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LINK A Thousand Years Before Darwin, Islamic Scholars Were Writing About Natural Selection

Whaddaya know, Islam didn't always suck.

There is no evidence that Darwin knew of Islamic scholars from the 9th or 10th centuries, said Salman Hameed, the director of the Centre for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts—but the purpose of including mention of past scholars isn't to say that Darwin copied them, or drew from them, or to in any way diminish his legacy.

“I think it's good for students to know that other societies have thought about these things," Hameed said. "I think it enriches our story of science. The story of science in some sense should be a story of humans, not a story of a couple of individuals coming up with these great things—but a human endeavor."

altschmerz 9 Jan 9
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14 comments

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0

What's the difference between Arab scholar and Islamic scholar?

1

Unfortunately, now for most of Islam, natural selection is killing you if you disagree.

3

They invented mathematics, for one......

Most of the stars one can see at night were named by them.

5

There appear to be progressives and free thinkers in various religious societies mixed in among fundamentalist and repressive non-thinkers. Many great thinkers in the past, while being identified with culture of religion, were probably much more focused on using their minds to both preserve and develop scientific knowledge. Ancient cultures around the world appear to have understood that humans and animals evolved through natural selection, though they didn't explain that in Darwin's way. The modern scientific canon has belittled ancient knowledge of natural selection and has called it myths, "scholarly writings, oral history and folklore" rather than admit that natural selection was known a long time ago by various ancient thinkers. Let's hope the ancient thinkers will be thanked.

5

I believe that the world's oldest university in Morocco was founded by an Arab woman over 1000 years ago. It would be inconceivable for any Muslim woman to achieve such success according to today's (Muhammad's) Islamic doctrine.

Ryo1 Level 8 Jan 9, 2022

This does not surprise me that Islam had a great period long ago as did the Greeks. It seems that Societies flourish and pass. I read that while Mohammed was alive he lived in a city that had a lot of what we would call modern. Women voted, everyone was fed and treated equally, of course, this did not last long.

Hi dalefvictor. If the Meccan forces defeated Muhammad in the Battle of Badr, Islam would've taken a quite different path. We can only speculate.

2

I don’t get the comment. Most societies have given something to the collective human knowledge. But, islam still sucks…

@altschmerz that is true, for many reasons.

0

Are we distinguishing between ideas about evolution and the specific mechanisms of natural selection? There were many competing ideas about evolution dating pretty far back in history, and associated with different cultures and beliefs, but I believe Darwin’s real achievement was to identify natural selection specifically as the engine that “drove” the process and to describe it in detail with evidence drawn from direct observation.

6

If there is a truth to be found, more than one person will discover it at different places and different times.

But you can also be sure some bunch of religious zealot crusaders will decry it as witchcraft because it disagrees with their holy book and burn the lot on the orders of one pope or another.

3

The current trend in going backwards seems to me to be because people want an answer to something right now and they believe that their religion has all the answers. The desire to know instantly is not explained by science, so many have returned to religion. I recall Islamists claiming that black holes are the vacuum cleaners of space and proving it with the Koran. This only works if you are alive after vacuum cleaners were invented and therefore you see the analogy.

5

Similarly, in the third century, the ancient Chinese scholars set their focus on the universe and established the concept of cosmology instead of settling with the belief that some unexplained divine being created the entire universe.

Ryo1 Level 8 Jan 9, 2022

Printing was not invented by Guttenberg in 1439 but was actually invented by the Chinese in AD 700. See Joseph Needham, Science And Civilisation In China.

5

At one time they were a seat of learning

1

Who did the islamic people copy from for natural selections?

No-one, not even Darwin, 'copied' from anyone or anything else, it was all done by observation, examination, researching and thought processes.
One might say, EXACTLY how Atheist discover that they are Atheists.

6

kinda, but I have to mention this most of those scholars came from PERSIAN culture NOT Islam. Islam added nothing to science. Persian empire had a great background of knowledge in both science and philosophy, just as an example check the Baghdad Battery ( today Iraq was part of the Persian empire )
[en.wikipedia.org]

Diaco Level 7 Jan 9, 2022

@altschmerz Persians were more intelligent and open-minded, but during the time Islam fucked their mind, I know this history simply because I'm a Persian. 🙂

Wasn't Islam the dominant belief system in Persian culture of that time period? Assuming you are correct that many of those names came from Persian Culture, how does this contradict, at all, the idea that those scholars were working in a predominantly Islamic culture?

