| Unremarkable article in Arab news about vanity exhibition sponsored by one of the princelings. Key point: |
| But nothing about why science hasn't spoken Arabic in at least 600 years. |
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| Arabia | ||
| "When Science Spoke Arabic" | ||
| 2005-05-06 | ||
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| Posted by:seafarious |
| #18 Klingon 'ell infidel. Shakespeare was Muslim. |
| Posted by: All your playwrites are belong to us 2005-05-06 15:00 |
| #17 Don't forget Shakespeare can only be appreciated in the original Klingon. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-05-06 14:52 |
| #16 a Ferengi civ. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-05-06 14:40 |
| #15 I well remember when science wore Keds. |
| Posted by: Dr. Science MS 2005-05-06 13:24 |
| #14 Was the official language of this conference English? When can we expect the follow-on Paris conference entitled, ''When Science Spoke French''? |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-05-06 12:17 |
| #13 And in that period between the consolidation of the empire and the victory of the fundamentalist factions, there was a flowering of learning in Persia. It was of course driven at first by what they had inherited (don't forget that the Babylonians made contributions to math that the Greeks drew on), but for a few years both dhimmi and Muslim scholars did good work in a number of fields. A number of factors (as usual) conspired to squelch this, but the victorious fundamentalist views on the nature of knowledge and the purpose of education pretty much prevented anything like it from rising again. |
| Posted by: James 2005-05-06 12:07 |
| #12 Peggy's right about the importance of the Irish in preserving Western Civilization. The Moors also kept a good sized depository of important ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts long after the eastern arabs had entrenched themselved in the stone age. A number of European clergy got their classical education in Moorish Spain shortly before the Renaissance. The Moorish documents, together with the documents and art and icons stolen from Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, together with those salvaged around the time of the fall of Constantinople, spurred the Italian Renaissance. However, in the cradle of Islam, the people that eschewed any education outside the Koran gained the upper hand by the 11th Century. These are probably the descendants of those who burned the Alexandrian Library when the Arabs conquered Egypt. |
| Posted by: mom 2005-05-06 11:52 |
| #11 phil b, Thats another myth. That the Arabs preserved Greek knowledge and without them we wouldn't have it today. A little island called Ireland gives lie to that myth. It was the Irish who as they say, saved civilization. Irish monks preserved Western learning and developed a culture of learning and art which they later imported back to mainland Europe via missions and new monasterys. Its true that there were advanced civilizations that the Arabs conquered. Once these cultures ie the Persians and the Greek Byzantines were decimated, driven to Europe, or converted to islam, islamic ''science'' started its inevitable decline. Every idea attributed to them these days was originated by some other creative culture. They are given credit for algebra, which was a development of Greek mathmatics begun in Greece. They are given credit for the concept of zero and yet they actually got that from the Hindus in India. This is a culture which has not ever had an original idea. They have displayed a rather normal human intelligence for the developing the ideas of others and they have shown a rather average interest in astronomical observation that is equalled elsewhere by every other civilization. It takes a civilizational genius of an entirely different order to originate as the Greeks did and as the modern West has done. Its an accident of history that a branch of greek math is now called algebra. Its an accident of history that many stars have arabic names and not say Mayan or Hindu or Chinese names. It is junk PC history to say any different. |
| Posted by: peggy 2005-05-06 10:37 |
| #10 ''The scientists traveled the world from Baghdad to Samarqand, from Grenada to Cairo and from Damascus to India and other nations.'' Khan stole nuclear technology in the Netherlands and traveled the world from Pakistan to Libya, from Iran to North Korea... |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-05-06 09:26 |
| #9 One nearly bankrupt and stagnant culture trying to make a completely backward and bankrupt one feel better about itself through perpetuating what is largely myth and lies. Sponsored by some idiotic inbred prince who was lucky enough to be born into a family who controls oil cash. Wonderful! |
| Posted by: Tkat 2005-05-06 08:54 |
| #8 Anybody know how the ''Islamic Sattelite'' is going? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-05-06 08:46 |
| #7 Now, now, you guys are being too hard on the repressed jihadis. I think they've contributed a lot in the following sciences, even recently: Observation: ''Ahmed, we must observe these specific buildings, which the grand pubah wants to take down with jets from Afghanistan.'' Measurement: ''Jahini, yep, you look like you need a size 12 burka.'' Math: ''Let's see...2 lbs of explosives + a box of nails = X dead Joooooos and 72 Virginians? Where do I sign up?'' Experiments: SEE American meth labs Medical Treatments: ''I sware, Doctor Fookyou, that infidel had a headache, so I just sawed his head off. Plus, Achmed got it on tape for the website.'' Architecture: SEE all the mudhuts falling to pieces in a 2.0 earthquake in Iran. |
| Posted by: BA 2005-05-06 08:45 |
| #6 Well they scientifically redefined the words 'inbred nutcases' . Its a start :p |
| Posted by: MacNails 2005-05-06 06:04 |
| #5 Phil, once they ran out of Greeks to translate, end of story. The same with science, once they sucked the conquered culture dry, the parasites, not capable on their own of anything worthwile, rendered it infertile. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-05-06 02:54 |
| #4 And the Russians invented baseball and basketball. |
| Posted by: sea cruise 2005-05-06 02:35 |
| #3 The one thing the Arabs did do is retain much of the ancient greek knowledge that was lost in Europe. Its debateable whether this was primarily by accident or design. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-05-06 02:32 |
| #2 Absolutely spot-on, JFM. This shop-worn bullshit keeps resurfacing and it requires a thorough smackdown bitch-slap, such as what JFM applied here. Islamic Science, ROFL! Yewbetcha. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-05-06 02:21 |
| #1 And nothing about the fact that most of that ''Arabic'' science was merely the translation of ancient science. And nothing about the fact that most of the original work in ''Arabic'' science was in good part the work of dhimmis and for the remainder the work of Muslims in name-only (did I mention that many were from Persian ascent?). There have been many notable scientists who were daily church goers (the name of great mathematician Cauchy comes to mind) but no mosque-going mainline Muslim has ever done any scientific contribution worth mentionning. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-05-06 01:49 |