Talk:European science in the Middle Ages/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Expansion and translation

I've taken upon myself the task of further expanding and re-organizing this article as of today. I will do so with the help of some sections of the Portuguese article, which looks good (I'm a native speaker of the language, by the way).

I've started the expansion by adding a section for "Great names in medieval science" as the Portuguese article offers, because an overall synopsis of those people's contribution is for many people enough and they won't go about reading every article on every medieval thinker. The adding of this section produced a number of redundancies on the article that I will be taking care of ASAP.

--Kripkenstein 03:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's great! To edit and refine this article (and, specially, the Portuguese version) has been a kind of hobby to me in the past months. It's so good to have company here! Especially now that I'm busy in "real life" and won’t be able to do many substantial edits. --Leinad ¬ ^{pois não?} 04:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You did a nice job at the Portuguese article, Leinad! Hope you can look at the English version now and then to correct any possible mistakes. This article might have a brilliant future ahead. --Kripkenstein 19:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Peer review citation needed

Please comment on the discussion at Talk:History of scientific method#Peer review in medieval Islam?. --SteveMcCluskey 16:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Eyeglasses

How could the work of the the 13th century scholar Roger Bacon contribute to the invention of eyeglasses in the 12th century. Would someone who knows this field fix this howler? Rwflammang 21:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Good catch! Deor 22:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Eyeglasses were invented around 1299 or 1350 probably in Venice. Don't know what's that 12th doing here. Isidoros47 (talk) 02:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Indian Science

I would love to see a citation for the work of Aryabhata in the Indian Science section - the claims are pretty grand (elliptical heliocentric orbits driven by gravity!) and I'm skeptical without some support. The Indian Science articles elsewhere on Wikipedia are full of questionable claims that make Copernicus and Newton sound like afterthoughts - although this problem is not unique to the Indian Science pages (see the article on Oresme, for example). Xanthoptica 04:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

"Medieval" means European

Including the sciense of these three civilizations in an article that deals with a period that is intended for periodization of European history is problematic. The influence that other scientific traditions had on Europe is very relevant, but not to have separate sections for them as if the article was actually about "the history of science c. 500-1500".

Peter ^Isotalo 10:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Article move

I think that the moving of this article from "History of science in the Middle Ages" to "Science in the Middle Ages" should have been discussed before being undertaken. I have no great objection to the new title, but similar articles are titled History of science in early cultures, History of science in Classical Antiquity, History of science in the Renaissance, and so forth. Unless a consensus can be developed to move all these similarly, this article will stand as rather an odd man out. Deor 11:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

"Medieval", "Classical Antiquity", "the Renaissance" are all terms that by themselves define the topic as historical. "Early cultures" is less well-defined but I don't see that "history of" is really motivated there either. And if we're to broaden our scope beyond that of the historical study of science, which is far more reasonable in an encyclopedia, the comparison should be with all topics related to the Middle Ages. Just about all of these are called either "medieval XXX" or "XXX in the Middle Ages". If anything, it is the articles on the history of science that are the oddities.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Dark Ages were dark!

I would like to bring to everybodys attention that the following passage form "Science in the Middle Ages" called "Dark Ages?" is a very biased piece of writing committed to obvious whitewashing of this phase of the history. The respected researches cited in the article are clearly on a mission to clear blemish in the history of the church and religion they love and respect. Even as they are noted historians, it is obvious that they have a very strong commitment to an ideology that has much to gain in the process they have instigated. I strongly suggest that when they say they are correcting stereotypes, they are in fact intionally altering history to suit there own needs.

Bittitohtori (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC) Bittitohtori

Here is the section in question;

Science in the Middle Ages (section)

Dark Ages?

Dark Ages?

The stereotype of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is reflected in the popular views regarding the study of nature during the period. The contemporary historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages was a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame of which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a caricature.[12] Contrary to common belief, Lindberg say that "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led. There was no warfare between science and the church".[13] And Edward Grant, writes: "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities".[14]

For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century[15] and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that the people from the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. This claim is mistaken, as Lindberg and Numbers write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."[16][15] Misconceptions such as: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences", are all reported by Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they are not supported by current historical research.[17]

What is the issue, exactly? I think that if you are going to argue that there was such a thing as the "dark ages", you are probably going to be laughed at and ignored. We just don't use that term anymore; it is the "early Middle Ages". Adam Bishop (talk) 22:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

"Dark ages" were not dark

I agree with Adam. Contemporary science uproots non-scientific myths about "dark" ages. Why not to trust respected scientists only because of their religion? Every scientist(even atheist) does believe in something that may influence his work. If these men can't be trusted then who can? Those who invented or propagated the concept of "dark ages"?

