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> Thanks for pointing that out but there's must some mistakes on the website. You were the one who suggested that web site. > Al-Kindi contribution is on the

by eesmith 10mo ago

> Thanks for pointing that out but there's must some mistakes on the website. You were the one who suggested that web site. > Al-Kindi contribution is on the experiment in showing that tides are caused by the expansion of water due to heat but of course later people know that it mainly due to gravity. Where is the mistake? That is what I quoted. Your original premise is "Reading most of the technology articles would have you to believe that dark ages really existed and for more than thousands years". That is, IMO, quite an exaggeration. In the European context, the "Dark Ages" is a dated and inaccurate term for the early middle ages, so the period of about 500 years after the fall of Rome - far from even a single thousand years that you wrote, which would exclude the Carolingian Renaissance. The term also contains both anti-Catholic and anti-religion attitudes, by Protestant and Enlightenment thinkers who regarded the Roman Church and religion in general as the oppressors of intellectual thought. I therefore can't help but think you are listening to some very misinformed writers, which is probably why they are writing about technology and not history. Like, you wrote "Romans however, had a very limited exposure to ocean tides since they mostly observing the tide-less Mediterranean sea" but the Romans had access to the Atlantic coastline from Gibraltar up to modern day Netherlands, plus the modern English coastline .. and those have tides. Famously so, given Julius Caesar's problems with tides during his invasions of Britain. For that matter, the Roman Empire also reached the Red Sea, with maritime routes to India all the way to the Ganges. Hardly "limited"! You wrote "Albumasar in his seminal book on tides was the first hypothesized the lunar correlation" but that correlation was made well before. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_tides#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_tides#History "An ancient Indian Purana text dated to 400-300 BC refers to the ocean rising and falling because of heat expansion from the light of the Moon." (sounds familiar, yes?), and "Ultimately the link between the Moon (and Sun) and the tides became known to the Greeks, although the exact date of discovery is unclear; references to it are made in sources such as Pytheas of Massilia in 325 BC and Pliny the Elder's Natural History in 77 AD." Your [1] even says he rejected "rejected Greek thought that moonlight influenced the tides and considered that the Moon had some astrological virtue that attracted the sea." How do you conclude his book was the first to hypothesize the lunar correlation? You also wrote "Al-Bitruji was the very first astronomer who proposed an alternative to Ptolemy's model of the universe" but that is also not true. The very same paragraph on that Wikipedia page points out "Seleucus of Seleucia is thought to have theorized around 150 BC that tides were caused by the Moon as part of his heliocentric model." and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism adds "a moving Earth was proposed at least from the 4th century BC in Pythagoreanism, and a fully developed heliocentric model was developed by Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC." What your [3] says is that he was first "to present the concentric spheres model", it points out how it "was a modification of the system of planetary motion proposed by his predecessors, Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Tufail (Abubacer). He was unsuccessful in replacing Ptolemy's planetary model, as the numerical predictions of the planetary positions in his configuration were less accurate than those of the Ptolemaic model" . It links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_spheres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_spheres which points out that model dates back to the Ancient Greeks. These far predate the start of Islam, much less the Islamic Golden Age. The Islamic Golden Age was a fantastic era of scholarship, architecture, and research. Making incorrect claims of primacy tarnishes that glory.

