BBC - Islam and Science 3: The Power of Doubt 1/6 - العلم في الاسلام

Physicist Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.

Al-Khalili turns detective, hunting for clues that show how the scientific revolution that took place in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe had its roots in the earlier world of medieval Islam. He travels across Iran, Syria and Egypt to discover the huge astronomical advances made by Islamic scholars through their obsession with accurate measurement and coherent and rigorous mathematics.

He then visits Italy to see how those Islamic ideas permeated into the West and ultimately helped shape the works of the great European astronomer Copernicus, and investigates why science in the Islamic world appeared to go into decline after the 16th and 17th centuries, only for it to re-emerge in the present day.

Al-Khalili ends his journey in the Royan Institute in the Iranian capital Tehran, looking at how science is now regarded in the Islamic world.

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[UseAsDirected100]

@DontBendOverForAllah Copernicus went to heliocentrism because because he wanted to go back to the idea of uniform circular motion. According to just three articles I read and a book, there was no substantial gain in simplicity or accuracy in the switch. Sources: "Teaching History of Science," Shortland (1989) p. 61; "On being caught between Dionysians and Appolonians," Holton (1974) p. 65-81; "External and internal factors in the development of science," Shapere (1978) p. 1-23.

[xforsakenHeart786x]

@DontBendOverForAllah I hope you understand your...Zionist/Christian rhetoric is far from suited to a real discussion. Once again, I hope that your let it seep into your feeble mind, that eloquence, regurgitated hatred and lack of argumentative skills mean you are without a doubt one of the most foolish people I have met. Why? Anybody can use complex nouns, adjectives and all other sorts of rubbish to 'persuade' others. I see through this facade. You are a fake. I call you out, you coward. Vs me

[babkrani]

@DontBendOverForAllah muslimheritage(dot)com/topics/­default(dot)cfm?ArticleID=1330

I suggest to visit ths website, it treats the problem of Al-Ghazali in much more details.

[DontBendOverForAllah]

@babkrani The Islamic Golden Age which did happen but is greatly exaggerated was due to the influence of Mu’tazili school of Islam which unlike the other schools was heaviliy influenced by Greek Philosophy.  This eventually succumbed to Al-Ghazali's 'Incoherence of the Philosophers' which denounced Aristotle, Socrates and other Greek writers as non-believers. The Socratic Method is the basis of the Scientific Method hence the Islam (of today) killed off the golden age watch?v=gcSXwPsgLhE

[babkrani]

@DontBendOverForAllah "The power of doubt" => To doubt greeks' work. i think this is enough answer, if you watched all parts.

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Al shatir (1304 – 1375) and al-katibi ( 1276, who argued for the possibility of a heliocentrism, but then dropped it ) => No need to mention more scholars. And by the way i don't think "Islam" stopped them, since learning itself is an act of worship.

[DontBendOverForAllah]

@babkrani Copernicus switched from a geocentric system to a heliocentric system in order to reduce the number of epicycles in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model ie produce a simpler model. This is not mentioned by Jim Al-Khalili.

The Islamic astronomers got their ideas from Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model (which is not mentioned by Jim Al-Khalili either) they would probably matched Copernicus if they had been allowed to continue but Islam (Al-Ghazali) stopped them and hasn't changed since

[babkrani]

@DontBendOverForAllah People had 1000 years ago all metals and stuff necessary to make planes but they didn't.

Free advice, you should never argue with "why X didn't" but argue with what X actually did or does.

As you can see there is no proof that Copernicus did use there work nor did the video state so, all it says is that there is this possibility.

As for the rest of the comment, i would say thanks for the informations even tho all you said is off-topic, since its after Copernicus' work.

[DontBendOverForAllah]

@babkrani If these guys had all of the information Copernicus did why didn't they work out his heliocentric model? btw there is no tusi-couple involved in the orbits of the planets.

Free history lesson. 1610 Galileo saw moons orbiting Jupiter proving not everything rotated round the Earth. 1619 Kepler had worked out from Tycho Brahe's observations that planetary orbits are elliptical which got rid of the need for "epicycles" led to 1687 Principia published - Newton's law of gravitation.

[babkrani]

@DontBendOverForAllah It hurts to read some people giving some ridiculous comments and calling people names and think they given a knockdown argument. If you watched the documentary you will notice that it also talks about some possible causes of the decline of the islamic science.

Aristarchus didn't work out the heliocentric model, but only formed the hypothesis, so many people did that after him, but muslim scholars are the ones who provided the mathematical formula for it to be available.

[DontBendOverForAllah]

If Islam is so great at Science where are the Scientists from Mecca and Medina - name one? Truth is Islam conquered lands let the great minds of the those lands continue working for a while and then destroyed their work as contradicted the retarded Quran.

The greek Aristarchus worked out that the solar system was heliocentric c 270 BC - they had access to that work yet still thought the solar system was geocentric.

Jim Al-Khalili is a bullshit sellout.