Isn't it ironical that it were anti-Christian and anti-clerical philosophers who greatly supported the idea of the "dark ages"(because middle ages were an age of faith) in an attempt to discredit the Church and maybe even Christianity.

The concept of "dark ages" has no scientific evidence behind it. It is almost solely based on anti-clerical and also anti-Christian propaganda.

Isidoros47 (talk) 02:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

West bias

This article has far too much bias toward Western Europe (i.e. not even just Europe but Western Europe). Aside from the fact that it does not even discuss the goings-on in the rest of the world, it barely acknowledges that the West's advancements in the late Middle Ages were due to being educated by far more advanced civilizations.

--Mcorazao (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the Western-Europe bias, but my understanding is that the term "Middle Ages" is only applicable to Europe. Perhaps we should move the non-European stuff (and a summary of the European) to a global article with a suitable name (if one doesn't already exist), and make this a Euro-centric article (perhaps under the name "Science in Europe during the Middle Ages", as a summary style sub-article. Bluap (talk) 04:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, this becomes a tomayto-tomahto sort of thing to some extent. Traditionally "Western" scholars have viewed what happened in Europe between the "Fall of Rome" and the "Age of Discovery" to be completely independent of the rest of the world and, therefore, the Middle Ages of Western Europe (mind you it is wrong to say "Europe" in lieu of "Western Europe") could be basically separated from what happened elsewhere. In other words, the developments and discoveries in the West were mostly going on with minimal influence from anywhere else. This is widely recognized now as a gross distortion. Certainly one cannot speak about the early Middle Ages without talking about the Eastern Roman Empire. It certainly was more important in the world than Western Europe was and frankly was the source of most technological innovation in the Mediterranean region and Europe. In the middle period it was predominantly the Arabs with the Eastern Empire lagging behind that was the source of innovation (again even in Western Europe). You really can't say that Western Europe started to really "think for itself" until the very late Middle Ages and, even then, it wasn't until the Renaissance that you could say Western Europe was making major contributions in its own right.

The point is that you have to be careful about what lines you draw since the lines themselves always imply some POV. Even if you are going to limit the discussion to the continent of Europe excluding the Eastern Romans is wrong.

I don't necessarily disagree with creating a retitled article that limits the discussion to a specific region but if that is done it should be done carefully both being specific about the region (e.g. Western Europe vs. all of Europe) and ensuring that even with this limitation the article is more clear about the source of the technological developments (e.g. being clear that Western innovation during the Middle Ages was to a large degree a matter of copying the Arabs and the "Byzantines").

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Intro

I wanted to propose the following rewrite to the intro.

Science in the Middle Ages progressed dramatically from the time of antiquity in areas as diverse as astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. Whereas the ancient cultures of the world (prior to the fall of Rome and the dawn of Islam) had developed many of the foundations of science, it was during the Middle Ages that the scientific method was born and science became a formal discipline separate from philosophy. Although there were scientific discoveries throughout the world, the Islamic world around the Mediterranean and China led the Medieval age in major accomplishments thanks to scholars such as Alhazen and Arzachel.

The Roman/Byzantine Empire, which was the most sophisticated culture during antiquity, suffered dramatic losses which limited its scientific prowess during the Medieval period. Christian Western Europe had suffered a catastrophic loss of fortune following the fall of the Western Roman Empire but thanks to Church scholars such as Aquinas and Buridan carried on the spirit of scientific inquiry which would later lead to Europe's taking the lead in science during the Scientific Revolution following the Middle Ages.

--Mcorazao (talk) 04:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Reorganize?

Looking through the article, I find it places catalogues of accomplishments and biographical sketches of great figures before the narrative of what happened and how and why.