teleforce 10mo ago
My point is that the article is devoid of the significant contributions made in the so called dark ages as so many technical and technology articles with historical background posted in HN [1]. >What your [3] says is that he was first "to present the concentric spheres model", it points out how it "was a modification of the system of planetary motion proposed by his predecessors, Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Tufail (Abubacer). He was unsuccessful in replacing Ptolemy's planetary model, as the numerical predictions of the planetary positions in his configuration were less accurate than those of the Ptolemaic model" . Imagine if in the future scholars were dismissing Newton's novel contributions to astronomy because his physics model is not that accurate compared to Einstein's. Or even more ridiculous if their future articles point to Ptolemy and straight to Einstein skipping Newton. >Making incorrect claims of primacy tarnishes that glory. We can debate about the accuracy later but your comments were missing the forest for the trees, of western biased scholars making their scientist/engineers/technologist contributions even more significant or using your own word "more primacy". The idea is that they (Renaissance scholars) came up with the so called novel and great ideas (pardon the pun) that were originated from the Greek very simple elementary ideas and jump straight into Renaisance era sophisticated ideas, and conveniently skipping the true lineage of knowledge and scholarship in between them. In research and scholarship this mentallity is frowned upon and illegal. The proper name of this immoral activities is plagiarism by not mentioning the prior reseachers who are you doing the same work and proposing valid ideas even if their work is less accurate than yours [2]: "Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work." [1] The Myth of the ‘Dark Ages’ Ignores How Classical Traditions Flourished Around the World [1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-myth-of-the-dark-ages-ignores-how-classical-traditions-flourished-around-the-world-180982190/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-myth-of-the-dark-... [2] Plagiarism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
- eesmith 10mo ago
  Don't use the term "Dark Ages". The article does not. Use "early European medieval period". Repeating it perpetuates the myth. If you must use it, say "European Dark Ages", and be aware that you are still perpetrating a false anti-religion narrative. > if in the future scholars were dismissing Newton's novel contributions to astronomy because his physics model is not that accurate compared to Einstein's. Newton's came first. Einstein improved on Newton. The example you point to came after the Ptolemaic system and made worse predictions. Plus, there are no compounding rotations of homocentric spheres. And there were other heliocentric models. > of western biased scholars making their scientist/engineers/technologist contributions even more significant Sure. And you didn't mention ancient Indian contributions to tides either, like the one I quoted from Wikipedia. I see from your posting history that you posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37184786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37184786, with someone else posting a comment linking to https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/the-unfortunate-backlash-in-the-historiography-of-islamic-science/ https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/the-unfortunate-back... . Quoting from it: "In earlier versions of this narrative, its European propagators claimed that the Islamic scholars who appropriated Greek knowledge in the eighth-century and then passed it back to their European successors, beginning in the twelfth-century, only conserved that knowledge, effectively doing nothing with it and not increasing it. ... a later generation of historians of science began to research the work of those Islamic scholars, reading, transcribing, translating and analysing their work and showing that they had in fact made substantial contributions to many areas of science and mathematics, contributions that had flowed into modern European science along with the earlier Greek, Babylonian and Egyptian contributions ... Unfortunately the hagiographic, amateur, wannabe pop historians of science now entered the field keen to atone for the sins of the earlier Eurocentric historical narrative and began to exaggerate the achievements of the Islamic scholars to show how superior they were to the puny Europeans who stole their ideas, like the colonial bullies who stole their lands." You believe I am solidly in the first camp, and you in the second. I believe your comments strongly support my belief that you belong in the third category - a part of the forest you should be aware of because that comment was directed to you. If I were in the first camp then it should be very easy to refute me by pointing to concrete examples, but your examples fall apart under simple scrutiny, often even by reading the references you give. If your knowledge were deep, you never would have written "Romans however, had a very limited exposure to ocean tides" as if that were meaningful - or you would have explained why I was wrong, rather than ignoring the problem. Even now, you write "In research and scholarship this mentallity is frowned upon and illegal." Plagiarism is NOT illegal per se. Your own [1] says "Plagiarism and copyright infringement functionally overlap, depending on the copyright law protection in force, but they are not equivalent concepts,[19] and although many types of plagiarism may not meet the legal requirements in copyright law as adjudicated by courts, they still constitute the passing-off of another's work as one's own, and thus plagiarism. " Nor is it always plagiarism to not mention the prior researchers who did the work before you. That's actually quite common, because 1) finding previous work can be hard, and 2) people don't like digging into the literature. If you don't know about previous work then that's called independent re-discovery, not plagiarism. Ramanujan rediscovered known theorems. He did not plagiarize them.

