Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 137 posts

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#101

Post by BeetleB »

macspoofing wrote: post #61
sfjailbird wrote: post #47

There is a verse in the Quran[1] about the origins of the universe and life: And have not the ones who disbelieved seen that the heavens and the earth were an integrated (mass), then We unseamed them, and of water We have made every living thing? Would they then not believe? Commentators observe that this verse at the same time lends support to the idea of the Big Bang, and the origins of life in water. Thus there is…

It's easy to make post-hoc interpretations of these kinds of verses to make them fit anything. The reality is that there is quite a lot evolution denialism in the Islamic world - which should suggest that there is nothing obviously pro-evolution in the Quran.

> The reality is that there is quite a lot evolution denialism in the Islamic world

Not disagreeing with you (based on my own experience), but I would caution against generalizations when dealing with a population of over a billion. In some Muslim countries, over half the population believes in evolution.

I can't find a comprehensive study on this, but the theory of evolution is taught in high schools in many (most?) Muslim countries (even if they don't "believe" in it). Indeed, I suspect the opposition in several states in the US is greater than in many Muslim countries. Iran, for example, teaches it in a fair amount of detail.

In addition, the situation is fairly dynamic (e.g. taught in a given country, but banned a few years ago, or vice versa).

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#102

Post by debbiedowner »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #68
diego_moita wrote: post #30

This is like saying the pre-socratic Greek philosophers "discovered" the atom. Their "discovery" was just vague speculation. Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Before him no one else demonstrated it. Surely, a lot scholars speculated about evolution long before Darwin. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather. But that misses the whole point: no other scholar was able to embed…

> Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Not really. He described the idea in greater detail, but he didn't demonstrate it. It's actually quite similar to the pre-Socratics in that way.

He did in his book. He gives instructions for how to perform his plant hybridization experiments in your own garden.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#103

Post by BeetleB »

eska wrote: post #7

I was excited to hear about this due to the golden age of science in the Arabic world, which was a high point of Arabic culture that has since then unfortunately declined. But wondering how the scholar was able to do this research despite Islam, it turns out that he made god responsible for the mutation, the animals just have a desire to adapt. The article makes it sound like that's a trivial difference to Darwin, bu…

> I was excited to hear about this due to the golden age of science in the Arabic world, which was a high point of Arabic culture that has since then unfortunately declined.

Nitpick, but much of the golden age of science in the Islamic world was not performed by Arabs, but by other Muslims (central Asians, etc).

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#104

Post by peter303 »

diego_moita wrote: post #30

This is like saying the pre-socratic Greek philosophers "discovered" the atom. Their "discovery" was just vague speculation. Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Before him no one else demonstrated it. Surely, a lot scholars speculated about evolution long before Darwin. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather. But that misses the whole point: no other scholar was able to embed…

Aristotles Ladder of Life considers the progression of species. But without mechanism.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#105

Post by JoeAltmaier »

skim_milk wrote: post #91
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #67

I saw that old explanation "living things have an innate urge for survival" in there. Its not necessary at all, and diminishes the idea of natural selection. Creatures/species don't get selected because of what they want. The ones that behave to avoid early death (before reproduction) are represented larger in the population. The makeup of the population shifts over time. That's it. That's about all. No need to imagi…

When a person gives nature human-like qualities it always seems to upset some people. Consider that the people that are most concerned at our poor treatment of environment probably do so in part because they see nature as an extension of themselves and give nature human-like emotions despite knowing it's definitely not "real". The purpose of educators and writers giving animals etc. human qualities is intentional - i…

Sure, but scientists? They should know better.

Anyway, you want to understand selection, it's not helping.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#106

Post by throwaway13239 »

BeetleB wrote: post #103
eska wrote: post #7

I was excited to hear about this due to the golden age of science in the Arabic world, which was a high point of Arabic culture that has since then unfortunately declined. But wondering how the scholar was able to do this research despite Islam, it turns out that he made god responsible for the mutation, the animals just have a desire to adapt. The article makes it sound like that's a trivial difference to Darwin, bu…

> I was excited to hear about this due to the golden age of science in the Arabic world, which was a high point of Arabic culture that has since then unfortunately declined. Nitpick, but much of the golden age of science in the Islamic world was not performed by Arabs, but by other Muslims (central Asians, etc).

Your nitpick is inaccurate, e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_scholars_descr...

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#107

Post by Siira »

Pfhreak wrote: post #88
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument in this article is not at all surprising coming from the likes of VICE, Vox, Buzzfeed and co. There's a particular narrative they seem to want to advance regardless of how well-supported their positions are.

> There's a particular narrative they seem to want to advance... This is true of every media outlet. There is no media outlet free from some agenda. By exercising editorial control, they are fundamentally choosing which articles to publish and how they will be presented.

The degree of bias differs, and we’ll be foolish not to punish the more biased outlets.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#108

Post by Ericson2314 »

macspoofing wrote: post #66
Ericson2314 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean as late as Newton and Euler the division between theology and science was still mushy? Everything here makes sense, but hardly seems like a refutation to me.

>I mean as late as Newton and Euler the division between theology and science was still mushy? All the more reason to be very careful in interpreting those writings and mapping them to modern scientific notions.

Sure, but at the same time, we should ask what more we could expect?

Remember the division between pure and applied research is also new. And most things that have a "definitive" old date of discover need an proof (if math) or application to solidify their claim.

Evolution isn't really practical knowledge --- artificial selection predates recorded history so what is left to do before genetics or the ability to observation fast-reproducing microorganisms? I'd say evolution was doomed to be at best re-hypothesized again and again until the 19th century, with nothing to make it stick as part of the culture.

I guess one could dig up fossils, but that sort of traveling and exploring for fun didn't become popular until 19th century provided the vast empires, elite leisure time, and disdain for the empire's current inhabitants that made digging up bones appealing.

There's something very 19th western about traveling around and thinking about natural, not just human, history. Witness how new plate tectonics and geology is too. Perhaps industrial-scale mining was an important vector for getting digging to be part of the culture.

Ibn Battuta, Islamic traveler extrordinaire, checks some of those boxes but not all, and lived after the Islamic Golden age. He commented on pyramids but not fossils.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#109

Post by hnracer »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #78
hnracer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the God Of The Gaps line of fallacious reasoning. Once we figure out where radium came from then God will be inserted just before that new discovery, ad infinitum, turtles all the way down

Sure, that's the Prime Mover theory, which would be extraordinarily hard to prove or disprove. I don't think it's fallacious reasoning.

It's fallacious to put God one step before everything we don't know (radium, etc), while forgetting the numerous times this was done in the past (rainbows, etc) only to be demonstrated false once science advances. That's quite different to the Prime Mover hypothesis.

Re: 1000 Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

#110

Post by Terr_ »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #68
diego_moita wrote: post #30

This is like saying the pre-socratic Greek philosophers "discovered" the atom. Their "discovery" was just vague speculation. Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Before him no one else demonstrated it. Surely, a lot scholars speculated about evolution long before Darwin. One of them was Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather. But that misses the whole point: no other scholar was able to embed…

> Darwin didn't just say "evolution happens", he demonstrated it. Not really. He described the idea in greater detail, but he didn't demonstrate it. It's actually quite similar to the pre-Socratics in that way.

On the subject of demonstrations-in-the-lab, there's an interesting experiment that's been tracking and sampling some E.Coli since 1988.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_ex...

Post reply on HN