Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#121

Post by devcpp » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #97

simonh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is flat out not true, every child that studies science in high school, all the way through to degree level in University personally goes through all the logical chains of thought, experimentation and verification of the ideas and principles they learn. We read how Newton derived the laws of motion and measure the periods of swinging weights hanging on strings, we measure the pressure of a gas as it varies with c…

Sorry - but you verify very little at school. It is an indoctrination system. IMO. Feel free to provide a specific example though, where you verified something at school.

Are you deliberately missing the point? You follow a logical chain of building up a roughly coherent view of the world. Not as good as following the kind of thorough reasoning that goes into a research paper (since you always have access to "the right answer") but better than most alternatives that can be mass-produced at that level.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#122

Post by reincarnate0x14 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #76

xvilka wrote: post #18

> There's always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution This risk is real. Just see how many American citizens rejecting medical science in times of pandemic.

Yes it disappointing to see so many Americans panicking over the disease when medical science tells us the infection fatality rate is likely under 0.35%. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-... Our current pandemic response is mostly a faith-based policy based on irrational fears rather than a science-based policy based on objective reality.

The panic was never over the case or infection fatality rates. The panic is because of asymptomatic spreaders.

If a strain of influenza suddenly spiked to higher fatality rates, less drastic measures could contain it because it's usually obvious when you are contagious with influenza.

Also, as someone who had SARS-COV-2 and didn't die, it was fucking awful and I fully blame the complete failure of US leadership for the current fiasco.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#123

Post by blackbear_ » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #84

blackbear_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a fair point^, but instead of attacking science in particular you should attack societies in general. Can you trust the food you buy at the supermarket or at the restaurant is not poisonous? That your doctor or partner isn't going to kill you in your sleep? That policemen will not shoot you? That drivers won't run you over? It's not about science. Society is impossible without trust. ^ except that scientists…

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 (…

> We would soon learn the difference between knowing and believing.

Well said, and it's not always so easy. Skepticism and critical thinking are in very short supply, that is true, and we should all try to verify as much as possible.

But really, most things cannot be verified by you, personally. We do stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will not be able to verify centuries of scientific progress all on your own, from first principles.

And this becomes even harder when you approach the softer parts of human knowledge such as economics or very recent discoveries that aren't fully settled. Most people are easily tricked by politicians and other evil actors simply because most things cannot be known for sure (immigration? interest rates? carbon taxes?), and the best one can do is to have educated guesses. And educated guess require education, which most have not.

So I don't see how you can live without trusting most of what you are said or living partially outside society. I guess a compromise between our point of views is the good old adage "trust, but verify".

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#124

Post by loudmax » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #76

xvilka wrote: post #18

> There's always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution This risk is real. Just see how many American citizens rejecting medical science in times of pandemic.

Yes it disappointing to see so many Americans panicking over the disease when medical science tells us the infection fatality rate is likely under 0.35%. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-... Our current pandemic response is mostly a faith-based policy based on irrational fears rather than a science-based policy based on objective reality.

An infection fatality rate of 0.35% means 500,000 deaths if half of Americans are infected. Not the end of civilization, but certainly something to take seriously.

The single worst aspect to America's Covid response was that what should have been a medical or scientific debate became politicized.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#125

Post by EForEndeavour » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #34

Ha ha - primitive Islamic religionists!! Only we are exactly the same, but are blind to our failings. This narrative plays on our conceited, flabby, unreasoned thinking. But its nice to laugh to others, eh? Science to me, is the application of the scientific method. This is to say that whatever is being looked at should be repeatable, and consistently provide the same results. Strictly speaking, when we say we know,…

In a perfect world, any random person would have the ability to independently verify any scientific claim they cared to. But as you imply, our world is far from perfect. Many scientific facts require heavy training and/or expensive equipment to verify that most people just don't have. But the cool thing is that IF you did have the skills and gear (and patience, free time, assistants, etc.), you absolutely can image a virus particle, or measure the mass of an electron (not all that complicated, it turns out!), or take your own observations of the motion of the planets and re-derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

> My point is that no one is personally verifying science. On an individual level we cannot be sure that these are not stories and hearsay.

You should hang out with more scientists. It turns out they count as "someone"!

> Science, as we do it, ie based on trust and without personal verification, is absolutely equivalent to religion. A comforting, explanatory story is provided and we believe we 'know' what is happening. Scientists are our priests and we take their pronouncements as gospel, without questioning them.

