Happy Wonderer

Perhaps I was too oblique. The major criticism of your statement "If you define science as the study of the natural world for its sake alone then I would ask if any pre-Christian (Islamic, Chinese, Indian, aboriginal, etc.) science fit that definition..." is that Islam came after Christianity. This is something that both the Pope and any Iman will agree upon. If this represents the statements of the author, than the book you are referencing is pure trash. It would prove that the author doesn't know anything useful about early Islamic scientists and probably knows little about any other ancient scientists. Of course, that doesn't prevent them from making grand, sweeping statements about how science was impossible before Christ...

Remember, a thesis without evidence is merely an opinion. I was trying to be somewhat polite in referring to the statement you (made? quoted?) about science, I'm sorry if I ended up being confusing instead.

I'm sorry, but "Knowing the size of the earth might be of economic (trading) value" (to the ancient Greeks) is a lamentable statement. Maybe it helped the ancient Greeks plan where to put their airports? (Oh, I forgot -- 430 BC is only 30 years after Thomas Jefferson and King Henry the eighth co-piloted the first jet at KittyHawk...) I'm sure you could do better than that.

My main reason for jumping into this thread is a sense of horror at how poor a knowledge of history some of the participants were displaying. There are many things that one can say about ancient Islamic practices, but squashing scientific discovery is not one of them. (They believed that the Prophet commands them to "seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.") Search for the Islamic "golden age" on the internet and you will perhaps get some sense of what the Islamic world feels it has lost.

The fact that the religion now has a large and reactionary fundamentalist sect should give Christians (and Jewish people) some pause when thinking about the state of their own religion.

Please, prove me wrong! Read up a bit on the history of Islam and the west and try to understand the causes of issues that probably aren't going away in our lifetimes. Karen Armstrong has written some very scholarly, readable and somewhat opinionated works that are a very good start.

Sorry if I'm drifting off topic here. To explain myself in II terms, you can quote me as "one of the things about fundamentalist apologetics that drives me insane is their propensity for making up history as they go along."

HW

PS -- one thing that puzzles me about this exchange is your statement "Recall that I said that I didn't know of Jaki was correct or not but it was an interesting idea." I have seen this sort of statement in other threads through the years and I'll confess that it makes no sense to me. If you bring in somebody else's opinion to back up yours, wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that you agreed with it at least enough to attempt a defense of it? (Durnit, I can't convey the tone properly in written words. I'm trying not to be insulting but I really am puzzled why someone would bring up a reference that they didn't believe in as if they were arguing positively for it.)

Sorry to hear that you are leaving the thread, it was fun while it lasted!

Happy Wonderer

Since this is last call, with the mod's indulgence can I carry this off topic one more time?

I think that the thes... opinion that western science is somehow better than ancient science because God gave us permission to persue "pure" rather than applied science is exactly backward. My thes.. opinion is that the west got to its dominant position by applying science -- especially to warfare. The Chinese discovered gunpowder but for various reasons (including resistance to change from the warrior class) didn't weaponize it. When it was imported to the west it was enthuastically weaponized it to great effect. Earlier, the Pope himself condemned users of the crossbow and longbow to excommunication -- yet they were used quite effectively in Europe's dynastic wars (and brought an end to the knight in shining armour.)

I would ar.. opine that the west's current economic advantages come in a large part from applying science. For better or worse, the science that tends to get funded is expected to either lead to better weapons or more profitable products. [Yeah, right, the AIDS vaccine would be free...] The A.I. vision research lab at my university was funded entirely by the military, as was our physics sonic research lab (how to make underwater propellers very quiet, wonder what that could have been for?)

HW

lpetrich

As I'd pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that is pure baloney -- simply consider the Greco-Roman world and how some philosophers looked down on practical application.

There's a story about someone who asked some mathematician "what use is geometry?" that mathematician asked a slave to give some money to that someone to show geometry's practical value. (I'm recalling it from some decades ago)

[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

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The date: early 1600's

So here we infidels are, on the internet (go with me on this one), discussing the plausibility of the novel idea stating the earth revolves around the sun, not embodying the center of the universe, as our Church would so have us believe.

