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I'm also curious what happened to the Middle East in terms of technological development. They seems to be at the top of there game several centuries ago, but th

I'm also curious what happened to the Middle East in terms of technological development. They seems to be at the top of there game several centuries ago, but there doesn't seem to be as many technological or scientific ground breaking research being done. Anyone know why this occured too?

eugenejen 18y ago
My pet theory is current technology advancement in Europe, North America and Japan is part of benefit from capitalism. Other region that lacks of capitalism will start to get religious or political authority into innovation process and which just won't work. Below is a joke when I was a teen to talk to my friends. When I watched those anime series from Japan and super hero tv cartoons from U.S. I found a big difference in villains. In animes from Japan, villains creates evil robots and organizations but no author ever clearly explained how villains sustain their criminal activity. And most villains goal is to conquer the world and it is never mentioned the financial obstacles. While most villains in american cartoons clearly state their intent is to get the money to enable their plan to conquer the world.
- rkowalick 18y ago
  This sort of supports my idea that everything good about America stems from capitalism, and everything bad about America, also stems from capitalism.
  - jackchristopher 18y ago
    Capitalism has no moral direction. It just tries to get things to the people efficiently.
gojomo 18y ago
Some theories I've heard suggest that certain Islamic rules of finance or inheritance made economic activities that helped the West a lot more difficult. Specifically, there are prohibitions on earning interest, and traditional inheritance laws made joint-stock corporations that could survive the death of owners hard to do. (Is this accurate? Does this persist today? I don't know.)
- astine 18y ago
  Yes it is. There was actually a scandal recently in Arab nations where special loans designed to skirt the interest issue and appeal to Muslims were demonstrated to not be what they claimed.
astine 18y ago
The Crusades and Islam. It wasn't so much the effect of attacks themselves as the fact that they lead to a rapid backlash against the sciences and secular pursuits. It was believed that no gains made by Allah could be lost and when the Holy Land was lost to the Europeans, it was seen as a result of secular science and law which was considered corrupt by the Islamic leaders. Thought to fair, It is actually a myth that Islamic empires where as advanced as they are sometimes represented. Most of the scholars that you read about in school were actively persecuted in their day and with the fall of Jerusalem, the Islamacists had the excuse they needed to end their activities for good.
- johnyzee 18y ago
  Islam was not originally anti-science, as evidenced by the fact that the whole body of basic sciences builds upon Muslim scientific tradition (certainly true of medicine, chemistry, optics and astrology, most of basic math etc.). It is not that the Muslims invented these disciplines, but they preserved and expanded upon works from earlier nations such as those of Hellenistic Greece, which would be unknown today if they had not been preserved by the Muslims and later translated to European languages. There was not the same schism between religion and science as there was in the West. In fact most of the eminent Muslim scholars were as prolific in theology as in temporal studies. Consider f.ex. Avicenna, father of modern medicine, who was also a big theologist and had memorized the entire Quran. There are many such examples, f.ex. try reading about Averroes who basically revolutionized European philosophical thought and at the same time was one of the world's leading experts on Islamic law.
  - astine 18y ago
    You need to distinguish between Islam and the society that grew up with it. Averroes may have been an Islamic scholar, but his true god was Aristotle. He was quite explicit in his belief that Aristotle's was the hight of human knowledge and that religion (meaning Islam) was a sort dumbing down meant purely for the masses. Averroes was a pretty crappy Muslim by today's standards. Avicenna had a similar viewpoint, though he was more orthodox. That said, we do owe a lot to these thinkers.
seiji 18y ago
Neil deGrasse Tyson gives you an answer in a talk at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473201666872695446 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473201666872695446 He sums it up by saying an Islamic leader declared mathematics to be the work of the devil, so all discourse and innovation stopped.
- eru 18y ago
  Are you sure you are not mixing up mathematics with astrology? The term 'mathematician' (or better - its equivalent in the day's languages) was often used as a synonym for astrologer.
  - rms 18y ago
    Maybe they also confused it at the time and all mathematicians were associated with astrologers? Surely this must be a decided thing in history...