by eesmith 10mo ago

teleforce 10mo ago

My point is that the article is devoid of the significant contributions made in the so called dark ages as so many technical and technology articles with historical background posted in HN [1]. >What your [3] says is that he was first "to present the concentric spheres model", it points out how it "was a modification of the system of planetary motion proposed by his predecessors, Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Tufail (Abubacer). He was unsuccessful in replacing Ptolemy's planetary model, as the numerical predictions of the planetary positions in his configuration were less accurate than those of the Ptolemaic model" . Imagine if in the future scholars were dismissing Newton's novel contributions to astronomy because his physics model is not that accurate compared to Einstein's. Or even more ridiculous if their future articles point to Ptolemy and straight to Einstein skipping Newton. >Making incorrect claims of primacy tarnishes that glory. We can debate about the accuracy later but your comments were missing the forest for the trees, of western biased scholars making their scientist/engineers/technologist contributions even more significant or using your own word "more primacy". The idea is that they (Renaissance scholars) came up with the so called novel and great ideas (pardon the pun) that were originated from the Greek very simple elementary ideas and jump straight into Renaisance era sophisticated ideas, and conveniently skipping the true lineage of knowledge and scholarship in between them. In research and scholarship this mentallity is frowned upon and illegal. The proper name of this immoral activities is plagiarism by not mentioning the prior reseachers who are you doing the same work and proposing valid ideas even if their work is less accurate than yours [2]: "Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work." [1] The Myth of the ‘Dark Ages’ Ignores How Classical Traditions Flourished Around the World [1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-myth-of-the-dark-ages-ignores-how-classical-traditions-flourished-around-the-world-180982190/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-myth-of-the-dark-... [2] Plagiarism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism

eesmith 10mo ago
Don't use the term "Dark Ages". The article does not. Use "early European medieval period". Repeating it perpetuates the myth. If you must use it, say "European Dark Ages", and be aware that you are still perpetrating a false anti-religion narrative. > if in the future scholars were dismissing Newton's novel contributions to astronomy because his physics model is not that accurate compared to Einstein's. Newton's came first. Einstein improved on Newton. The example you point to came after the Ptolemaic system and made worse predictions. Plus, there are no compounding rotations of homocentric spheres. And there were other heliocentric models. > of western biased scholars making their scientist/engineers/technologist contributions even more significant Sure. And you didn't mention ancient Indian contributions to tides either, like the one I quoted from Wikipedia. I see from your posting history that you posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37184786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37184786, with someone else posting a comment linking to https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/the-unfortunate-backlash-in-the-historiography-of-islamic-science/ https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/the-unfortunate-back... . Quoting from it: "In earlier versions of this narrative, its European propagators claimed that the Islamic scholars who appropriated Greek knowledge in the eighth-century and then passed it back to their European successors, beginning in the twelfth-century, only conserved that knowledge, effectively doing nothing with it and not increasing it. ... a later generation of historians of science began to research the work of those Islamic scholars, reading, transcribing, translating and analysing their work and showing that they had in fact made substantial contributions to many areas of science and mathematics, contributions that had flowed into modern European science along with the earlier Greek, Babylonian and Egyptian contributions ... Unfortunately the hagiographic, amateur, wannabe pop historians of science now entered the field keen to atone for the sins of the earlier Eurocentric historical narrative and began to exaggerate the achievements of the Islamic scholars to show how superior they were to the puny Europeans who stole their ideas, like the colonial bullies who stole their lands." You believe I am solidly in the first camp, and you in the second. I believe your comments strongly support my belief that you belong in the third category - a part of the forest you should be aware of because that comment was directed to you. If I were in the first camp then it should be very easy to refute me by pointing to concrete examples, but your examples fall apart under simple scrutiny, often even by reading the references you give. If your knowledge were deep, you never would have written "Romans however, had a very limited exposure to ocean tides" as if that were meaningful - or you would have explained why I was wrong, rather than ignoring the problem. Even now, you write "In research and scholarship this mentallity is frowned upon and illegal." Plagiarism is NOT illegal per se. Your own [1] says "Plagiarism and copyright infringement functionally overlap, depending on the copyright law protection in force, but they are not equivalent concepts,[19] and although many types of plagiarism may not meet the legal requirements in copyright law as adjudicated by courts, they still constitute the passing-off of another's work as one's own, and thus plagiarism. " Nor is it always plagiarism to not mention the prior researchers who did the work before you. That's actually quite common, because 1) finding previous work can be hard, and 2) people don't like digging into the literature. If you don't know about previous work then that's called independent re-discovery, not plagiarism. Ramanujan rediscovered known theorems. He did not plagiarize them.