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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)

#311
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ethnic diversity, but lack of a shared identity. Outside of the major cities, the people living in the middle eastern countries were more loyal to their tribe and village than whatever power happened to currently be in charge of the country. That's also why it seems like so much religious extremism comes out of the middle east; a shared religion is one of the only things in common among the people living there, s…

This is saying people are loyal to their tribes, and view the government's interests as unaligned with those of their tribe, presumably giving rise to a lack of common cause in something that a government might foster like scientific development. But if "tribe" were synonymous with "ethnic group" then you'd actually be saying that multiple ethnic groups sharing a government are a cause (not necessarily the only one)…

I think it may be more useful to think of "tribe" or "clan" as a political organizations that form the base of decentralized governments than ethnic groups, since many tribes can exist within any given ethnic group, and many ethnic groups can exist within geographic areas governed by decentralized bodies.

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

#312
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experimen…

I'm in USA northeast, and we did experiments in (private) highschool & college around chemistry (calories burned, mole weights, etc) and physics (measure a spring's K, speed, light/sound wave refractions, surface tension of water+soap, etc). Not so much in biology but I think I would've hated that kind of wetwork.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hearsa…

>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.

While I appreciate your point of view and, especially in terms of policy and governance, it's a good idea to at least try to verify the veracity of the claims made by those seeking to implement policy, I think you go too far in dumping science and mathematics into that bucket.

For example, do you find it necessary to prove the commutative property of addition, or the existence of rational numbers before you can compute the sales tax due on a purchase?

Do you need to prove General Relativity (one of the most precise theories we've ever come up with) in order to trust your GPS?

You can "verify" this by punching in an address in your phone's directions app and use the GPS receiver to confirm your location as you move. When you arrive at your destination, you'll find that you're within a few meters of where you wanted to go.

That's only possible for GPS because the clocks on GPS devices and the satellites providing GPS signals are synchronized pretty precisely.

Without General Relativity providing a framework for accurately measuring time for objects with vastly different velocities, this would be impossible.

Or Quantum Mechanics, whose predictions have been shown to be more precise than any other scientific theory ever developed.

If we were to take your advice and distrust those theories because we can't personally verify them (whether that be a lack of mathematical knowledge or a lack of equipment and methodologies to do so), then we should reject the idea that GPS devices can give is accurate directions and claim that lasers (or any sort of coherent EM emissions) don't exist.

Which is objectively false.

It's a good idea to question what others assert, but (as another poster put it), having to prove everything from first principles before accepting its validity is a huge waste of time and effort.

That's where critical thinking, assessment of sources and the application of Occam's (and Hanlon's) razor really shines.

I completely agree that we shouldn't trust everything we hear, read or even see.

At the same time, rejecting everything we can't personally verify seems both counterproductive and deeply destructive of our science, our technology and our societies.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this claiming that ethnic diversity within a country's borders causes strife, and in turn hinders scientific development?

The theory rsynnott is referring to is what you'll find if you google "colonial borders" For example, some people have pointed out when European colonialists set borders, they were more concerned with natural resources and the opinions of competing colonial powers than with what the locals thought of the borders. Some people go further, thinking in at least some instances colonial governments intentionally created th…

The Ottoman situation was arguably even messier, because the Ottomans had one set of provinces, and then the Mandatory authorities had a somewhat different one.

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

#316
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experimen…

You had to perform and write up a practical experiment for the A-Level Physics final exam in the 1980s - I remember it fondly because a friend accidentally set his on fire to everyone’s suppressed amusement!

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

#317
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ethnic diversity, but lack of a shared identity. Outside of the major cities, the people living in the middle eastern countries were more loyal to their tribe and village than whatever power happened to currently be in charge of the country. That's also why it seems like so much religious extremism comes out of the middle east; a shared religion is one of the only things in common among the people living there, s…

This is saying people are loyal to their tribes, and view the government's interests as unaligned with those of their tribe, presumably giving rise to a lack of common cause in something that a government might foster like scientific development. But if "tribe" were synonymous with "ethnic group" then you'd actually be saying that multiple ethnic groups sharing a government are a cause (not necessarily the only one)…

So, 'tribe' here doesn't necessarily mean an ethnic group. Depending on scenario, it might really just mean 'village'; in some sense, large regions of some countries never _really_ became part of the nation at all.

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

#318
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that happened in Egypt, and the US were very much happy to support a coup that undone everything gained by the Egyption revolution.

The US has no say in the internal politics of Egypt, or any Arab countries. The most the West can do is stand by watching in horror, wringing our hands. When we do get mired in it, as with Iraq, the limits of our actual ability to direct change becomes painfully apparent very quickly.

This comment is in the category of "not even wrong"

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hearsa…

>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 a…

I like your approach. You are stating what personally meets your criteria. You are mis-stating my position though.

I'm stating an absolute position - that you don't know a thing until you have proved it to yourself. Its kind of self evident. Its so self-evident that people think they know it. But they don't realise that watching something in a video or on TV is not evidence. Its the illusion of evidence. It kids people into thinking they 'know', but the truth is that they have beliefs.

You are expressing a practical approach. This is interesting too - you want to get as much solid info for the effort. You are taking a pragmatic belief system approach to navigating reality. Your practical approach, doesn't need facts or truth. It is happy to have things that are useful or not - its about utility. At least this is proactive.

I'm stating a fact - that you don't know a thing, until you have verified it personally. Knowledge and what qualifies it as such to any individual - is a point that is missed by most. I'm stating something about truth and how we know it or not.

You also say:

"having to prove everything from first principles before accepting its validity is a huge waste of time and effort."

I agree. I'm not saying that you should do that. I'm saying that people need to recognise when they are believing something on the basis of no evidence that they misunderstand as evidence (ie seeing something on TV), and when they have verified something personally.

I'm fine to say, that I don't know. Many things. The shape of the earth. That viruses exist. I know there are theories (sphere, flat earth, viruses, microsomes) - but I'm not going to mis-represent the state of my knowledge. I simply don't know. I haven't been in space, I haven't verified it myself. I haven't seen a virus. I'm not going to pretend to have knowledge that I don't. I contrast this with others who say they 'know' when they are kidding themselves and others.

Anyway, I think Magritte said it best:

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"

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

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

#320

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 (…

How much free time do you think people have on their hands?

what does the amount of time have to do with saying 'I know' when you don't?
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