Ah, yes, Muslim scientific scholars did use Hellenic references. Whatever doesnt conflict against the worldview of Islam was used, since knowledge is a sacred intangable commodity (hope that isnt a paradox) in Islam. What I meant was, the starting point for Muslim scholars is the Holy Quran.
I think this is precisely the reason why science is so far behind in Islam today.
Look at Christianity in the history of science. For almost a thousand years, Europe was ruled by the Church and kings (mostly) loyal to it, or at the least dependent on it. The Church had a thriving community of "scholastics"—they were essentially scientists, but their starting point was the literal word of the Bible, and they were forbidden from pursuing any scientific endeavor that might contradict the Bible.
Then Copernicus and Galileo come along and suggest that the earth revolves around the sun. This contradicts the literal word of the Bible, which says the opposite. The Church has a hissy fit and almost sentences Galileo to death.
Luckily, the Church was weakening in power, and the Protestant Reformation meant that people now had the power to read the Bible their own way—which actually meant they could ignore parts of the Bible they didn't like. And this is exactly what happened. Scientists like Isaac Newton expanded on Galileo's theories and basically developed modern science as we know it today—and Newton was a heretic. After Newton, few people took the Bible literally, and today almost no Christians believe the sun revolves around the earth, even though this is exactly what the Bible says. Furthermore, most Christians in the world believe in evolution, even though this contradicts the Bible as well.
In other words—the rise of science in the West coincides with the fall of religion. Science only took root when it was allowed to question some of the central claims in the Bible.
Islam is going to have a problem if it does not allow science to do the same with the Quran. For example, evolution is the basis of modern biology and medicine. It is extremely,
extremely difficult to practice biology or research medicine without believing in evolution. But evolution contradicts the literal word of the Quran.
Unlike some scientists who do experiments to try to prove/disprove the existance of an Omnipotent being,
I am unaware of any such experiments. Can you provide links?
Wow, Im certainly impressed. You certainly know your stuff! However, the last remark about advances in alchemy and medicine not making an impact isn't really true. I mean, without the medicine for example (check out Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine), Europe would still live in the dark-age era of hygine. That would totally suck
I don't think this is quite true. European scholastics, under the church, encountered Muslim advances in these areas in the 1200's. But Europe didn't really wrest itself from the dark ages until the 1500's and 1600's, when the scientific revolution happened.
I think Islamic science certainly contributed to the scientific revolution, mostly because it kept the works of Greek philosophers alive.
But I guess it's possible Europeans smelled a bit better after they encountered Islamic advances.
I'd want to search out for more references, especially pertaining the "scientific method" technique used by Islamic scientists so you can get a clearer picture of how science & Islam can mix. Im no expert, still a student of knowledge (as apparent by my Username), but I do enjoy discussions like these!
Ha, thanks. I do too.
I just don't think it's possible to do science with starting assumptions like the ones you've mentioned. The word "science," as it's used today, refers to a very specific methodology that is based on naturalism—this doesn't necessarily rule out "supernatural" forces, but if it encounters something which appears to contradict known laws (i.e. supernatural) it seeks to understand it by experimentation.
A good example is gravity. Under Isaac Newton, gravity was basically a magical force. Nobody had any idea how it worked, it was almost supernatural. But then Einstein showed precisely how gravity works in combination with space and time, and we had to abandon Newton's worldview for Einstein's. Gravity is still a mysterious force—but as we learn more and more about it, it seems less and less supernatural.
Similarly, science doesn't necessarily rule out the existence of gods. If it ever encounters a phenomenon that resembles a god, scientists will test it and try to form theories around it, and incorporate it into what we already know about the universe. But you see how this is very different from assuming at the outset that a god exists and ignoring anything that contradicts that assumption.
I mean, you could certainly
do that, but I don't think it should be called "science."
