There are 6 Chinese Nobel Laureates, almost the same number as Arab Nobel Laureates. Let me explain how they are related. But first, some background.
I get the most amount of emails regarding my article The Arab Contribution to Civilization: Nothing Lately. In the article I note that there have been very, very few Arab Contributions to the modern world in the past 1,000 years. I get a few dozen emails a month in rebuttal. Since many of the writers have problems with English I suspect they are hesitant to make their remarks in the comment section for fear someone will criticise them for their poor language skills. I don't know about other sites but I would not knowingly permit anyone to make fun of someone's grammar. I think it exemplary that people whose first language is not English are trying to communicate with the rest of us. I certainly would not ask my readers to learn how to speak English before making a comment. Of course, I am opposed to any other language being spoken in our country in terms of drivings tests or schools, but as far as comments are concerned I would discourage my readers from making fun of someone's English when they are trying to give us their point of view.
That said, I did get a comment (not an email this time) that covers most of objections in the emails I receive (excluding the occasional "May the sword of Mohammed deal swift justice to the Jews"). I would like to answer his comment in more detail than I could by simply replying in the comment section.
I wrote: "... under Islam, Arabs have not advanced for the past one thousand years. See my previous article on the paucity of Nobel Prize winners in a world filled with 1.5 billion Muslims ( of which over 300 million are Arabs).
Here is the comment in its entirety:
First, it is false to state that the Arab world has not progressed in the past 1000 years since Islam (see below).
Second, blaming Islam for why the Arab world is now technologically underdeveloped is as logical as saying that western scientific advancement is due to Christian values. Such selective interpretation of history is not confined to politics but widespread, e.g., the rush of business books in the early 90s arguing for the supremacy of a consensus-building management style characteristic of the Japanese (back then), just because the Japanese economy in the 80s looked unbeatable.
The paucity of Arabic Nobel laureates is also not evidence for any apparent fault of Islam, even if it has short-comings (and what religion or culture doesn't). If it were, perhaps one could argue that the Chinese are stupid, given that they too have won so few Nobel prizes (around 6) compared with their population (1 billion). Or Indians. Or the Spanish(!) There have been notable Arabic Nobel prize winners, one of the more recent (1999, in Chemistry) being Ahmed Hassan Zewail, who received his first degree from University of Alexandria, Egypt.
The Islamic world is also striving to improve its record and achieving in science. Theocratic Iran is rapidly expanding its scientific activities (see editorial and letters to the premier international science magazine "Nature": volume 443 page 906 (26 October 2006), and volume 442 pages 719–720 (
www.nature.com/nature)) Iranian scientists working in Iran has been contributing to important 20th century discoveries, e.g. discovering glycosylated hemoglobin, and performing the first cornea transplant (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_Iran)
This is not an apologist's letter for the Islamic world. Muslims themselves realize that the Arab world is a "market for consumption of technology, not manufacturers" (Sheikh Saber Taalab, former head of the Islamic Research Center, frontpage, October 18, 2006, The Daily Star, Egypt
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=3523) But before blaming everything on Islam, we should remind ourselves that:
1. contrary to widespread belief, there have been significant achievements in recent times by Muslims working in their native countries (in science, see above, or in the arts, e.g. Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who won the grand prix (1997) at Cannes, the premier international film festival);
2. we are outsiders and we don't talk with, read or know a whole lot about the region, except through CNN or some western source, who report mostly about the West;
3. societies rise and fall for a whole range of reasons;
4. scientific progress is also correlated with a whole range of things, most notably wealth, which the west has the most of, at the moment.
There are so many points, I will answer them in short, otherwise this post will become unbearably long.
Ahmed Hassan Zewail - True, but his scientific work was done in AMERICA. Under Islam he would have created nothing.
"Theocratic Iran is rapidly expanding its scientific activities." - False. Iranian scientists are writing bogus scientific papers. Nothing noteworthy is being created. I covered this in a previous post.
"The paucity of Arabic Nobel laureates is also not evidence for any apparent fault of Islam, even if it has short-comings (and what religion or culture doesn't). If it were, perhaps one could argue that the Chinese are stupid, given that they too have won so few Nobel prizes (around 6) compared with their population (1 billion). "
What holds Muslims back in creativity by Islam is the same mechanism that keeps native Chinese from winning Nobel Prizes as well.
Tsung-Dao Lee, Physics, 1957 - Chinese American
Edmond H. Fischer, Physiology or Medicine, 1992 - Swiss-American (born in China)
Daniel C. Tsui*, Physics, 1998 - Chinese American
Gao Xingjian, Literature, 2000 - French Emigre
Chen Ning Yang, Physics, 1957 - Chinese American - See Photo Above
Samuel C.C. Ting, Physics, 1976 - Michigan-born Chinese American
As you can see, they are all Chinese American, or American born in China, or Chinese born in America, and one lives in France. In the case of the 5 Arabs who have won Scientific Nobel Prizes (omitting Peace Prizes), 3 are Christian and the other two, though Muslim, Are Arab-Americans. Just as in the case of Chinese, Arabs, unless they are Arab-Americans or non-Muslim, do not win Nobel Prizes.
