I see that good old stevelmeyer's trying yet another tack in his relentless campaign to attack and discredit Islam beyond all other religions. Now he wants to deny - or at least minimise - the many positive contributions that Muslim scientists have made to global civilisation and knowledge in the past.

Next he'll find Jesus and be born again as a full-fledged fundamentalist Christian Islamophobe. That'd be more honest, in my opinion, than his current persona.

Hi Oliver,

Rodney Stark does have peer review journal articles. Here is a link to his website.

http://www.rodneystark.com/

Stark's definition of science parallels closely the one you give in your post. He does distinguish between science, technology and experience. If anything I would say he raises the bar a little too high. Strictly speaking, by his definition, the Chinese never had science.

While I appreciate the difference between science and technology, the two are inter-related. One does not invent blast furnaces, chain mail armour and the technology to manufacture cast iron canon by accident. Their development bespeaks a large "R&D" effort.

I should emphasise that the history Stark recounts is not controversial today. Most professional historians understand that the term "dark ages" was a bit of self-serving propaganda on the part of Enlightenment philosophers.

What Europeans did between about AD 700 and AD 1200 is to INSTITUTIONALISE science. By the 12th century Europe deployed a FULL TIME scientific and technical labour force that was unparalleled anywhere in the world. This was the basis of Europe's centuries' long scientific superiority and it happened during the so-called "dark ages".

However what is VERY controversial is Stark's claim that the Catholic Church played a central role in the development of European science. I personally find that hard to swallow. As a Jew I am no admirer of Christianity, Catholic or otherwise. At the same time I have to concede that Stark makes a case that is hard to rebut.

George,

Thank you for your kind words. You are right. In the end this is all speculation. It is possible that science would have developed in Europe even without Church support. It is also possible that science would have died in Dar-ul-Islam even if Islam had not been anti-science.

LOL CJ Morgan

When I embrace Christianity you will know I'm senile.

In the end the fact remains that Europe did build the infrastructure for a knowledge economy while in Dar-ul-Islam the existing infrastructure was destroyed.

There seems to be an aversion to giving credit where it's due mainly on the basis on the presence of Islam.

While the Muslim philosophy (at that time) was that "the blood of the poet is more valuable than the blood of the martyr" is was mainly the trading wealth of that empire that enabled them to save and study the remnants of the world's libraries and sponsor the city of Baghdad into an open centre for philosophy and learning.

I see no evidence of the equivalent in the Christian world during those 500 years. While Cordoba was thriving and lit by street lights at night, people were still living in huts along the Thames.

It was that accumulated and preserved knowledge (plus significant advances of their own) that kick-started the Renaissance a couple of centuries later.

Each civilisation builds on the efforts of previous ones and none stand completely alone.

While there may have been some random advances, they were not of the same order as elsewhere and the same claim made be made of the Stone Age, when man discovered fire.

stevenlmeyer,
>>It is possible that science would have developed in Europe even without Church support.<<
Strictly speaking, this is true, however, in my opinion, of not much more value than the statement “in the 20th century one could have made those scientific discoveries without understanding a word of English”.

Science does not need Church support, the same as e.g. physics does not depend on the language you express your theories and findings in. However, there was a long period in the development of Western thinking, when the Church was ubiquitous, and you needed its support for everything (including mental activities that later developed into modern science); the same with the English language in scientific publications of the 20th century. So I think Whitehead's observation is more than just unfounded speculation.

George,

Your post reflects a major plank in Stark's case. Given the nature of European society between AD 500 and AD 1200 it is difficult to see how this huge scientific effort could have proceeded without the ACTIVE co-operation of the Church.

Wobbles wrote,

"There seems to be an aversion to giving credit where it's due…"

Yes. And many people, myself included, are reluctant to give credit to the Catholic Church. But I'm beginning to think I was wrong.

In return I ask you to consider the possibility that you are wrong about a golden age of Islamic science.

Muslim historians are like Australian historians prior to +-1960. Until about 1960 Australia history started with European settlement. Likewise, for Muslim historians, the history of Dar-ul-Islam starts from the advent of Islam. If you want to make a devout Muslim very uncomfortable trying discussing the achievements of people in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa or present-day Turkey prior to their conquest by Islam.

Did you know that at the time of Muhammad the Arabian Peninsula had a trading and commercial culture that was arguably AHEAD OF ITS TIME? The Romans referred to Yemen as "Arabia Felicia" because of its wealth and sophistication.

You mention Cordoba? Cordoba receives so much attention because it was atypical. By then Europe already had MULTIPLE centres of learning.

Modern observational astronomy started in present-day Iraq 1500 years before Muhammad.

In assessing Islam you need to consider the riches it INHERITED when they conquered what became Dar-ul-Islam. They took over a region that was perhaps in the scientific forefront. 500 years later Dar-ul-Islam is a scientific and technological backwater while Europe has seized global leadership.

And Europe's technological leadership was NOT dependent on acquiring some ancient manuscripts that the Muslims preserved. By then Europe had already far surpassed the science contained in Aristotle's physics! The only document of some utility was the Almagest because of its ancient astronomical tables which enabled comparison with the skies as they appeared in the 12th century.

Muslim history today is like an Australian history written c1950.

Steve,

One reason why the Western world would have had difficulty transitioning from the late Roman Empire was that few people could speak Attic Greek, the language used by the classial intelligensia. Latins spoke, well, of course, Latin. :-) Vular Latin. The pace of growth in knowledge acquisition eased even before the DA.

I checked Toynbee and Quigley and unlike what I said above, they seem more inclined to assign stages through which civilizations develop over the external assignment of "Ages".

George's comment on the ubiquitous Church deserves recognition. The Church claimed dominion over Logos, not only Mythos. In the West, modern science happened with the Enlightenment and, proto-science with Copernicus, perhaps.

AS previously, stated one needs to discern between technology, experiment and science (true scientfic method).