ITER Delayed, Scaled Back
Well, no question the caliphs later became ossified and dogmatic, a legacy they still struggle with today (I've heard Iraqis complain about the nonsense of every scientific discovery needing to be attributed to something Muhammad said, and the Saudis recently announced they were taking the unprecedented step of creating an institution explicitly dedicated to free inquiry, where Islamic strictures will not apply). But at the time they were pretty liberal, at least by the standards of the world then, and if they didn't invent the idea of science through experimentation they certainly advanced it considerably, espcially in their work on optics.
Being from SA in the first place, I always find it facinating hearing folks talk about it. Some turns out to be true, other things are balderdash. Who's law was it that 95% of everything is crap? Seems to apply to discussions about Islam and the Arab world too.
Even while there I didn't hear much about the glories of past Moslem SCIENCE. But mathematics (Arabic Numbers, Algebra), Natural History, and Medicine were touted pretty hard. All three are foundation stones for science itself. I do note that I have found since then that all three (except maybe Algebra) do seem to have originated, not in Arabia but India. Maybe the Arabs are just great traders and shop-keepers. Hmm.
Even while there I didn't hear much about the glories of past Moslem SCIENCE. But mathematics (Arabic Numbers, Algebra), Natural History, and Medicine were touted pretty hard. All three are foundation stones for science itself. I do note that I have found since then that all three (except maybe Algebra) do seem to have originated, not in Arabia but India. Maybe the Arabs are just great traders and shop-keepers. Hmm.
From what little I have studied the issue I believe the glories of Islamic medicine were due to Jews. At least in part. Is there a Jewish Doctor in the Court?KitemanSA wrote:Being from SA in the first place, I always find it facinating hearing folks talk about it. Some turns out to be true, other things are balderdash. Who's law was it that 95% of everything is crap? Seems to apply to discussions about Islam and the Arab world too.
Even while there I didn't hear much about the glories of past Moslem SCIENCE. But mathematics (Arabic Numbers, Algebra), Natural History, and Medicine were touted pretty hard. All three are foundation stones for science itself. I do note that I have found since then that all three (except maybe Algebra) do seem to have originated, not in Arabia but India. Maybe the Arabs are just great traders and shop-keepers. Hmm.
Good traders is a good thing. Trading has been a human trait for a very long time.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Boy, talk about thread drift! But fun. I'll add to the damage.
The Jews picked up a lot of knowledge from their little stay as "guests" in Babylon and vicinity. Iraq, basically. There they hooked up with the Zoroastrians, another monothesitic group with whom they exchanged ideas (their court advisors, or magi, are known in the west as"the wise men"). Medicine would have been one thing they picked up, and a fascination with astrology and astronomy was another. The same influence also touched the Arabs. The math of Mesopotamia was quite advanced even in the clay tablet days, including things like compound interest and roots of quadratic equations.
The Iran/Iraq area was certainly in contact with India ... the whole population corridor up out of India was responsible for populating much of Europe and Asia. Ideas must have flowed freely. The Arabs, in spreading Islam, would have imported knowledge and scholars as they exported religion.
Column arithmetic is not uniquely Indian or Arab. Everybody did it, using the abacus (in many forms, typically gravel markers). The revolution was creating numerals that worked in columns, and producing a symbol for zero. Everybody understood zero, despite a few arguments made by wealthy philosophers that it was revolutionary. The poor understood most of all since they commonly experienced it.
The Jews picked up a lot of knowledge from their little stay as "guests" in Babylon and vicinity. Iraq, basically. There they hooked up with the Zoroastrians, another monothesitic group with whom they exchanged ideas (their court advisors, or magi, are known in the west as"the wise men"). Medicine would have been one thing they picked up, and a fascination with astrology and astronomy was another. The same influence also touched the Arabs. The math of Mesopotamia was quite advanced even in the clay tablet days, including things like compound interest and roots of quadratic equations.
The Iran/Iraq area was certainly in contact with India ... the whole population corridor up out of India was responsible for populating much of Europe and Asia. Ideas must have flowed freely. The Arabs, in spreading Islam, would have imported knowledge and scholars as they exported religion.
Column arithmetic is not uniquely Indian or Arab. Everybody did it, using the abacus (in many forms, typically gravel markers). The revolution was creating numerals that worked in columns, and producing a symbol for zero. Everybody understood zero, despite a few arguments made by wealthy philosophers that it was revolutionary. The poor understood most of all since they commonly experienced it.
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Professor Science
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- Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:51 pm
Well, 2 years later Mamluk Egypt defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut, which is commonly considered the highwater mark of the Mongol Empire, so it was doable when a serious effort was made.
It was reported the Abbasid caliph did very little to defend Baghdad. He didn't summon armies, or strengthen the city's walls. Worse, he offended Hulagu Khan with empty threats; Mongol policy was not to sack cities that surrendered. Had he had the sense to either surrender or make an effort to defend the city Baghdad might have remained the world's center of knowledge. The caliph's poor leadership probably set mankind's intellectual development back centuries.
