Science and Islam (3) Universality

[2:54:15]

Nature's rules are refreshingly free of human prejudice.

That's something the scientists of the medieval Islamic world understood and articulated so well...

These scientists' quest for truth, wherever it came from, was summed up by the 9th century philosopher Al-Kindi, who said:

It is fitting for us not to be ashamed of acknowledging truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us. There is nothing of higher value than truth itself. It never cheapens, or have bases, he who seeks.

One moral emerges from this epic tale of the rise and fall of science in the Islamic world between the 9th and 15th centuries, and that is that science is the universal language of the human race.

Decimal numbers are just as useful in India as they are in Spain. Star charts drawn up in Iran speak volumes to astronomers in Northern Europe. And Newton's "Principia" is just as true in Arabic as it is in Latin or English.

What medieval Islamic scientists realized, and articulated so brilliantly, is that science is the common language of the human race. Man-made laws may vary from place to place, but nature's laws are true for all of us.

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Science and Islam (2) Methodology

[1:54:45]

"On my journey so far, I've been overwhelmed by the sheer intellectual ambition of medieval Islamic scientists. When their leaders asked them to find out the size of the world, scholars like Al-Biruni used mathematics in startling new ways to reach out to describe the universe. And as trade and commerce boomed, scientists like Al-Razi responded by developing a new kind of experimental science - chemistry. But if there's one Islamic scientist we should remember above all others, it is, in my view, Ibn Al-Haitham, for doing so much to create what we now call the scientific method.

The scientific method is, I believe, the single most important idea the human race has ever come up with. There is no other strategy that tells us how to find out how the universe works and what our place in it is. Of course it has also delivered technologies that have transformed our lives. So the next time you jet off on holiday, or use your mobile phone, or get vaccinated against a deadly disease, remember Ibn Al-Haitham, Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni, and countless other Islamic scholars a thousand years ago, who struggled to make sense of the universe, using crude mirrors and astrolabes. They didn't get all the right answers, but they did teach us how to ask the right questions."

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Science and Islam (1) Transcendence

[56:30]

I believe that the first great achievement of the medieval Islamic scientists was to prove that science isn't Islamic, or Hindu, or Hellenistic, or Jewish, Buddhist, or Christian. It cannot be claimed by any one culture. Before Islam, science was spread across the world. But the scholars of medieval Islam pieced together this giant scientific jigsaw by absorbing knowledge that had originated far beyond their own empire's borders. This great synthesis produced not just new science, but showed for the first time that science as an enterprise transcends political orders and religious affiliations. It's a body of knowledge that benefits all humans. Now that's an idea that's as relevant and as inspiring as ever!

~Jim Al-Khalili
Professor of Theoretical Physics
University of Surrey
 

Thinking is difficult...

(image credit)

Our thinking default, it seems, is simplicity.  It is far easier to determine things as either black or white, rather than as gray.  The gray zone is vast and murky.
 

Any fool can know...

(image credit)

It's easy enough to Google anything we want, but if we're to truly understand something, then we have to mull it over, make sense of it etc.
 

(7) Back to the Curious Case of Kelsey Alexander

Not Kelsey Alexander

Department Of Education Hires Art Teacher To Spread Evenly Across All U.S. Public Schools is evidently a satire, and if so, it's directed at the beleaguered Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. These art lessons for students at 98,000 schools across the US are a sham, and this particular Kelsey Alexander probably doesn't exist.