I propose rearranging the article as follows, putting the listlike material at the end:

1. The Middle Ages: Western Europe
   1. Overview
   2. Early Middle Ages
   3. High Middle Ages
   4. Late Middle Ages
   5. Renaissance of the 15th century
   6. Dark Ages?
2. Science in Asia and Africa
   1. Islamic science
   2. Indian science
   3. Chinese science
3. Great names of science figures in medieval Europe science
4. Major Accomplishments

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't object to a reorganization. The article as it stands is a bit hokey. My thoughts:

• I kind of like the accomplishments section earlier in the article. Not that I'm married to the idea but I think it's nice if an article can proceed from summaries of info the majority of readers might find most interesting to the more mundane details.
• I like the idea of simply listing the major contributors to Medieval science without geography. I hesitated to do this since, without making the list exceedingly long, this would rightly imply that many of the Christian Western European names would need to be removed (they were "great" in the context of Western Europe but in the world context a lot of them were not that significant). I was afraid removing the names might offend a lot of contributors.
• I wonder about the separation of the Middle Ages into different cultures and geographies. It is certainly known that Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire were heavily influenced by the Muslim world (I doubt many scholars would disagree that the "progress" they made would not have happened without them). There are even substantial connections between India and the Muslim world. Similarly grouping the Muslim world into one lump is somewhat unfair. This was a diverse set of cultures and often multiple states. The Arabic language did make them close to each other but, at the same time, there were other close relationships (e.g. Muslim Spain actually had a lot of very close cultural contact with Christian Western Europe).
• The Byzantine Empire does not have its own section even though it was more scientifically advanced during most of the Middle Ages than Western Europe. If the geography-specific separation is to be maintained this seems a glaring omission.

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the science of the Byzantine Empire is omitted because it has its own article as Byzantine science and an accompanying list of List of Byzantine scientists. Not that this article could not add a number of names. Dimadick (talk) 07:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a good argument. If an article says it is about widgets then it should be about all widgets even if there are other articles that go into more detail on specific types of widgets. In particular, though, Muslim science has its own section and this certainly has its own articles.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, here's another try based on the comments so far. I've added Byzantine science to the Asia and Africa section, per MOS it can be a brief abbreviation of the more detailed treatment in Byzantine science, just as is already done in the other geographical subdivisions.

I disagree with the idea of putting the list of accomplishments before the narrative, but that may be a matter of style. The Manual of Style says this about embedded lists": "Most Wikipedia articles should consist of prose, and not just a list of links. Prose allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context, while a list of links does not. Prose flows, like one person speaking to another, and is best suited to articles, because their purpose is to explain." Of course these are useful lists, but they don't disrupt the flow of the discussion when placed after the main text.

1. The Middle Ages: Western Europe
   1. Overview
   2. Early Middle Ages
   3. High Middle Ages
   4. Late Middle Ages
   5. Renaissance of the 15th century
   6. Dark Ages?
2. Science in Asia and Africa
   1. Byzantine science
   2. Islamic science
   3. Indian science
   4. Chinese science
3. Major Accomplishments
4. Great names of science figures in medieval Europe science

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This is ok but there is still a bias problem. The first two major sections are "A group of cultures that were scientifically primitive" and "All the other cultures". Following the style you're going after I would recommend something like the following.

• Science in the Muslim World
• Science in China
• Science in India
• Science in the Byzantine Empire
• Science in Christian Western Europe
  • Early Middle Ages
  • High Middle Ages
  • Late Middle Ages
• Major Accomplishments
• Great figures in medieval science

Or if you're dying to categorize it more,

• Science in the Muslim World
  • Science in Persia
  • Science in Egypt
  • Science in Muslim Spain
• Science in East/South Asia
  • Science in China
  • Science in India
• Science in the Christian World
  • Science in the Byzantine Empire
  • Science in Western Europe
    • Early Middle Ages
    • High Middle Ages
    • Late Middle Ages
• Major Accomplishments
• Great figures in medieval science

However, I would still argue that there should be a section of some kind in the front sort of summarizing what happened in the Middle Ages (what I tried to do with the Major Accomplishments section). Granted the intro sort of does this but it does so very briefly (and it should be brief).

BTW, the MOS entry you mention does not really apply. The Major Accomplishments section is not a list of links. It is a list but it is a list written with details in prose.