It was reported the Abbasid caliph did very little to defend Baghdad. He didn't summon armies, or strengthen the city's walls. Worse, he offended Hulagu Khan with empty threats; Mongol policy was not to sack cities that surrendered. Had he had the sense to either surrender or make an effort to defend the city Baghdad might have remained the world's center of knowledge. The caliph's poor leadership probably set mankind's intellectual development back centuries.
I highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "The Years Of Rice And Salt" which is is an alternate history of the world taking as its starting point the great plague of 1405 wiping out all of europe, leaving Islam and Buddhism to become the dominant cultures of the world.TallDave wrote:You really have to wonder how much different the Mideast and Islam itself would look today if not for the sack of Baghdad in 1258. The Abbasid caliphate was the intellectual height of human culture, but tragically too weak and poorly led to effectively resist the Mongols.
(he previously did Red, Green and Blue Mars, which I'd recommend over this book, and over most other scifi actually!)
This is not an attack on you personally MSimon (uh oh I have started with the military double talk already better look out). Nevertheless, I am going assume that you where never in the military. I personal do not think you would have made it through the first week of boot camp. You strike me as the kind of person who was never in the military but babbles endless about stuff. You have no clue and are constantly jumping to conclusions based on inductive rather than deductive reasoning.MSimon wrote:
But I have never been a team player in the usual sense. I would die (soul wise) at a place like ITER or more likely be fired. In places like that boat rockers (why don't we do something completely different as a side project - this will never work) are never welcome.
I hate committee work, and meetings. And I used to never go to them.
First of all the military is anything but inquisitive about anything. It is all about memorization and following orders, especially in the lower ranks. I have never talked to a general. However, I have met enough lieutenant colonels and colonels to know the kind of person who is going to make General. Hint it is not going to be the person with the higher IQ.
I feel like I have a unique perspective having been in the military and having gone through an Ivy League school. The fact is even most colleges, especially state schools, focus too much on memorization and too little on critical thinking. I have gone to classes in state school and ended up slight stunned at the lack of real understanding.
I would argue that most research is done by graduates of a few top universities around the world for a reason. The fact is the military is ill equipped to do research of any kind. Even analyzing the military threats that other countries pose, but then that is really the CIA's job.
The reason that the military has been even involved in innovation is precisely because they do not understands science and are willing to admit it more or less. This also means they do not really know what is impossible. Thus, they are willing to fund projects that the private sector would deem to high risk. The private sector also has a hard time justifying investing in technologies that are more than five years from market.
The military is not that dissimilar from communism from the inside looking out. The key difference being that they do not try to produce everything in house. They realize that their job is purely to blow stuff up.
Revolutionary scientific developments may not be instantly marketable. It seems that capitalism systematically under allocates resources to research. Capitalism allocates based on the discounted future value of profits. When horizons become long and uncertain, this is especially common. Capitalism is about profit maximization for the funding entity and not society as a whole. Often times the original inventor will not benefit from his innovation because it just took too long to develop and may not have even been developed solely by one entity. Ultimately, the government has a lot of waste but unlike the private sector government maybe better positioned to fund revolutionary vs. purely evolutionary technology.
The military is a government organization like any other and has the same failings as any such organization. The fact remains if our goal is, purely the defense of ourselves and our allies we have more military then we need. Ultimate our guiding principles of social darwinism and manifest destiny, an idea that now involves spreading democracy rather then expanding our physical borders will remain too strong to be ignored.
In the final examination, if you are going to force me to make a inductive leap of faith I would say that it is a few top universities, which should be given the credit rather than the military for most technological developments.
I attribute that to my mild schizophrenia. You get a lot of out of the box thinking with that. It can be helpful. Everything needs to be double checked. I do the checking some myself and shoot myself down. It is a lot of fun. But you need a certain kind of mind to appreciate it. ;-)You have no clue and are constantly jumping to conclusions based on inductive rather than deductive reasoning.
I'd take the man of enthusiasm every day over the guy who was just following orders.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
We are the commerce protector of the world. We have barely enough military for that. The Barbary pirates are out in force again.The military is a government organization like any other and has the same failings as any such organization. The fact remains if our goal is, purely the defense of ourselves and our allies we have more military then we need.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
This looks like a personal attack to me.m14 wrote:This is not an attack on you personally MSimon (uh oh I have started with the military double talk already better look out). Nevertheless, I am going assume that you where never in the military. I personal do not think you would have made it through the first week of boot camp. You strike me as the kind of person who was never in the military but babbles endless about stuff. You have no clue and are constantly jumping to conclusions based on inductive rather than deductive reasoning.MSimon wrote:
But I have never been a team player in the usual sense. I would die (soul wise) at a place like ITER or more likely be fired. In places like that boat rockers (why don't we do something completely different as a side project - this will never work) are never welcome.
I hate committee work, and meetings. And I used to never go to them.
First of all the military is anything but inquisitive about anything. It is all about memorization and following orders, especially in the lower ranks. I have never talked to a general. However, I have met enough lieutenant colonels and colonels to know the kind of person who is going to make General. Hint it is not going to be the person with the higher IQ.