[en.wikipedia.org]

@kmaz it's not necessary to assume anything, go and check the Islam Golden age. The issue is you know Nothing about Islam, when they conquered Persian lands, Persians had to be silenced about their beliefs, and during the time they changed Islam to another branch called "SHIA", and this's why even today the original Islam "Sunni" has a huge problem with them, Shia is a mixture of Islam and Persian's Ancient Religions and belives, and NO I didn't say all of them were Muslims since I know some of them were more spiritual.
and this's why today Iranians speak Farsi/Persian NOT Arabic like other conquered lands such as Egypt or Syria ( they arent Arab ).

pls check this video :
" Zoroastrianism "
the Prototype of all main religions!

[youtube.com]

@Gwendolyn2018 Again I have to repeat myself, Islam had/has no Enlightenment but it's conquered lands. it's like you say NASA belongs to Christianity!!

@Gwendolyn2018

Exactly.

@Gwendolyn2018 So... you don't believe in religions and think there isn't any single fact in them it But at the same time you categorize Humanity, History, Culture, Science, Philosophy, and Nations based on Religions! just because scholars say!!! Perfect 🙂

@Gwendolyn2018 There isn't any unbiased historical reference, simply because humans WROTE it. Good Luck

@Gwendolyn2018 Maybe, Again, Good Luck! btw, we can continue this ( Good Luck<->Be Well ) Forever 🙂

@Diaco

I will not have my Sunday ruined by your semi-incoherent points and assumptions about what I know or don't know, but I will leave it at this for now:

  • It is somewhat hard to tell what you are going for, but if what you were going for is to say that while certain regions and time periods may be labeled by laymen and academicians as predominantly Islamic, in reality there is another school of thought that the achievements coming from those regions and time periods should not be attributed to Islamic culture, but to other oppressed cultures despite Islam and despite the usual historical labels, then for goodness sake, why not just say that in a calm and rational way?? I"m sure you could have found some common ground with those here, and if you have knowledge to offer it would have been nice to read it..

  • In any event, I read for Zoroastrianism in the link I provided, before I provided it, and before you started going on about it, and for the issue of whether the culture in Persia at the time of the claimed science achievements was predominantly Zoroastrian. To some extent that may have been true (up through 1000 AD?) but from what little I know so far, it appears to be overly broad brush, at best, to make such comments as "Islam added nothing to science."

  • I"m not going to do 17 minutes of assigned viewing about yet another religion. If you have a portion of a video that is particularly relevant to making some important point, please let me know.

@kmaz my Friend, pls don't ruin your life for any (especially for past and history ), I tried to use simple and polite language, I don't know where you found anything irrational, semi-incoherent, wrong, and vague in my replies! IDK, but just in case, My BAD! 🙂

100% correct, until the Muhammed INVENTED Islam the PERSIANS were at the forefront of the Sciences, etc, etc.
Imo, what we are seeing today with Islam is almost a mirror image of what occurred in Europe when Christianity took hold via the Roman Catholic Church, i.e. the Dark Ages.

@Gwendolyn2018 Nope, but I can Understand it 🙂

@Gwendolyn2018 Renaissance happened in Christian countries! by your logic, the Renaissance and all of its Achievements were from Christianity?! really?! There isn't any credit for Islam or any Religion relative to Science, religions are Anti-Science by their own nature!

@Gwendolyn2018 and I said Good Luck! ( that means, Ok you're right! ) but seems you like this pointless cycle! PLS. go and see what Arabs were doing before Islam and compare it to Persian civilization! there are great reasons to call Cyrus the Great!
search for the " first human rights declaration "

@Diaco I think you might have more idea what it means to be Persian than a white woman.
who learned about Persians in school.

@Diaco

Ok, well, sorry if I was a bit strident. Will try to get what I can from your comments on this topic.

@kmaz It's Ok, 🙂 btw, I think you will find this interesting :
World's Oldest Animation.

3

Islam, or should we say, Middle Eastern scientists and scholars had their own Renaissance of sorts - lots of math and astronomy whilst Europe sunk into Dark Ages with their religion.
Just look at the names of stars and much of math.
An aside - a poll taken of evangelicals showed a vast majority were against teaching Arabic numerals to children.

It's okay, Arabic numerals aren't really Arabic 😂 they are Indian but I don't know if that helps

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