--Mcorazao (talk) 20:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

My opinion, for what it's worth: "Middle Ages" has traditionally been used specifically in the periodization of European history (see the first sentence of our article on the topic). I prefer SteveMcClusky's suggested reorganization because the "group of cultures that were scientifically primitive" should be the focus of this article, with due acknowledgment, of course, for the influences of other cultures and traditions on the situation in western Europe. The article wasn't designed, nor should it have been, to highlight the developments in science occurring at the same time in China or the Islamic or Byzantine spheres. Those are treated in separate articles, which are properly linked from the summary treatments here. The additions that you've been making lately to highlight Islamic developments—some of which, even though they may have occurred in the Iberian peninsula, are rather tangential to the developments in medieval Europe—are problematic in this context (though I haven't been contesting them so far), and I'd recommend that you pull back a bit on your efforts to deal with the "bias" in this article. Deor (talk) 02:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, if there is a debate you feel is necessary please do bring it out. Having said that, the title of the article does not say Western Europe, or even Europe. Although the term "Middle Ages" has traditionally been used to refer to the West this is not so much the case anymore largely because the old bias that the West's history was independent of the rest of the world has been rejected by modern scholarship. The term Middle Ages is now regularly used in many contexts to talk about the Muslims and the Byzantines as their history is seen as closely tied to Europe.

I would say that it is probably appropriate to have an article of specifically discussing Western Christian Europe but that's not what the title of this article says. The earlier suggestion of creating such an article maybe will address the concerns that you have.

--Mcorazao (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I should point out that I was not the one who added the original mentions of developments in non-Western cultures. --Mcorazao (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is "Middle Ages" European?

Mcorazao has raised a difficult issue, and any solution to it will have to involve drawing a somewhat arbitrary line. The question is whether we mean by the term "Middle Ages" anything that happened between 450 and 1350 (or thereabouts), or do we mean a historically defined event in the history of Europe? As a historian, I am disturbed about the implications of the simple chronological definition; if we used it, then a discussion of Inca, Maya, and Aztec science would belong in this article. The article should have more focus than that, and I see historical interaction as the simplest way to rule out the American contributions.

To most medievalists, the Middle Ages is generally characterized as referring to a period in European (sometimes Western European) history. This pattern is reflected in Wikipedia on WP:WikiProject Middle Ages, Portal:Middle Ages, and Category:Middle Ages. From that perspective, an article on Science in the Middle Ages should focus primarily on Science in Europe, and touch tangentially on contemporary developments of science in other parts of the world -- especially when science in those areas influenced science in medieval Europe. In that regard, science in Islam is an important player, science in India had largely an indirect influence (by way of Islam), science in Byzantium had little (and late) influence, as Byzantine influence in Western Europe was chiefly,but not exclusively, associated with the Renaissance, and Science in China had very little influence.

I suggest those as guidelines for the organization of this article, and that concept was reflected in my proposed outline.

Turning to a related issue, from this perspective the recent fork to create a new article Science in Medieval Western Europe is undesirable and I would recommend deleting the new article. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Steve McCluskey that the terminus “Middle Ages” refers to an epoch in European history and therefore this article should emphasise the development of science within Europe in this period. Naturally it should, as it does, show what is going on outside of Europe and how through the appropriation of Greco-Arabic science (and through this appropriation, the appropriation tangentially of some elements of Indian and Chinese science and technology) how European medieval science received a massive boost. However within the history of science I think it is also important to reflect that which is known as the “Needham Question” namely the fact that at the beginning of the 15th century, at the latest, both Arabic and Chinese science went into steep declines whereas medieval European science evolved/developed into Renaissance science a distinctive new departure that however retains medieval science at its core and Renaissance science in its turn developed/evolved into early modern science, which grew into universal modern science. This chain of development alone justifies, in my opinion, the emphasis of European science in this article at the cost of its stronger contemporaneous rivals, Arabic, Indian and Chinese science.Thony C. (talk) 17:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

PROD Science in Medieval Western Europe

As discussed above, I have proposed deleting the new article Science in Medieval Western Europe as an undesirable content fork. Please discuss the issue here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Errr, well, first of all please use the proper template. Calling this a content fork is a strawman argument at best. What I think you're going for is proposing a (re-)merge. Please change the template accordingly.

Anyway, to respond:

• The Middle Ages is a time period. The time period was classically defined based on Europe's history but, obviously, Western Europe was not not the only populated region. Having an article that is specific about this region without stating so implies something that is POV.
• In general I don't disagree that all cultures of the world are appropriate to discuss in an article about a time period in world history. I would argue, however -- and feel free to disagree -- that in an article about scientific history it is appropriate to focus on the more scientifically advanced civilizations than try to include a sampling of every civilization on the planet. I'm not saying that the American civilizations cannot be mentioned but given their lack of world-wide impact I do not have a problem with de-emphasizing them in an article that is talking about science at a global level.
• It is certainly true that "Middle Ages" or "Medieval Age" as a reference to Western Europe is "traditional" but this is no longer considered the only way to use the term, or even necessarily the "correct" way (e.g. Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean).
• Although it is slightly tangential I'll mention that I dispute the suggestion that the Byzantine influence had little influence on Western Europe. For a long time most of Western Europe's knowledge of science filtered in from the Byzantine Empire (although certainly it is true that the amount of knowledge transfer in the earlier centuries was limited). It was late in the Middle Ages that the West shifted its focus to just absorbing knowledge directly from the Muslims (and then at that time the knowledge transfer became much larger than it had been).

