Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

> There's always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution.

In the US I am pretty sure we are already on the decline.

I think it has to do with, during the industrial revolution and post-war, huge scientific advancements and tech grew the economy, fed capitalism by means of providing new desirable goods to consumers (e.g. dishwashers, nicer cars, etc.)

I wonder if we've reached a "peak" of consumer comfort where advances in science/ tech/ medicine are no longer frequent/ impactful enough to meaningfully satisfy consumers, (why do we care about exploring Mars?) so it's easy for people to reject it and say "we don't need science."

Fair enough. It is absolutely wider than science.

The problem more widely, is that we trust others. Bear with me - I know this sounds bad. The fact is that we trust too much. We should be verifying all the claims that are made to us. We would soon learn discernment over what sources are trustworthy (friend's personal experiences - ie anecdotal evidence) versus evidence presented by those that govern us on the media (politicians + their megaphone the mainstream media).

This in itself is jarring - we know politicians are not trustworthy, but we think they are trying to do their best. But really what we have is a dog and pony show to distract us, and the governance is going on anyway.

The answer, in my opinion, is something like stepping up individually. We should test and present our results to those around. We would soon learn the difference between knowing and believing. And we would also learn to accept that we do not know - and that that's ok. If we don't know, that doesn't mean we have to accept any old story that's presented. We can defer acceptance as and when we have the data, without kidding ourselves. This is skepticism.

I would guess that Islam have no issues with good science, right?

In my opinion, blaming religion for any decline of science is completely accepted even if there's no direct correlation between both, which is very bad because it's creates a false believe that religious people aren't educated.

> had no problem working with dictators who are the main reason for the decline of scientific study in the region.

If you get rid of the dictator you end up like Iraq and Libya after Saddam and Gaddafi were removed. Its better to deal with the devil you know.

The reason for this is that historically most civilizations, or phases of civilizations have lacked two things. One is the strong, persistent social institutions needed to maintain the momentum of scientific progress. The other is a solid socialised understanding of scientific methods. To maintain consistent scientific and engineering development you need both, and possibly a third in the from of the printing press, otherwise advances are at the whim of individual people, their influence and attitude to methods.

Solid rational investigative techniques go back a very long way. Even the Romans had a good understanding of how to prove a theory. Galen's work on the renal system for example involving public demonstrations on live pigs. The Antikethyra mechanism shows how advanced engineering could be in the Greek world at the time. The problem was there was no institutionalisation and formalisation of these methods to enable their systematic and sustained application, so they melted away when the thinkers and artisans, or small groups of them that made these advances died or disbanded. In the Arab world yes there were universities and medical schools, but these were the personal projects of particular rulers and their favourites that lasted a while and then melted away.

There was nothing wrong with the Arab world, or ancient China, or India. It's just that the several necessary ingredients for sustained progress in science happened to come together in Europe first.