Australian Politics Forum - Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam

NorthOfNorth

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #60 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:18pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:11pm:

I think its true to say that Christianity / Islam has allowed scientific advancement in spite of itself, not because of itself.

Not true of Islam. Islamic doctrine is very clear on the virtue of seeking knowledge and discoveries etc, and is widely identified as the driving force behind the advancement of science during the golden age. Its not to say Islamic doctrine can't be (mis)construed to say the opposite - which it sadly has since the golden age - but there is little dispute that what drove those early scholars, as well as the patrons of science - going right up to the Caliph - was a theological driver.

OK... Will take your advice on that...

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

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freediver

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #61 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm

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No, why would I?

Because that is what historical context is Gandalf. This "golden age" can only be described that way if you don't compare it to what came previously. If you do give Islam that context, you see the reality that Islam merely locked in the low point in living standards following the collapse of the Roman Empire, despite having the biggest empire in human history until then.

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We could even throw in a meaningless graph on "social advancement" as if that somehow proves the point.

How is it meaningless? Do you even know what it is measuring?

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polite_gandalf

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #62 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:52pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm:

Because that is what historical context is Gandalf.

Historical context is not saying how one empire was "better" than the other. Thats something a 5 year old would say.

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:24pm:

How is it meaningless? Do you even know what it is measuring?

A graph of "social advancement", which I recall measures economic output, does not prove or disprove the contributions to world science of one civilization or another. Again, this is well trodden territory. One of the many points I made last time was that the Islamic empire did not have the infrastructural or knowledge base to rapidly build a economic powerhouse like the Romans did. Rather they emerged out of the ruins of the collapse of two major empires, and all the economic and social destruction that entailed. From that low base they did pretty well - but again, their scientific contributions isn't much related to that measure. Hence it is meaningless.

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A resident Islam critic who claims to represent western values said:
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Outlawing the enemy's uniform - hijab, islamic beard - is not depriving one's own people of their freedoms.

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polite_gandalf

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #63 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

I'd be very happy if Islamic-critics ran with that line. Instead of what I have to contend with here, that Islamic doctrine is crystal clear in its evilness, oppression, anti-freedom etc etc - and thats the end of the matter. And that the best thing muslims can do is be less Islamic, or, preferably, not muslim at all.

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A resident Islam critic who claims to represent western values said:
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Outlawing the enemy's uniform - hijab, islamic beard - is not depriving one's own people of their freedoms.

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GordyL

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #64 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:48pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:30pm:

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:08pm:

It looks like stagnation from the beginning. Muslims have had 1400 years of history, standing on the shoulders of giants, and produced an empire of inbred midgets.

This is the Islamic-history version of climate change denial.

No serious scholar on the subject accepts this view of yours. You are so far out on your own here FD. And I'm not going over old territory, as I recall you spent about a month arguing how advances in mathematics don't count as scientific advances. But I'm sure you're off even as we speak digging up that old thread and making a new thread about it.

What about the last 200 years? Not much going on.

Why?

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freediver

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #65 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:55pm

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Historical context is not saying how one empire was "better" than the other. That's something a 5 year old would say.

What about a supposed "golden age" actually being a low point in the history of human civilisation? Or do I need to dumb it down for you again?

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A graph of "social advancement", which I recall measures economic output

It does not measure eocnomic output, but I would expect economic measures to show the same pattern. It is a human development index, similar to modern ones used to measure human devlopment, except that the measures were chosen for their ability to be applied to hisotrical societies.

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does not prove or disprove the contributions to world science of one civilization or another

Correct. That is why I also suggested you impress us with that list of scientific advancements. If you are too embarrassed to go back over that one, let's look at the broader impact on human development instead.

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One of the many points I made last time was that the Islamic empire did not have the infrastructural or knowledge base to rapidly build a economic powerhouse like the Romans did

.

They had the biggest empire the world had seen until then, much of it part of the old Roman Empire, they had your alleged Islamic devotion to learning, they had the Roman example to show them it could be done and how, and they had their Thousand Year Reich. What else could it be other than a squandered opportunity? What the Roman Empire did was unprecedented. The Muslims could not even play catch-up. Their problem was not that they were starting from the social and economic destruction that followed. Their problem was that they were the social and economic destruction. They have been from Muhammed until today. They took over what was until then the most civilised place on earth and turned it into an eternal backwater. Other nations can leapfrog the Muslims in a matter of generations.

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Rather they emerged out of the ruins of the collapse of two major empires

As did all the other groundbreaking historical empires that pushed the envelope of human development.

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polite_gandalf Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 20027 Canberra Gender:	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #66 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:58pm Never mind 200 years Gordy, not much has happened in the last ~800 years. Why? Lots of reasons, one of them being the Islamic world falling under the control of kill-joy anti-scientists. Google the Mihna and Hanbal and the rise of the so-called 'traditionalists'.
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48816 At my desk.	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #67 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 3:02pm A wikipedia article giving a very brief description of the indices used in Morris' follow-up book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Measure_of_Civilization A free e-book containing more detail: http://ianmorris.org/docs/social-development.pdf
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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #68 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 3:24pm

polite_gandalf wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:55pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 1:23pm:

It does beg the question, though, that if the doctrine can be misconstrued on this matter, it stands to reason that Islamic doctrine may not be so very clear.