So I'll reiterate that I believe that to the extent that authors want a West-specific article (which seems like a reasonable thing to me) then the article should be named accordingly. And I do think it is interesting to discuss what happened scientifically at a world-wide level rather than just discussing things at the level of local cultures. Focusing only on the latter can give a distorted view of history.

--Mcorazao (talk) 04:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Medieval Science ... Encyclopedia treats science in the Islamic world, but only mentions China in passing. (e.g. the origins of technological, but not scientific, developments such as the stirrup and horseshoe, gunpowder and paper that had significant influence in medieval Europe. Chris Wickham's book on Framing the Early Middle Ages focuses on Europe and it's neighbors around the Mediterranean; in his work Africa means North Africa (esp. Egypt) and Asia is primarily Asia minor (China is briefly mentioned in his discussion only 4 times to provide comparisons with Europe, twice included along with Mexico/Yucatan). The examples you give seem to support the traditional view of the Middle Ages rather than your more inclusive position.

As to the template involved, it seemed to me that a Proposed Deletion was what was involved here, rather than a merge. but I don't want to get hung up on technicalities.

On your Byzantine tangent, let me only say that in the Early Middle Ages, there are scarcely any texts from Greek sources; after the year 1,100 a few Greek texts appear, but they are vastly outnumbered by the texts in Arabic (Greeks such as Euclid, Aristotle, and Ptolemy were known chiefly through translations from the Arabic), and more Greek texts arrive in the 1400's in association with the Council of Florence (1431-9) and the fall of Constantinople (1453).--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, two things on the template: 1) your reason given was a content fork which is supposed to mean that the two articles are intended to serve exactly the same purpose. Obviously you know that wasn't my intention. 2) Generally the only other reasons for a proposed deletion boil down to saying that the content is not useful and can be removed from Wikipedia altogether which obviously is not what you're trying to say.

In any event, I'm not quite sure what your point is on the references. You were arguing that the Middle Ages refers to Western Europe only and these sources clearly do not treat the term in that fashion. So these do support my point. It is true that they do not really address other parts of the world that much. If you want to look at sources that use the term with respect to China look at Coming Out of the Middle Ages: Comparative Reflections on China and the West or Tracing the Way: Spiritual Dimensions of the World Religions (also, you can look at The Encyclopedia of World History, pg. 103; it briefly talks about the use of the "medieval" label in the context of Chinese and Mediterranean cultures). Kung's book, Tracing ..., in particular talks about the "Middle Ages" of different cultures. He discusses the periods in an overlapping sense but the precise beginnings and ends of each are a little different (of course, even for Europe the precise beginning and end of the Middle Ages is not universally defined).

Regarding the Byzantine thing, you're not wrong in most of what you're saying but you're focusing somewhat on the wrong things. When talking about the Middle Ages in Western Europe there is a tendency to focus on the end of that period since that's when the most exciting things happened but if you are going to make an article about the whole Middle Ages you have to look at the whole period. Obviously the majority of the scientific works of the period were in Arabic but the West was largely ignorant of those works for a long time. For centuries to the extent that Western Europe was aware of classical knowledge or any new scientific thought it was to a great extent through the Church (i.e. the fact that the eastern and western parts of the Church were still united). Apart from that Western visitors to Constantinople or other Byzantine ports might pick up various tidbits. I agree that it was not a lot but, then, there was not a lot going on in Western Europe scientifically. Eventually, the West began to establish more direct contact with the Muslims (particularly because of Al-Andalus) which opened the floodgates in terms their absorbing knowledge, but this was later in that age.