Of course the Church would have us believe that it is pure idiocy to believe Gawd would make the universe any other way and we need to just accept it as fact; on faith.

Jump ahead 400 years and here we still are (I love make believe--you can create your own reality) discussing biology on a level I never had in high school. However, in the intervening years it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and all that, that the earth does, indeed, revolve around the sun. And instead of talking about something we now know as fact, we are delving into some pretty heady stuff that would blow the socks off of Darwin in its depth. We don't yet know the origins of many of the things creationists would like science to answer for them (while condemning and mocking when science is unable).

But what I wish I could do is be around for another 400 years and see just where the arguments will be. All that's discussed here will be ever more reinforced by science and other fundamental theories will be kicking around. The arguments are going to be so small for creationism, I wonder if Christianity will be around in its present form.

The way the Church has stifled pure science in the name of control of the masses, I wouldn't doubt it if Columbus would have been the first man on the moon without secular intervention along the way. Religion has never had a place in science.

I wonder what the ratio is for creationists to moonlanding-disbelievers, simply trying to dispel a 400-year old fact.

Bubba

(I love make believe--you can create your own reality)

Isn't creating your own reality what fuels creationism?

Bubba

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Mohammed, founder of Islam 570-632 CE.
Confucius, founder of (Chinese) Confucianism 551-479 BCE

Lao Tse, founder of (Chinese)Taoism,(no one knows for sure but dates range from 6th century BCE to 3rd century BCE)

Gautama Buddha, founder of the Subway franchise, no wait, (Nepal/India)Buddhism 563-483 BCE

Doesn't the OT go back to at least 1000 BCE? No sense labelling these religions "pre-Christianity" then. Or maybe I'm confused on just when "Christianity" started.

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So my sarcasm towards creationism was duly noted.

Kantian

My two cents on the mention of a bonafide philosopher in this thread (I assume it was a reference to his deductive-nomological model for scientific explanations, or precisely, singular deterministic events):

Carl Hempel produced what is widely considered the classic work in philosophy of science on the topic of explanation-an essay titled Studies in the logic of explanation, which may be found <a href="http://here." target="_blank">here.</a> This essay was the fruit of discussions between Hempel and Dr. Oppenheim. The challenges of Hempel's account for scientific explanation comes from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0924922605/qid=1034487499/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/103-6230701-1830269?v=glance" target="_blank">Karel Lambert</a> and Gordon Britten, in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0917930533/qid%3D1034487910/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-6230701-1830269" target="_blank">Laws & Conditional Statements</a> where they offer counterexamples that do not cohere with the D-N model. Nancy Cartwright attacks the empirical content of the 4th requirement in Hempel's model of explanation in the essay <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0198247044/qid=1034487961/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6230701-1830269?v=glance" target="_blank">"The truth does not explain much."</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195108647/qid=1034488063/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6230701-1830269?v=glance" target="_blank">Wesley Salmon,</a> Bas van Frassen and<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0816617732/qid=1034488127/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/103-6230701-1830269?v=glance" target="_blank"> Phillip Kitcher</a> all offer alternatives to Hempel's D-N.

Wyz_sub10

I'm not sure what you are getting at in your last paragraph. Perhaps you could elaborate.

As for the "poor knowledge of history", I cannot speak for anyone's comments but my own. I readily acknowledged that middle east was *the* source of technology for Europe during the middle ages until just before the Renaissance. I'm also quite aware that Islam was the predominate religion of the region at that time.

But the golden age of Islam is irrelevant today. Fundamental Islam is *the* biggest reason for the lack of science and culture in Islamic countries.

During the Renaissance and beyond, the church played a key role in many scientific endeavours in western Europe. But when you see fundamentalist Christianity today, you can hardly argue that it is still a proponent of science and reason.

MM's point was that science could not have existed without Chrisitanity. I purposely used the middle east as an example where science flourished in the absence of Christianity. But fundamental Islam today has been the ruin of science and culture in those countries.

The golden age is well over and what remains as the strongest iteration of Islam in that region is absolutely responsible for the dire situation that exists.