eugenejen 18y ago

My pet theory is current technology advancement in Europe, North America and Japan is part of benefit from capitalism. Other region that lacks of capitalism will start to get religious or political authority into innovation process and which just won't work. Below is a joke when I was a teen to talk to my friends. When I watched those anime series from Japan and super hero tv cartoons from U.S. I found a big difference in villains. In animes from Japan, villains creates evil robots and organizations but no author ever clearly explained how villains sustain their criminal activity. And most villains goal is to conquer the world and it is never mentioned the financial obstacles. While most villains in american cartoons clearly state their intent is to get the money to enable their plan to conquer the world.

rkowalick 18y ago
This sort of supports my idea that everything good about America stems from capitalism, and everything bad about America, also stems from capitalism.
- jackchristopher 18y ago
  Capitalism has no moral direction. It just tries to get things to the people efficiently.

gojomo 18y ago

Some theories I've heard suggest that certain Islamic rules of finance or inheritance made economic activities that helped the West a lot more difficult. Specifically, there are prohibitions on earning interest, and traditional inheritance laws made joint-stock corporations that could survive the death of owners hard to do. (Is this accurate? Does this persist today? I don't know.)

astine 18y ago
Yes it is. There was actually a scandal recently in Arab nations where special loans designed to skirt the interest issue and appeal to Muslims were demonstrated to not be what they claimed.

astine 18y ago

The Crusades and Islam. It wasn't so much the effect of attacks themselves as the fact that they lead to a rapid backlash against the sciences and secular pursuits. It was believed that no gains made by Allah could be lost and when the Holy Land was lost to the Europeans, it was seen as a result of secular science and law which was considered corrupt by the Islamic leaders. Thought to fair, It is actually a myth that Islamic empires where as advanced as they are sometimes represented. Most of the scholars that you read about in school were actively persecuted in their day and with the fall of Jerusalem, the Islamacists had the excuse they needed to end their activities for good.

johnyzee 18y ago
Islam was not originally anti-science, as evidenced by the fact that the whole body of basic sciences builds upon Muslim scientific tradition (certainly true of medicine, chemistry, optics and astrology, most of basic math etc.). It is not that the Muslims invented these disciplines, but they preserved and expanded upon works from earlier nations such as those of Hellenistic Greece, which would be unknown today if they had not been preserved by the Muslims and later translated to European languages. There was not the same schism between religion and science as there was in the West. In fact most of the eminent Muslim scholars were as prolific in theology as in temporal studies. Consider f.ex. Avicenna, father of modern medicine, who was also a big theologist and had memorized the entire Quran. There are many such examples, f.ex. try reading about Averroes who basically revolutionized European philosophical thought and at the same time was one of the world's leading experts on Islamic law.
- astine 18y ago
  You need to distinguish between Islam and the society that grew up with it. Averroes may have been an Islamic scholar, but his true god was Aristotle. He was quite explicit in his belief that Aristotle's was the hight of human knowledge and that religion (meaning Islam) was a sort dumbing down meant purely for the masses. Averroes was a pretty crappy Muslim by today's standards. Avicenna had a similar viewpoint, though he was more orthodox. That said, we do owe a lot to these thinkers.

seiji 18y ago

Neil deGrasse Tyson gives you an answer in a talk at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473201666872695446 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6473201666872695446 He sums it up by saying an Islamic leader declared mathematics to be the work of the devil, so all discourse and innovation stopped.

eru 18y ago
Are you sure you are not mixing up mathematics with astrology? The term 'mathematician' (or better - its equivalent in the day's languages) was often used as a synonym for astrologer.
- rms 18y ago
  Maybe they also confused it at the time and all mathematicians were associated with astrologers? Surely this must be a decided thing in history...