Arab numerals actually come from India. Fun fact: Arabic goes from right to left but their numbers go from left to right, because they were learnt from Sanskrit which is written from left to right.
That's kind of a weird question to ask. You are implying that somehow Islam is responsible for "the invention of the scientific method and Arab numerals." I don't think that's the case at all... there is nothing in the holy books of any of the major religions that could really be called the scientific method or Arab numerals. Cheerleading because some particular scientist or mathematician had [insert nationality or religion here] is kind of silly.
> You are implying that somehow Islam is responsible for "the invention of the scientific method and Arab numerals." I don't think that's the case at all...
This much I agree with (though there may be a role of Islamic society in the development or spread of some key ideas, and Islam may contribute to that, calling Islam responsible for either the scientific method or the use of Arabic numerals is going farther than is supported.)
However, I must take issue with this as support of it:
> there is nothing in the holy books of any of the major religions that could really be called the scientific method or Arab numerals.
While some major religions (especially, the Abrahamic ones) may give particularly important roles to "holy books", none of them have a content limited to their respective holy books, even if some (or some branches within some) purport that the entire content of the religion is derived from or capable of being understood by understanding the appropriate holy book. (Particularly, many of the groups for whom such a belief is part of the content of the religion have a holy book which does not contain that claim about itself, making such a belief about the role of the holy book itself a part of the content of the religion that is not contained within the holy book.)
As such, the fact that something is not explicit in a religions holy book is not a basis for dismissing the responsibility or influence of the religion in that thing.
Cite? Cause Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham (Arab muslim), Al-Biruni (Persian muslim) and Ibn Sina (Persian muslim) among others played a big role in the development of the scientific method.[0]
OK. I thought one could point out that science and mathematics do not belong to the religious realm because they are rooted in reason and the evidence of the senses, not faith.
I highly recommend "The Aristotle Adventure: A Guide to the Greek, Arabic, & Latin Scholars Who Transmitted Aristotle's Logic to the Renaissance" -- http://amazon.com/dp/0964471493
I also think the history of the Diophantine equations is fascinating, all the way to their rediscovery during the Renaissance, and the impact this had on the modern development of analysis, symbolic notation, geometry, and complex numbers. It took more than one thousand years to go from Diophantus to suddenly Bachet, Fermat, and Descartes.
I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen deserves to be better known and I am forever intrigued by Omar Khayam.
Those so called "Dark ages" was a very Christian thing. At that time Islam was doing pretty well by many standards of modernity, better than most of Europe.
> the fact that you can today type on a keyboard posting on the internet
Perhaps you have heard of 'algebra', 'algorithm', 'algorism', 'positional system', etc. perhaps not., Perhaps you will comprehend the connection, then again perhaps not.
BTW are leftists primarily christian ? Otherwise the 'self hatred' part would require some out of body experience.
EDIT: Apologies HN for feeding the troll, hadn't checked his/her comment history before.
algebra exists since babylonian or egyptian era. but if you want to give credit for it to someone that fits better your agenda than a disapeared civilisation then I will consent to it.
Leftists obviously are not pro christians. they are anti-religion as long as the religion is christian and in the majority. when the religion is a minority then it is a religion of peace that has invented everything from the wheel to the space shuttles.
Whoa, you should know better than to break the HN guidelines so badly. This entire comment is personal insults and should have been edited down to nothing.
