231–240 of 413 posts
Western Europe developed into an economic powerhouse during that time, both through population growth and later and concurrent the industrial revolution.
That didn't happen in the islamic world (and many third world countries), or only "under the boot" of the Europeans.
So now the lesser developed countries are catching up in terms of population numbers but lagging in terms of wealth. And with that, in their investments in science.
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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 (…
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> 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". Healthcare workers aren't getti…
If covid-19 were containable, then average people don't need masks. This isn't new territory: we've contained infectious diseases before, like SARS and ebola, and average Joe didn't need a mask then, either. The CDC (and frankly every major government in the world) believed that covid-19 could be contained, and that no major outbreak would happen inside their country. This was incorrect. But if you hold this assumpti…
>The CDC (and frankly every major government in the world) believed that covid-19 could be contained
There's plenty of photos from asian countries where mask use was immediate, wide spread, and effective.
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,…
There were more than one university in India thousand years back and hosted thousands of students. Islamic Invasions destroyed the culture.
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Again, that happened in Egypt, and the US were very much happy to support a coup that undone everything gained by the Egyption revolution.
Why do you believe the US supported the 2013 coup?
While I won't judge the US by what someone like Trump says, but those words were very true. Obama wasn't just that stupid to announce it like that.
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Abdus Salam belonged to a school/sect of Islam that encourages open debate and promotes a scientific interpretation of the Quran. "Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim, who saw his religion as a fundamental part of his scientific work. ... In 1974, the Pakistan parliament made the Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan that declared Ahmadi to be non-Muslim. In protest, Salam left Pakistan for London." [0] [0] https:/…
Thanks for that extra info. I'm wondering if Weinberg's comment may in fact have been in support of Salam and his (possibly frustrated) experiences in Pakistan, rather than in contradiction of it. I think it would have been a fruitful avenue for the article to pursue.
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=d2tF-L00-X8C&pg=PA216&lp...
"My late friend, the distinguished Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam, tried to convince the rulers of the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf to invest in scientific education and research, but he found that though they were enthusiastic about technology, they felt that pure science presented too great a challenge to faith. In 1981, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt called for an end to scientific education. In the areas of science I know best, though there are talented scientists of Muslim origin working productively in the West, for forty years I have not seen a single paper by a physicist or astronomer working in a Muslim country that was worth reading"
This article makes for an interesting read. I'm not qualified to evaluate its historical claims but its claims about the current state of science in the Muslim world don't agree with what little knowledge I have in that area. That knowledge comes from having been acquainted with a number of Muslim students and scientists both in the US and in France. I did not at all get the impression that they came from a culture t…
I'm from a 3rd world Muslim country, I also agree that the number of people who actively oppose "western education" is extremely small. They are on the fringe even in the rural, comparatively religious society I grew up in. It's important to remember that most people don't really worry about this kind of ideological questions, like whether studying in university is incompatible with Quran. Hell, most people don't eve…
To me this is bullshit. Most of these problems are caused by poverty. If you're poor you don't have good education, information, nutrition, health systems and all the like. And that causes all sorts of disadvantages people can't imagine. It's not character or genetics.
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You've used an electron microscope? They've been around since 1933 you know - we should all have ready access by now, no? If you look at a video, do you believe its true? Take a look at this one, to see the problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFLs6nufCj4 You really cannot trust what is presented on a screen. There really is no equivalent to personally testing science or any thesis personally. You will be illumi…
That video is making the false claim that individual aspects of a video can’t be independently falsified. A simple example is to track down the original referenced paper. Another is knowing that at the time the video was created, VFX wasn’t good enough to fake the shot. That’s not verification of say the amount of effort involved, as they could be scamming their backers or whatnot. But, it does demonstrate the differ…
The video is saying that information is presented to us in such a way that it is impossible to know whether it is true or false. When you edit the shots and do not present a single continuous shot, you have disabled the audience's ability to discern for themselves. And even if we were presented with an uncut edit, with CGI technology being as good as it is, we still cannot be sure nowadays.
The effect of being presented with endless streams of information like this, throughout our lives, in school and on TV, is that our ability to be clear about what we know is overwhelmed. And our nature is that we accept it all. We have been trained to sit back and accept whatever we are told. What's irritating to me is that we also have the front to call that 'knowledge'. When we see something like the crow 'science' in that film, we think we know. But we do not. We have the illusion of knowledge, but in reality we are in the dark. Without the deconstruction of that film, I think most would watch this and accept this as true.
This is a state worse than ignorance. At least an ignorant person knows they do not 'know'. Thinking you 'know' when you do not, is actually negative knowledge - its worse than ignorance.
When you reflect on this, you will see that this the default means of receiving information. We sit back and let the news/the scientists/whoever make a bunch of claims. And most will accept all these by default. Simply because its on TV! And everyone thinks they are cleverer that that... whilst having verified nothing!
> "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…
> Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east? There are lots of theories, of course, but one I find interesting is that East Asia, in addition to never being colonized to the same extent as most places, emerged with national boundaries largely intact. The Middle East was under fo…