Originally Posted by sturm

... For example in Europe religion was often a setback for technological advancement. The situation in the muslim world couldn't have been different.

Originally Posted by nander

You are being kind to the vatican here
Europe plunged into their dark ages because education was systematically destroyed as a means of control.

Originally Posted by jehosafats

Huff: "The achievement of the modern scientific revolution, most elegantly put forth in the work of Sir Isaac Newton, was the outcome of a joint European adventure."

Putting his hagiography and rank triumphalism aside, Huff takes the route of positing specific transformative occurrences of science and from this derives a rather contrived sociological determinism, all based on the premise that western Europeans were innately/culturally/religiously/geographically/uniquely suited to piggyback off of these exceptional discoveries. It's been said before, but remains unconvincing.

Lets just get this out of the way:

"The sheer institutional density of Islamic science accounts for some of its achievements and characteristics. Scholars and scientists staffed schools, libraries, mosques, hospitals, and especially observatories with their teams of astronomers and mathematicians. The opportunities these institutions offered men of science produced a remarkable upsurge of scientific activity, as measured by the number of Islamic scientists which surpassed by an order of magnitude the handful of Europeans pursuing science before 1100 CE." - James Edward McClellan, Harold Dorn, "Science and Technology in World History" (2006)

McClellan and Dorn consider all the theories as to why there was a decline in Islamic science, noting them all to be external and social. At the same time they challenge the idea that knowledge of the sciences following this "decline" was no longer pursued in mosques or madrasas: "for nothing in the internal logic of scientific ideas can account for the loss of vigor of Islamic science."

I find it foolish to say any scientific revolution arising centuries later was the result of inherent cultural curiosity or freedom on the part of those who pursued the sciences and a dearth of curiosity among those who either didn't reach the same conclusions or hadn't immediately moved to appropriate these often subtle nuances. This is an overly simplistic model. Why?

First of all, the scientific boon of the High Middle Ages, from Baghdad to Cairo to Fez to Cordoba, was fully backed by the state and in many respects, religion. But even if this were not the case, there's no causative correlation between state/religious freedom and scientific development. Saliba's review of The Rise of Early Modern Science makes the point that the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made significant strides in the sciences yet hardly promoted freedom of expression. I find it hard to believe that cultures which not long before were staging trial by ordeals are now claiming modern science evolved out of their sophisticated legal systems.

Second - The exact sciences of today were a development of medieval intervention. In that respect it's useless describing science as Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Ionian, Roman, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, European, etc. The proto-science of the past was usurped by the exact sciences of the mid-1000s. This was a very important transition which led not only to scientific cultures within cultures, but provided the basis for pre-modern and modern advancement. The trouble people have in distinguishing "modern" science from medieval science stems from framing and framing alone.

Third - The division between the invention of exact and modern science is dubious for the fact that you can't have one revolution without the other. As we know earlier thinkers articulated the heliocentric view long before Copernicus but bear in mind they didn't have any exact method. Huff earlier claimed that by European universities integrating Aristotle and Arab scholarship, the Copernican model was a "unique" product of western Europeans. The circuitous logic of this is apparent, because those who espouse this view are forced to relativize on the one hand an existing culture of science and on the other hand a medieval, premodern and modern perception of science. (He also claims the Muslims outright rejected all study of natural science, which is false.) I already discussed the harsh reception of the Averroists in western European universities. And their only crime was to emphasize not only the unity of reason, but, in it's most radical sense, reason over theology. How then could Huff claim the educational system was "above all" especially primed for some secular scientific revolution? Moreover, going over passages of The Reception of Copernicus' Heliocentric Theory, I can't help but notice it was hardly a case of universal acceptance, and the long slog to acceptance was met with much resistance, particularly by government officials. It isn't actually important if some took a piecemeal theological approach or certain states sought to suppress the publication of his books. But it begs the question: how was western European culture uniquely positioned to not only produce science but carry it even further? Just by some individuals being somewhat interested? Huff is your essential essentialist, in the traditions of Weber, Landes, et al.

Fourth - The printing press. This made scholarship more widely available. Often you hear that the Ottoman's early rejection of the printing press signified the primacy of religious zealotry, that a disinterest in translating the latest scholarship from Latin into Arabic was a signal of sheer Islamic arrogance or the rejection of scientific development. It would be easy to chalk this up as propaganda, but Kemal gave a similar assessment:

"Think of the Turkish victory of 1453, the conquest of Constantinople, and it's place in the course of world history. That same might and power which, in defiance of a whole world, made Istanbul forever the property of the Turkish people, was too weak to overcome the ill-omened resistance of the men of law and to receive in Turkey the printing press, which had been invented about the same time. Three centuries of observation and hesitation were needed, of effort and energy expended for and against, before antiquated laws and their exponents would permit the entry of printing into our country." (From Bernard Lewis' "What Went Wrong?")

I feel it doesn't matter the causes, because the rapid dissemination of information appears to have had long term consequences. The question is this: does the rejection of a singular device by virtue of decree or adherence really mean a pluralistic culture such as Islam was or is inherently anti-science? Some would say yes. I find this an unfair assessment, however, since, at its height, great emphasis was put on scientific accomplishments, by states and institutions alike, that any perceived "decline" would have to be attributed to external, even radical, changes of environment. No society that produced as many polymaths could ever be accused of being incurious or inhospitable to new ideas. I can't pretend to know why religious elders rejected the printing press for as long as they did, but it isn't as if Spanish royalty, for instance, weren't themselves alarmed by this powerful new tool.

Fifth - And, finally, the truth. Notice these days, thanks to neuroscience, Western philosophers no longer distinguish between reasons and emotions? Notice the newfound rejection of "pure freedom"? Notice evolutionists deplore the stipulationism of Skinner and question Mendalian "fitness"? There's a reason why Islamic culture showed such antipathy towards exotic social theories from the very beginning, not only because to them the Qu'ran is the highest truth, but because often times they found this impractical and therefore less interesting. None of this has anything do with some sharp divide of intellectual curiosity. To them science should be practical, repeatable, and ultimately beneficial. Hence their excellence in medicine. That some nuanced advances in 16th-17th century western Europe led to an upsurge in scientific development is all well and good. But none of this was necessarily the result of some peculiar institutional milieu.

Social changes with Islam seem to come entirely predicated on internal measures. To subject social order to philosophical whimsy is to them quite dangerous (though its clear modern Muslims have had it with closed societies). Consider the fact that among professional evolutionary psychologists most are fully aware they're hardly doing science. The American Anthropology Association recently revealed a shift from scientific investigation to "public understanding." Even physics, the mother of all sciences, has reached an impasse where the dominating field of string theory remains untraceable and untestable. For a scientist this is damn near a loss of identity. Saliba was right to caution Professor Huff, a sociologist, that science and technology is hardly a panacea of social development. If not Saliba, at least heed Mumford: "It would be a gross mistake to seek wholly within the field of technics for an answer to all the problems that have been raised by technics."