I feel like I have a unique perspective having been in the military and having gone through an Ivy League school. The fact is even most colleges, especially state schools, focus too much on memorization and too little on critical thinking. I have gone to classes in state school and ended up slight stunned at the lack of real understanding.
I would argue that most research is done by graduates of a few top universities around the world for a reason. The fact is the military is ill equipped to do research of any kind. Even analyzing the military threats that other countries pose, but then that is really the CIA's job.
The reason that the military has been even involved in innovation is precisely because they do not understands science and are willing to admit it more or less. This also means they do not really know what is impossible. Thus, they are willing to fund projects that the private sector would deem to high risk. The private sector also has a hard time justifying investing in technologies that are more than five years from market.
The military is not that dissimilar from communism from the inside looking out. The key difference being that they do not try to produce everything in house. They realize that their job is purely to blow stuff up.
Revolutionary scientific developments may not be instantly marketable. It seems that capitalism systematically under allocates resources to research. Capitalism allocates based on the discounted future value of profits. When horizons become long and uncertain, this is especially common. Capitalism is about profit maximization for the funding entity and not society as a whole. Often times the original inventor will not benefit from his innovation because it just took too long to develop and may not have even been developed solely by one entity. Ultimately, the government has a lot of waste but unlike the private sector government maybe better positioned to fund revolutionary vs. purely evolutionary technology.
The military is a government organization like any other and has the same failings as any such organization. The fact remains if our goal is, purely the defense of ourselves and our allies we have more military then we need. Ultimate our guiding principles of social darwinism and manifest destiny, an idea that now involves spreading democracy rather then expanding our physical borders will remain too strong to be ignored.
In the final examination, if you are going to force me to make a inductive leap of faith I would say that it is a few top universities, which should be given the credit rather than the military for most technological developments.
How does the military angle you're talking about here relate to the rest of the posts in this thread?
As far as intelligence in the military is concerned, I have to disagree with your assertions of low IQ levels. The evidence to the contrary is compelling. Look what has happened in weapon technology over the past twenty years. GPS guided smart bombs, pilotless fighter bombers, and a multitude of other anonymous tools that shift the balance of power on the battlefied in favor of the Americans (only 4k deaths after seven years in Iraq despite invasion, insurgency, etc is evidence of the success of these innovations). Furthermore, some of the most advanced technologies in the civilian sector today originated from defense projects...internet, GPS, nuclear energy, satellite communications, radar, etc.
You might argue that these innovations weren't achieved by the soldiers, but by outside contractors working for the military. In rebuttal, I would point out that the general doesn't need to be the most inspired physicist, mathematician, engineer, physician, lawyer, politician, or strategist. Rather, he needs to be able to effectively marshal the human and other resources under his control to some purpose, including outside contractors if necessary. I think anyone would be hard pressed to show that this isn't being achieved in the case of the American military. One might have issue with the purposes they are directing their energies at, but those are political issues. In respect to their ability to deliver to a purpose, I think they are very successful (although perhaps not quite as successful as the Israelis).
As for the quote of MSimon's, I have to admit it did make me wonder what kind of enterprise would welcome that sort of behavior.
Well, military research doesn't have to show a profit, but it may keep you alive and your country free. I think it's unfair to say they understand science less well than politicians or universities. Superior military research is a primary reason the West has survived and prospered lo these many centuries. In fact, the whole notion of free inquiry has its roots in civic militarism: as citizens, the Greek soldiers at Thermopylae, Plataea, and Salamis had the implicit right to question command decisions and argue over strategy, in contrast to the monolithic Persian slave army.The reason that the military has been even involved in innovation is precisely because they do not understands science and are willing to admit it more or less. This also means they do not really know what is impossible. Thus, they are willing to fund projects that the private sector would deem to high risk.
I think people tend to misunderstand the role of capitalism in advancing science. What capitalism does is take scientific advances and make them useful (i.e. marketable) to people, and the productivity gained in turn frees up more resources that can be applied towards basic research (or not, we're free to choose). It wasn't that long ago that 90% of people spent 90% of their time in food production. We simply could not support more than a tiny fraction of the basic research that is possible today, mostly thanks to capitalism.It seems that capitalism systematically under allocates resources to research.
Anyways, as a stockholder, you really don't want your company engaging in high-risk, low-return research -- but as a taxpayer or philanthropist, you may feel differently, especially if the investment may have unprofitable but militarily useful applications.
I don't know about that one. I would like to think that military research has to lead to some kind of benefit to the military's purpose, e.g. improved survival for soldiers, tactical advantage, etc. These are analogs for profit. Even the military doesn't intentionally throw money at projects that have little or no potential benefit to their purpose. At least I hope they don't do that!TallDave wrote: Well, military research doesn't have to show a profit...
Profit is just an efficiency measure in a monetized system. Improve the efficiency of a trading process and more money falls out...higher profits. If you cast the military problem as a business, then improved survivability and improved tactical advantages would lead to improved 'profitability'. It's all the same thing really.