TheDiddleyMan

Question: Did the greek scientists (or others in ancient history) ever believe that the sun and the moon orbited the earth?

Kevin

echidna

Yes, in fact …

<a href="http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomers/astronomersgreek.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomers/astronomersgreek.htm</a>

… offers a quick list of Greek and Roman astronomers. And actually …

Odd, I’d never really thought of how science seems to have been given far more freedom in Greek and Roman polytheistic society without being so violently challenged by the religious establishment as it was during the Christian era.

Maybe someone else with better history can expand on or correct this.

Bede

echidna,

Actually science was not any more free under the Greek polytheistic society. Socrates, remember, was executed for corrupting young minds while Diagoras of Melos and Protagoras both had to flee Athens for their lives after denying the gods.

The central question is why the ancient Greeks failed to make the leap to modern science (no one believed Aristarchus, and it is unclear if even he did) while the Christian civilisation in Western Europe succeeded. That might suggest Christianity was actually better for science than Greek polytheism.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede's Library - faith and reason</a>

Tom Sawyer

If I remember my history correctly, the Christian nations stagnated for over a thousand years with no real scientific advancements to speak of until the Reformation broke the hold of the church over society after we got all the Greek and Roman knowledge through the Muslims.

Heathen Dawn

The Muslims themselves didn't improve much over Greek knowledge, and they too had their share of inquisitions. The astronomer Abu Haitham was dragged to court for suggesting a round earth. The Qur'an says it's flat, as does the Bible.

Shake

I can't remember exactly who, but one of the Greeks also proved that the earth was round, and came up with a fairly close estimate of its circumference.

As for other ancient knowledge, the Arab world was once very advanced. Weren't they the ones who gave us the concept of zero? A radio talk show that people where I used to work listened to once was saying how the Arab world used to be the center of the intellectual world. They were way ahead of the Europeans, but when Islam came along they underwent their own Dark Age, which persists to this day. He argued that the Arabs are smart people, they've just been kept sheltered for centuries, meanwhile Western society has passed them technologically and intellectually.

Also, anyone know any more about this: I remember seeing something years ago (on PBS, I think) about a great library, in (one of the many) Alexandria that contained a wealth of knowledge from the ancient world. Well, it burned, and since the way of recording information was on scrolls, they were all lost. Who knows what kind of information was lost? How much different would things be today if these weren't the sole copies and the information hadn't been forever lost?

Ahh, the great "what-ifs" of history. There are some interesting fiction books that contain stories of alternate histories.

Heathen Dawn

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The concept of zero came to them from India. To this day, as we call our number-forms "Arabic numbers", the Arabs call their number-forms "arqaam hindiyya" or "Indian numbers".

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Science and philosophy flourished in those Islamic kingdom where the ruler was tolerant and defended the inquirers of knowledge. A philosopher such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) had to flee various states until he found haven by a tolerant ruler.

Bede

Hello all,

Some correct and some mistaken comments in this thread.

peteyh, Greek and Arab thought was recovered (at the Latin Christian's own initiative) in the twelfth century and had little to do with the reformation. The Dark Ages (which only happened in Western Europe) were due to the barbarian migrations overrunning the Roman Empire rather than Christianity.

heathen dawn, you are quite right to point to the local politics being an important factor as is the case with pagan, Christian and athesit societies as well. However, I am unaware of any Moslem (or Christian) ever being accused of saying that the earth was a sphere. This fact was well known to both cultures and not really controversial (although there were always nutters who disagreed, they had no influence). I'd be interested in the source for your comment on Al Hazan which, despite currently doing a Masters in medieval science, is new to me. Islamic science actually made huge advances on Greek science, especially in maths (hence algebra) and optics. It is not true to say they simply transmitted Greek knowledge.

Shake, many Greeks proved the earth was round an it was universally realised from the fourth century BC onwards. It was Erastothenes who came up with a good estimate - his method was sound but his actual figure being so close was a fluke as he had to pace out several hundred miles to get to his answer. Other Greeks had other estimates (one of which Columbus believed, which is why he thought he could sail all the way to the East Indies. <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm" target="_blank">This might be of interest</a>.)

On the Great Library - I have gathered the ancient sources <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm" target="_blank">here</a> and concluded Julius Caesar was the most likely agent of its destruction. It certainly wasn't Christians or Arabs.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bedes' Library - faith and reason</a>

Sunfair

I used to believe that Socrates had been a kind of martyr to wisdom, until I read up more on the subject and found that two of his former pupils tried to overthrow the democratic Athenian government. So while his trial may have been a bit cooked, it's certainly does not seem to be the case that he was a freethinking martyr.

<a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html" target="_blank">Reference Link</a>

Sheep in the big city

No, the above suggests that the central question is this:
Wouldn't you have a much better chance of getting a masters in theology instead of in medieval science?