islam, if that's what he is saying, then I would have to disagree as there isn't really evidence for that.

You guys can take a stab at his motives behind the thread, but who gives a shit? He doesn't control the thread, even if he was trying to spin it towards Islam you don't have to go that way if you don't want to. Stick to discussing the science and how it was affected (for better or for worse) by the religion of the society. That's what I think this thread is about.

 

[harSon]

I agree with this. Therefore, you should also agree that throwing everything in a region under a single religious banner is also wrong?

I'm personally a fan of referring to regions by what they'd prefer to be referred to as, but that's not really what I'm arguing. Would you consider the various breakthroughs within Europe during the Renaissance to be completely void of any cultural influence?

 

[cntr]

I'm personally a fan of referring to regions by what they'd prefer to be referred to as, but that's not really what I'm arguing. Would you consider the various breakthroughs within Europe during the Renaissance to be completely void of any cultural influence?

By that logic, you should be calling Japan either 日本 or Nippon or Nihon. And which culture are you referring to?

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

I find your insecurity regarding your faith pretty laughable.

Most sensible people already know this, but we tend to judge things based on what they are now, rather than what they were.

No, most people are idiots and don't know this. People also think people from Iran are Arabs.

 

[ascii42]

Oh, I'm guessing it would have. Back then, they really had no good scientific explanation for the origin of things. So a God was an easy answer . . . after all, it had been the accepted answer by most people (and still seems to be).

But if Newton was given all of the science we have today on evolution . . . well, I think his views would be different.

Well, to a certain extent. But evolution starts somewhere, there is something that didn't evolve from something else at the beginning. I think that Newton would probably have come to the conclusion that God started it, as well as possible that God came up with evolution, based on some of the things Newton has said.

 

[harSon]

By that logic, you should be calling Japan either 日本 or Nippon or Nihon. And which culture are you referring to?

The Renaissance is a cultural movement in itself.

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

I didn't. Any progress made was in spite of religion.
Just because someone born in the muslim world happens to make some contribution to science it isn't really sensible to credit Islam as such.
Is every achievement by a scientist born in a predominantly Christian nation somehow a testiment to the awesomeness of christianity? No.

The notion that Islam or Christianity is the reason for scientific progress is silly and ignorant.

i think the term "islamic Civilization" or Western Civilization" is just to point to what society the discoverer or scientist was living in at the time. Its not exactly saying "me praying 5 times o day and reading Qu"an made me discover this" or "my western is sooo awesome i had to create this formula".

so its not saying(imo), religious dogma directly led to Science advancement but once upon a time in a land more or less ruled by mostly Muslims, these were discovered/invinted.

 

[Anaxagoras]

aaah the so called "golden age of islam"
a person today can only ask WHAT HAPPENED?

Humans continued to evolve, their needs and wants changed, societies developed and their ''universal'' non-changing/evolving fixed Islamic rules couldn't catch up.

 

[Anaxagoras]

although the faith these great inventors/scientists had doesn't mean anything really
these ARENT islamic inventions

you dont call japanese inventions "shinto science" or indian inventions "buddhist science"

islam itself shouldn't take any "credit" for these things nor should any other faith

It depends on what these inventions/discoveries are based on, if they are based on a culture then the culture gets credit for it, in this case most of the things mentioned above have been based on the Islamic teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah and therefore it named after the religion they are based on.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Well, that is the question . . . why so much science back then and now they are relatively weak in science, technology, etc. Why? Is it really irrelevant to the religion? It definitely could be . . . I think the large number of dictatorships and the lack of meritocracy has hurt them heavily as well.

Funny how Muslims today only count the past Islamic rulers and their great contributions as part of Islam or use them as examples to show how great Islam really is, but don't dare use the Saudi Arabian regime as an example of Islamic ruling.

 

[Anaxagoras]

*looks forward to Atrus and Nizar contributing to this thread*

I was hoping that someone else will show us the other side of the coin, preferably the OP, but what should I expect of an Islam sugar coaters.

 

[Dali]

It depends on what these inventions/discoveries are based on, if they are based on a culture then the culture gets credit for it, in this case most of the things mentioned above have been based on the Islamic teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah and therefore it named after the religion they are based on.

The only things in the OP that are directly attributed to the Quran or the words of Muhammad are things pertaining to civics and ethics. I'm not delving too deeply into this past what's in the OP, so perhaps there is a Hadith that lead to the creation of an observatory or had direct involvement in the early formulation of theories on the behaviour of light. The only science that seems to have a direct link with the words of Islam is economics.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Please then. Elaborate on who first introduced the Scientific Method instead? I don't mind getting things corrected. Remember, we're here to learn things.

The scientific method didn't come to existence all of the sudden through one guy only like your Quran did, it evolved as the humans understanding of truth did.