This is a grossly false equivalency. The thing with any scientific claim is that you could independently verify it; in practice, verifying modern scientific claims tends to cost tons of time and money, but nothing in principle prevents you.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#126

Post by Out_of_Characte » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

simonklitj wrote: post #67

Yetanfou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the sudden appearance of a multitude of 'genders', the statement than there is no such thing as biological sex, the denial of the existence of facts which are now to be seen as interpretations and many more of these results of the introduction of 'critical theory' [1,2] in academia. [1] https://newdiscourses.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#In_academia

I think the common lingo is that gender is what you identify as, and sex is what you biologically are (subject to change through sex-change operations).

Exect that "Gender" in relationship to any animal or conversation is used interchangeably with sex. While Gender-identity is the new age belief that your "Gender-identity" or gender for short, is a preference you can change (With or without sex change operations depending on your political view). The obfuscation of the word itself is a problem in discussions. I find it distastefull how people can 'identify as' male/female black/white. they are immutable characteristics that no one chose for. If you believe that humans can be tribal and racist but should rise above superficial judgement and look at the content of their character then wether or not you personally identify as certain characteristics should be a moot point.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#127

Post by maeln » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #50

gomox wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science and religion are belief systems and therefore share some commonalities but the radical difference is that science is based on testable hypothesis, whereas religion is just religion. To say they are "absolutely equivalent" is a massive stretch.

Do you personally test any scientific claims? Or do you personally take them on faith?

There is a big difference between something being able to be tested to see if it is actually true and something that is impossible to test.

Want to understand and test the veracity of some theories on electricity, gravity, medicine, etc, you can ! And a lot of those can be even tested at home with simple experiment. You can sometimes even find something new, or that one theory is wrong.

Want to test if god exists ? If heaven or hell exists ? If following some rules will grant you access to heaven ? You can't. There is no experiment that you can replicate that will prove any of those claims. You can try to find your own, in many way is is also scientific, but there is many religions and people have been trying to prove many of those theories for eons without any advancement.

Comparing science and the belief in scientific theories as similar to a religious faith is just wrong if you stop and think about it for more than 5 minutes.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#128

Post by simonh » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #97

simonh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is flat out not true, every child that studies science in high school, all the way through to degree level in University personally goes through all the logical chains of thought, experimentation and verification of the ideas and principles they learn. We read how Newton derived the laws of motion and measure the periods of swinging weights hanging on strings, we measure the pressure of a gas as it varies with c…

Sorry - but you verify very little at school. It is an indoctrination system. IMO. Feel free to provide a specific example though, where you verified something at school.

I did give examples. My own children are going through high school here in the UK right now, they are 15 and 17 and both study physics and chemistry. They spend a significant portion of their science education performing experiments themselves in labs, that's exactly what lab work is for - to test the things you are being taught. Maybe it's different in the US, if you are American, but did you really not do experiments in science class at school? Did your teachers really not explain how to apply the scientific method practically? Anyone can test the theories of basic mechanics, gases and electricity with household objects and surely must do this at school right?

I happened to go on to do Physics at University, although I transferred and eventually graduated in Computer Science. Of course the work you do there is more advanced, but it builds on the basic principles of investigation, verification and experimentation started at school. About 95,000 students study physical science subjects University level here in the UK every year.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#129

Post by kalenx » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #34

Ha ha - primitive Islamic religionists!! Only we are exactly the same, but are blind to our failings. This narrative plays on our conceited, flabby, unreasoned thinking. But its nice to laugh to others, eh? Science to me, is the application of the scientific method. This is to say that whatever is being looked at should be repeatable, and consistently provide the same results. Strictly speaking, when we say we know,…

That's the kind of argument that could make sense in a vacuum, but does not apply at all in practice.

Sure, _in theory_, I would be glad to know enough, to have enough time and to have enough money to verify every scientific theory since the dawn of times. In practice, it's been totally not scalable for a single person for about 500 years. _Careful trust_, with verification systems in place, is then the second best choice we can make.

The difference with religion lies in the fact that you do _not_ have to blindly accept everything. If you doubt a specific scientific theory, then by all means, put it to the test! But no, you won't be able to do that for science as a whole, not because "we're whining children who like conformting stories" but simply because of the blunt fact that our time here is limited.

Re: Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

#130

Post by DSingularity » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

mrwnmonm wrote: post #62

I am an Arab and I am pretty sure the article is full of misinformation before even reading it, but will read it anyway. Take the first paragraph > Contemporary Islam is not known for its engagement in the modern scientific project. But it is heir to a legendary “Golden Age” of Arabic science frequently invoked by commentators hoping to make Muslims and Westerners more respectful and understanding of each other. Pres…

Even in the comments here people will bring up countries like japan as a contrast. Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall?

Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing.

The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines.

Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.