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Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)

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

#191

Post by simonh »

webmobdev wrote: post #185
simonh wrote: post #90

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,…

More than all of this - the key is political leaders. Visionary political leaders make or break their country or end civilizations. Both India and America are witnessing this currently with their respective elected right-wing "leaders" in Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. In India Astrology is now being treated as a Science and the Modi government is considering allowing alternate medicine (Ayurveda / Homeopathy / Unan…

Of course rulers can have a huge influence, but I think what differentiates the modern scientific enterprise from past models is that it's not dependent on the whims of individual rulers. It just has so much established momentum and support.

Modi may well promote nonsense, but the institutions of higher education and science in India still exist and have enough prestige and social and economic momentum that I believe they will continue to sustain themselves. Similarly Trump continues to talk utter nonsense about Coronavirus, and even knowingly misled his followers throughout the first 6 months of the outbreak, but still has Dr. Fauci leading the medical response because even Trump can't completely sideline the scientific community.

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

#192

Post by OminousWeapons »

helen___keller wrote: post #142
merpnderp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But was it medical science when the CDC advised people, very strongly, to not wear masks or that the virus coming out of Wuhan was of no concern to everyday Americans? How are people supposed to believe in capital 'S' science when our scientific institutions make claims based on their guts instead of just admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with rep…

Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? You say > admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're go…

They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the best of their ability. It's ok to put some spin on information to achieve results, but issuing knowingly false statements immediately shreds your credibility.

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

#193

Post by implements »

dariusj18 wrote: post #169
implements wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with the concept of gender because it appears to be akin to a ‘racialised theory of sex‘. I’m male. My appearance, sense of dress, interests and attractions are my unique personality - I don’t think they come from a biologically inherent gender, nor do I think it’s socially progressive to promote the idea that they do or should. Edit: Are you sure you didn’t downvote for ‘heretical opinion’ rather than act…

I think many gender studies point to how inherently difficult it is to separate biology, physiology and culture. And much of the issues come when those three things don't seem to line up. So much of the vitriol from all sides of the cultural debate seem to extend from, not necessarily the science of it, but how that should affect our policies and interactions with each other.

“Culture isn’t determined biologically (that’s a racist belief), nor does biology determine someone’s gender (and that’s a sexist one) - and any specific culture shouldn’t require individuals to conform to gendered roles in its service (that’s a human rights violation regarding basic individual freedom)” would be my response.

Sure, these things are hard to separate - the mistake is to think that means they’re mutually determined.

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

#194

Post by simonh »

mrwnmonm wrote: post #111
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel has good universities and has research output comparable to European/NA countries. The author is also including in Contemporary Islam, SEA countries like Malaysia. He also discusses Pakistan and ancient Indian civilizations as separate entities, which have geographical overlap, because Pakistan (and Bangladesh) is far behind India in terms of research productivity.

Israel has that because the US accepts and supports that development. They won't allow that in the islamic countries.

If the Arab nations decided to embrace science education and to industrialise their economies there's nothing the USA or Europe could, or would want to do to stop it. In fact the West would gleefully sell them the technical know how and equipment needed to do it. After all, they even did the same for Communist China.

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

#195

Post by helen___keller »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #192
helen___keller wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? You say > admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're go…

They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the bes…

> Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements

How is this political or economic? It was purely public health.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing".

The original PR was something like "masks don't work unless it's an N95 mask and you wear it in a very specific way, and healthcare workers need those anyways so don't buy 'em". Yeah, I can agree it feels misleading now.

But in a world where we're trying to literally ELIMINATE the virus, it makes sense: Wearing a cloth mask near someone with the virus COULD get you infected, so you're better off not being in that situation in the first place.

Once it became clear that we couldn't just have everybody stay at home until the virus is gone, the CDC changed their recommendation to wearing cloth masks. This was about 2 weeks into "lockdowns", at the very very beginning of april.

I fail to see whats so bad about the CDC's recommendations. From the point of view of public health (again, that's what the CDC is. A public health agency), these recommendations make sense in context.

