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Science In Islamic Countries
biohack sends us to Physics Today for a thought-provoking article on the status of and prospects for science in Islamic countries. The author, a Pakistani physicist, posits that 'Internal causes led to the decline of Islam's scientific greatness long before the era of mercantile imperialism. To contribute once again, Muslims must be introspective and ask what went wrong.' The author makes a few strong conclusions, many of which are relevant to the general debate between science and religion. From the article: "Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world. If the scientific method is trashed, no amount of resources or loud declarations of intent to develop science can compensate. In those circumstances, scientific research becomes, at best, a kind of cataloging or 'butterfly-collecting' activity. It cannot be a creative process of genuine inquiry in which bold hypotheses are made and checked."
Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world.
Fixed that for you.
> In those circumstances, scientific research becomes, at best, a kind of cataloging or 'butterfly-collecting' activity. ...you insensitive clod.
It is a limited field of study, and it seems most of the 'scientist' studying this phenomena are consumed along with their first experiment. Few papers are written post-experiment.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They just moved lower down the head, and use a much larger knife now.
Seems like the Muslims DO have a nice history of scientific work. Let's recap.... Surgery Have patient kneel Chop off head Study remains Aeronautics Train people to fly planes without landing instructions Fly planes into buildings Study the results Sociology Have woman speak out of turn Beat woman to death Study remains Religion Study a MAN who was clearly pissed at the Catholic Church and reacted as such Study a MAN who was illiterate, yet was able to write a literary work on substantial materials such as leaves Study a MAN who performed no documented miracles Study a MAN who was a bigamist, pedophile, and murderer Logic Write a book that Include in that book instructions to never question the book's authority Kill anyone who questions the book (See Surgery above) Ethics ... ...
Oh, just forget it. Muslims are so wrapped up in their self-absorbed, self-centered quest for world domination that being dominated by the Chinese actually sounds like a GOOD plan just about now.
That describes the fundamentalist Christian-dominated home town so well I want to hug this guy.
The problem with fundamentalists is that they value the knowledge and beliefs of people from thousands of years ago over any progress we have made since.
You mean there's no proof for the 72 virgins? Damn, thought I had an avenue there for a second.
Table-ized A.I.
I'll say!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Under Stalin's rule, Cerenkov and Tamm won the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physics, as did Landau in 1962 for work carried out under Stalin, and Basov and Prokhorov in 1964.
Was it for time travel?
I find it ironic that the most vehement posts against Islam's scientific backwardness come from a country where a significant proportion of the population literally believe that the earth is 6000 years old.
Personally, I can't wait until all these overrated fairy tales are accorded the same level of respect, and have the same level of influence on social and political life, as Ashtarte, Zeus and Ra.
Nonsense. Everyone knows that there's no homosexuality in Muslim countries (in Iran, at least).
If I could've fit some more dollar signs in there, I would have. :)
$c¥nto£og¥$t$.
I really really wanted to replace the "c" with the Cent symbol, and also tried substituting Euro symbol, but Slashdot does not accept either. OK I get that the introduction of the Euro postdates Slashdot itself, but why the heck include the Yen over the Cent???
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He's right you know. I'm atheist and I've killed myself already because I didn't have any reason to live in a world without meaning.