3 years ago

Bill Gaede Jim Al-Khalili Science Islam scientific method technology

Jim Al-Khalili: Science and Islam

00:15 A caricature of science
02:10 Islam created /resuscitated science in the 8th to 12th Centuries.
06:40 Born-again Christian?
07:45 HOW the Universe works: description or explanation?
09:55 Much of ‘scientific’ language includes Arabic terms: algebra, algorithm, alkali.
14:20 Islamic scholars developed Math and technology. Standardized the language across the empire.
16:00 Science is obvious after it has been discovered. Was Al-Khalili referring to the Rope Hypothesis? An idea comes around that changes everything.
16:40 The 8th Century Arabs discovered the mathematical method: experiment and observation.
21:45 Example of why ‘observing’ that which is invisible leads to misconceptions
26:20 The Arabs translated Greek books and developed: Math, technology, medicine, chemistry, but not UNDERSTANDING! The Islamic ‘mathematical’ method inherited by the West failed and still fails to EXPLAIN MECHANISMS.
29:05 Al-Khalili: Math enables us to understand the Universe. NOT
31:20 Islamic scholars developed the two ingredients of ‘science’: Math and experiment… whose only purpose is to confirm foregone conclusions.
32:50 Al-Khalili: Arabs developed Chemistry by doing experiments and observations. (Yes, Jim, but their explanations were almost as irrational as those of Quantum Mechanics! So… no cigar!)
34:20 Aristotle died in the Islamic world of the 8th C when they began to test theories experimentally. Al-Khalili confuses explanation with description.
35:45 Al-Khalili’s hero Alhazen discovers how light travels.
37:35 Alhazen sought a ‘mathematical explanation’ for how light travels. Mathematical explanation is an oxymoron! Math can only describe. Alhazen signals the birth of Mathematical ‘physics’.
39:45 Al-Khalili’s glorification of Alhazen shows that he is patently ignorant of the differences between a description and an explanation.
41:40 Arabs did not discover the mechanism of how light works.
43:00 Summary
46:30 Homework: Food for thought