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

#196

Post by kmeisthax »

pjc50 wrote: post #13

> "We will turn to this question later, but it is important to keep in mind that the decline of scientific activity is the rule, not the exception, of civilizations. While it is commonplace to assume that the scientific revolution and the progress of technology were inevitable, in fact the West is the single sustained success story out of many civilizations with periods of scientific flourishing. Like the Muslims, th…

>Why not the Middle East?

Well, when your region of the world has been torn asunder by everything, including colonial powers, fascist reactionaries and nationalists, liberal market economies, and international communism; the only remaining cultural artifact that you can call your own is religion. If you want to unify the Middle East, you have to do so under the guise of religion, and in practice that means conservative religious extremism. Iran is sort of a microcosm of this: they deliberately adopted theocracy as any form of secular government or economy was viewed as surrender to one's oppressors.

The only problem is that there's at least three dominant forms of religion in the area to unify under: Sunni and Shiite Islam, and Zionist-compatible Judaism. This has more or less created a local cold war between Sunni theocracies (e.g. Saudi Arabia), Shiite theocracies (e.g. Iran and half of Iraq), and Israel. These hostilities are often fought with insurgencies, which means lots of violence in the border areas between the three religions. This is not a great place to live.

Immigration law is quite complicated and fraught. Every country has a mostly but not entirely irrational fear of demographic shifts (see Texas and Israel), and so they heavily restrict who can enter their country. However, the demands of capitalism mean that most countries have to provide a practical immigration path for college-educated individuals such as scientists. Immigration for the working class is generally disallowed or heavily restricted as a form of labor market protectionism, which means there is vast disparities in who is and isn't allowed to leave a country.

This creates an interesting problem: it is very difficult for these countries to convince educated scientists to remain in their country. Scientists generally don't get along with theocrats all that well to begin with. However, we've also chosen the immigration policy that is most likely to select for (relatively) liberal emigrants and filter out more conservative ones. So there's a vicious cycle: it's easier for scientists to leave the Middle East, which makes the region more conservative, which makes more scientists want to leave.

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

#198

Post by DanBC »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #192
helen___keller wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? You say > admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're go…

They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the bes…

> They knew that masks worked from the get go

Can you point to the studies that they would have used to confirm this belief?

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

#199

Post by feralimal »

blackbear_ wrote: post #123
feralimal wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Absolutely. You cannot verify everything. One should try though, at least where possible. Of course we cannot verify everything. We should also get used to saying 'I don't know' rather than presenting hearsay as truth.

When one has not verified a thing, one should be open about the level of knowledge we have. It is absolutely acceptable not to know everything. It is not acceptable to carelessly relay what might be lies.

I don't agree that we stand on the shoulders of giants. I don't have any heroes. I stand by own judgement alone.

The way I see it, if we don't verify a thing, we should not accept it. We simply say we don't know, that we are working on a hypothesis. We should explicitly state our assumptions and gratefully receive correction. We can say that 'such and such is the common consensus but that I have not proven this to myself'. We should let a modicum of doubt be expressed in what we say, if there is a modicum of doubt in what we are stating.

You can even consider this from a spiritual perspective. If you erroneously believe something to be true, but in fact it is a lie, but you repeat it, are you a liar too? Are you stating a case that you shouldn't be stating? I think so. I think not living and breathing truth, you are relaying unverified hearsay. I think is in fact lying. It is careless use of language, and misleads the next person as you were misled yourself.

I love to recommend this video, that I think accurately expresses the problem we have in trying to determine truth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4

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

#200

Post by JPLeRouzic »

082349872349872 wrote: post #91

Heterodox explanation: > ”Nothing in Europe,” notes Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma, “could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600.” Before the portuguese (1498-1974?) and the spanish (1492-1976?) overseas empires, the arab world was in the middle of the prime trade routes between asia and europe. Afterwards, their status as middleman…

> As they say in the asteroid belt: na desh walowda walowda peyeting; imim na xunyam sasating?

That's a language which is still missing in Google's translator.

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