I'd be very happy if Islamic-critics ran with that line. Instead of what I have to contend with here, that Islamic doctrine is crystal clear in its evilness, oppression, anti-freedom etc etc - and thats the end of the matter. And that the best thing muslims can do is be less Islamic, or, preferably, not muslim at all.

It does seem clear that the established doctrines of Christianity and Islam have been used to justify hegemony of the traditional over the modern, resulting in a, sometimes rapid, sometimes gradual decline of the civilisations founded upon them.

It can't all be about religion, though, as the decline of Chinese culture over the last five hundred years attests... What is amazing in the case of the Chinese is that they have managed to reverse the trend so successfully.

I'd put that down to the Chinese not having a single authoritarian religion that would reimpose its ancient hegemony and, in doing so, suppress science and modernism within its sphere of influence.

Religions by their nature (most particularly when practised in their extreme forms), are suppressive.

And if that is true, then Islam would not be alone in this tendency to suppress science and modernism... Christianity, given the chance, would reassert itself in no less a suppressive way.

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Karnal Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 94816 Gender:	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #69 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:39pm freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 12:28pm: See the title of the other thread. For your next question, I refer you to the text of the opening post. And I refer you to a graph with no reference. You think I didn’t do those things? Google Taqiyya, eh?
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48816 At my desk.	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #70 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:58pm I refer you to the text of the opening post. Here it is for you: Although a rough measure, the index highlights some interesting trends - see attached (figure 3.7, p 166).
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polite_gandalf

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #71 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:02pm

freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 2:55pm:

They took over what was until then the most civilised place on earth and turned it into an eternal backwater.

Laughable.

Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

Baghdad wasn't "the most civilised place on earth" when the muslims took over it - it didn't even exist. They built it from scratch and turned it into the intellectual centre of the the west. Similar story with Cairo.

Honestly FD, the argument that the muslims didn't achieve as much as they should is one thing - but to turn this around and say that in fact they took over some sort of bastion of civilization and turned it into a wasteland is just a whole new level of farce. Literally everywhere the muslims conquered they improved things using Morris's social development criteria (go check for yourself the muslim centres before and after Islam came). And no, the places the muslims conquered didn't include the heart of the previous Roman Empire, but provincial backwaters - the near east and North Africa. Spain was a bit closer, and look what they did to that - made it the most advanced and prosperous place in Europe.

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A resident Islam critic who claims to represent western values said:
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Outlawing the enemy's uniform - hijab, islamic beard - is not depriving one's own people of their freedoms.

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freediver

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Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam
Reply #72 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:23pm

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Was Cordoba during Islamic rule an "eternal backwater", or was it in fact the most advanced and most prosperous city in the whole of Europe?

It was backwards compared to what had been previously, and what existed in the east at the time.

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Baghdad wasn't "the most civilised place on earth" when the muslims took over it - it didn't even exist. They built it from scratch and turned it into the intellectual centre of the the west. Similar story with Cairo.

Good job completely missing the point Gandalf. For most of human history, the most advanced civilisations were in Iraq, Iran and Egypt. Islam conquered these and they have remained a backwater ever since. The Roman was the only groundbreaking civilisation (in a long list of them) to be centered outside what was captured by the Caliphate. The creation of Bagdhad is hardly a major event in the history of human development.

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Honestly FD, the argument that the muslims didn't achieve as much as they should is one thing - but to turn this around and say that in fact they took over some sort of bastion of civilization and turned it into a wasteland is just a whole new level of farce.

For most of human history, the most advanced civilisations were in Iraq, Iran and Egypt. Many of these places played a significant role in the Roman Empire. Islam conquered these and they have remained a backwater ever since. The creation of Bagdhad is hardly a major event in the history of human development.

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And no, the places the muslims conquered didn't include the heart of the previous Roman Empire

Did I say they captured Rome? And so what? The Muslims depopulated a lot of the Italian coastline catching slaves. Was there something special about the geographic location of Rome that prevented the Muslims from making something better out of an even bigger empire that happened to exclude it?

Are you arguing that Muslims are only capable of having advanced civilisation if they take it from someone else? Did inheriting the fragments of the old Roman Empire somehow condemn the Muslims to 1400 years of stagnation? Why were the Muslims unable to repeat the feats of empires that came previously, that existed at the same time in the east, or that came later, other than imposing themselves on people?

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Karnal Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 94816 Gender:	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #73 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:26pm freediver wrote on Apr 25^th, 2016 at 5:58pm: I refer you to the text of the opening post. Here it is for you: Although a rough measure, the index highlights some interesting trends - see attached (figure 3.7, p 166). Thanks, FD. Not hard, is it?
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48816 At my desk.	Re: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Islam Reply #74 - Apr 25^th, 2016 at 6:26pm I think even you could manage Karnal.
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