A practical start of the scientific method would probably have been when humans started to differentiate between what is pure coincidence from the cause and the effect through repetitive experimenting.

An example of this can be a hunter catching a good amount of fish on a clear night sky with the moon visible, through repetitive experimenting the cave man can develop an understanding of whether the moon has anything to do with his yield or catch.

 

[cntr]

The Renaissance is a cultural movement in itself.

...so?

 

[Dresden]

The scientific method didn't come to existence all of the sudden through one guy only like your Quran did, it evolved as the humans understanding of truth did.

A practical start of the scientific method would probably have been when humans started to differentiate between what is pure coincidence from the cause and the effect through repetitive experimenting.

An example of this can be a hunter catching a good amount of fish on a clear night sky with the moon visible, through repetitive experimenting the cave man can develop an understanding of whether the moon has anything to do with his yield or catch.

Except that a clear organization of that process into describable methods is usually attributed to Al-Haytham, though. He didn't 'create' the Scientific Method, but he played a large part in getting it into the form we have today.

And no, his faith had nothing to do with this.

 

[Anaxagoras]

The only things in the OP that are directly attributed to the Quran or the words of Muhammad are things pertaining to civics and ethics. I'm not delving too deeply into this past what's in the OP, so perhaps there is a Hadith that lead to the creation of an observatory or had direct involvement in the early formulation of theories on the behaviour of light. The only science that seems to have a direct link with the words of Islam is economics.

I have to play fair so I am afraid that you are wrong, if you have read the Quran you would be remembering verses that most of what have been mentioned is directly based on.

The science part is a bit different I have to admit, but the quran encourages scientific exploring and understanding of life, the universe's existence etc... and it describes the universes creation in a very poetic manner that encourages people to go out and explore the beauty of the universe.

 

[Dali]

I have to play fair so I am afraid that you are wrong, if you have read the Quran you would be remembering verses that most of what have been mentioned is directly based on.

Like I said, I didn't delve past what's in the OP. Howver, it's funny how there are Quranic citations for the ethics stuff and basically all of the stuff in the OP except the stuff pertaining to what I thought this thread was about... science.

The science part is a bit different I have to admit, but the quran encourages scientific exploring and understanding of life, the universe's existence etc... and it describes the universes creation in a very poetic manner that encourages people to go out and explore the beauty of the universe.

Ah... okay that explains it. Man's innate curiosity wasn't innate in the Golden Age of Islam and instead the impetus to learn about the natural world was created by the words of Allah and his last messenger PBUM.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Except that a clear organization of that process into describable methods is usually attributed to Al-Haytham, though. He didn't 'create' the Scientific Method, but he played a large part in getting it into the form we have today.

And no, his faith had nothing to do with this.

'' He didn't 'create' the Scientific Method, but he played a large part in getting it into the form we have today. ''

and therefore his named the first scientist..?

At this point it is pretty pointless to argue the amount he contributed to the scientific method, so go a head and back up your claims with what large parts of the scientific method he has contributed to getting it to the form we have today.

then we can discuss it.

 

[harSon]

...so?

I wasn't exactly sure what you were questioning beforehand.

Did Culture (Which depends on what scientists you're talking about) have any influence on inventions that European scientists created during the Renaissance? Basically, would Leonardo da Vinci have been the Leonardo da Vinci we know today if he had lived through a less culturally enlightened era/region?

 

[Dresden]

'' He didn't 'create' the Scientific Method, but he played a large part in getting it into the form we have today. ''

and therefore his named the first scientist..?

At this point it is pretty pointless to argue the amount he contributed to the scientific method, so go a head and back up your claims with what large parts of the scientific method he has contributed to getting it to the form we have today.

then we can discuss it.

When did I say he was the first scientist? What the fuck are you talking about?

Anyways:

Elements of a modern scientific method are found in early Muslim philosophy, in particular, using experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories and a general belief that knowledge reveals nature honestly. In the Middle Ages, Islamic philosophy developed and was often pivotal in scientific debates–key figures were usually scientists and philosophers.

The Arab physicist Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham (more often known in the West as Alhazen) (965-1040 CE) was particularly influential. His work on optics, Kitab-al-Manadhirn, which contained a careful examination of the laws of reflection and refraction, was translated into Latin in the Middle Ages. An important observation in that work led Alhazen to propose that the eyes receive light reflected from objects, rather than emanating light themselves, contradicting contemporary beliefs, including those of Ptolemy and Euclid. The way in which Alhazen combined observations and rational arguments had a great influence on Roger Bacon and Johannes Kepler in particular.

D. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler, (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1976), pp. 60-7.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method#_note-1

Amongst the array of great scholars, al-Haytham is regarded as the architect of the scientific method. His scientific method involved the following stages:

1. Observation of the natural world

2. Stating a definite problem

3. Formulating a robust hypothesis

4. Test the hypothesis through experimentation

5. Assess and analyze the results

6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions

7. Publish the findings

These steps are very similar to the modern scientific method and they became the basis of Western science during the Renaissance.

http://www.experiment-resources.com/who-invented-the-scientific-method.html

 

[Anaxagoras]

Like I said, I didn't delve past what's in the OP. Howver, it's funny how there are Quranic citations for the ethics stuff and basically all of the stuff in the OP except the stuff pertaining to what I thought this thread was about... science.


Ah... okay that explains it. Man's innate curiosity wasn't innate in the Golden Age of Islam and instead the impetus to learn about the natural world was created by the words of Allah and his last messenger PBUM.

Well, according to Muslims they were encouraged by the quran, and their studies were based on what the quran taught them to be true, so in a sense they are Islamic studies of of nature.

 

[cntr]

I wasn't exactly sure what you were questioning beforehand.

Did Culture (Which depends on what scientists you're talking about) have any influence on inventions that European scientists created during the Renaissance? Basically, would Leonardo da Vinci have been the Leonardo da Vinci we know today if he had lived through a less enlightened era/region?

Depends on which scientists you're talking about. Psychology and Sociology and Art would have been very much affected by the culture, Physics and Chemistry, if backed up by proper evidence, much less so.

 

[MrHicks]

Many of the scientists post Renaissance were studying science so they could understand God's work. It's certain religions and followers today that take a hard line view of the way the Earth works that fuck up that type of thinking. I think it's perfectly logical. Like how I believe God created evolution.

Religion and science need not be contrary positions.

imagine you bring back some great ancient greek and egyptian scientists to todays world
wouldn't you think they would start to understand their religious beliefs were bullshit and they just didn't know any better 1000's of years ago?


imagine if the greek one said "WOW evolution is so cool why didn't we think of that.....now i believe ZEUS set evolution in motion"

and the egyptian one would say RA was behind evolution

they probably wouldn't do such a thing
it would become pretty clear that their respective pantheon of gods don't exist and are pure mythology

now why can't christians/muslims do the same thing?
this "god did evolution" thing is just rediculous

 

[Anaxagoras]

When did I say he was the first scientist? What the fuck are you talking about?

you didn't, Read OP.

Anyways:

Elements of a modern scientific method are found in early Muslim philosophy, in particular, using experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories and a general belief that knowledge reveals nature honestly.

So? this existed to some extent in most if not all past civilizations, ans some more than others.

In what way is this supposed to prove that '' he played a large part in getting it into the form we have today'' ?

In the Middle Ages, Islamic philosophy developed and was often pivotal in scientific debates–key figures were usually scientists and philosophers.

ok...

The Arab physicist Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham (more often known in the West as Alhazen) (965-1040 CE) was particularly influential. His work on optics, Kitab-al-Manadhirn, which contained a careful examination of the laws of reflection and refraction, was translated into Latin in the Middle Ages. An important observation in that work led Alhazen to propose that the eyes receive light reflected from objects, rather than emanating light themselves, contradicting contemporary beliefs, including those of Ptolemy and Euclid. The way in which Alhazen combined observations and rational arguments had a great influence on Roger Bacon and Johannes Kepler in particular.

Ok?

D. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler, (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1976), pp. 60-7.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method#_note-1

As I said before, how did any of this ''played a large part in getting it [the scientific method] into the form we have today'' ?

 

[Dennis]

As I said before, how did any of this ''played a large part in getting it [the scientific method] into the form we have today'' ?

It didn't. The most important breakthrough was the use by Keppler of observational data gathered by Tycho Brahe to formulate his laws. This showed that celestial movements could be explained by mathematical equations and not something knowable only by God or Allah. This led to Newton, his contemporaries and then onwards.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Amongst the array of great scholars, al-Haytham is regarded as the architect of the scientific method. His scientific method involved the following stages:

1. Observation of the natural world

2. Stating a definite problem

3. Formulating a robust hypothesis

4. Test the hypothesis through experimentation

5. Assess and analyze the results

6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions

7. Publish the findings

These steps are very similar to the modern scientific method and they became the basis of Western science during the Renaissance.

This is exactly the process of differentiating between pure coincidence and the cause and the effect as i mentioned before, it has been practiced by humans for god knows how long, just because he has written it down on a piece of paper and added point 7 to it doesn't make him in any way the creator of the scientific method or a person how has contributed a large part into getting the scientific method into the form we have today.

I am not trying to discredit him in anyway, but the way Muslims use him as an example of how influential he is to the scientific method quite pisses me off, as if no one has practiced any scientific experimenting until this guy managed to write it down and thus should be credited for it.