--Mcorazao (talk) 15:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

If this was purely to do with terminology, I think I would agree with SteveMcCluskey. However, I don't think it is - there was enough interaction between China, India, the Muslim world and (even if mainly through the Muslim world) western Europe during the period to justify an article surveying science in all four geographical areas during some period roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. And, particularly allowing for the amount of material, this should probably not be the same article as the detailed one on medieval western European science. So in practice I agree with Mcorazao, though further consideration of the titles (and possibly the exact scopes) of both articles may be advisable. PWilkinson (talk) 19:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

(De-dent) I agree with those people who think that there needs to be a world-wide article about science during this period (exact timescale to be decided). I also agree that there is enough detailed information about the history of science in Western Europe for there to be a sub-article about science in Western Europe during this period. Likewise, there should ideally be more sub-articles about science in China / the Arab World / etc. If you read the wikipedia guideline on summary style, you can see how such articles should be structured: a broad overview, split into detailed sub-articles where appropriate. Bluap (talk) 23:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Pope Sylvester II

The new entry on Pope Sylvester II (born Gerbert of Aurillac) says: "From the model of schools in Islamic Cordoba, he introduced to Christian Europe the liberal arts education of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) that prepared one to master the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy)".

This is dubious on two grounds:

• Most clearly, the model of the liberal arts had been known and used in Latin Europe from at least the time of Boethius in the fifth century, and was followed in Carolingian schools in the ninth century.
• Secondly, the use of the model of the Trivium and Quadrivium is extremely unlikely in Arabic schools, since it was a Roman development and the Arabs derived their knowledge of philosophy (falasifa) from the Greeks.

Thus Gerbert did not introduce the liberal arts education into Christian Europe and he could not have introduced it from Cordoba, where it was not followed. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

My mistake. I used this source while editing Gerbert's article:

Salhab, Walid Amine. (2006). The Knights Templar of the Middle East: The Hidden History of the Islamic Origins of Freemasonry. San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. ISBN 1-57863-346-X.

...and should have noted that Salhab states Gerbert's efforts were a reintroduction of emphasis laid upon liberal arts that had already been known in Europe. My mistake.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I added another small entry on Constantine the African. I hope there's nothing wrong with that like there was with Gerbert.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Chinese science

I hope I haven't deleted material that anyone was especially fond of, but I felt that the section on Chinese science needed to be scrapped in favor of a complete re-write. I have expanded it with all new material from a variety of sources.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The re-write is very well-written in my opinion. I've replicated much of the material from your re-write into other articles related to Chinese science and technology, if you don't mind. Jagged 85 (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind too much, but I would prefer that you paraphrase the material I wrote instead, since people may become confused reading the same exact words in several different articles, wondering where the material originally came from.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes

Several of the statements/claims in the "Major Accomplishments" and "Great names of science in medieval Europe" sections are either grossly exaggerated or factual inaccurate or just plain wrong, I intend to start correcting these as of tomorrow. As there has been some extensive discussion of this article fairly recently and I don’t wish to step on anybodies toes I am posting this statement of intension in order to give anybody who is interested the chance to scrutinise my changes and possibly challenge or even improve them. Till tomorrow!Thony C. (talk) 14:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

There seems to have been a determined attempt to "Islamize" the article to the extent of taking out some information which was referenced. The whole section "Major accomplishments", seems to have been added fairly recently, and has since grown to a bloated state. It almost seems be an attempt to pre-empt or duplicate the rest of the article, and might be better beneath the ordered historical account which originally came first. Xandar (talk) 15:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Xander I have removed some of your changes from the major accomplishments sections simply because they are wrong or at best misleading. In order to keep the peace I shall explain why and what is wrong. Your claim that Robert Grosseteste “began to define laws of refraction” is very misleading and so must be removed. I was slightly curious because you accused me of “taking out some information which was referenced”. Now I hold lectures on the history of optics and also have something of a soft spot for Robert Grosseteste and knew that the claim that his work on refraction was in anyway special or worthy of note is simple wrong (except in the case of the rainbow but that is not being discussed here). I did not know Ms. Parkinson’s book and so was not sure whether she was being misquoted or misinterpreted or whether her information was wrong. I have now acquired a copy of her book and it would appear that both are the case; she writes, “RG describes the science of optics, concentrating especially on geometrical optics and the path of light rays, reflections and refraction. … He thereby makes an early attempt at determining a quantitative law of refraction.” We have here not the “beginning” but an “early attempt” so you have misquoted her however her “early attempt” is also not correct. Euclid discusses refraction already in the fourth century BCE and Ptolemaeus did substantive quantatitive analysis of refraction in the attempt to form a law in the second century CE. It is in fact Ptolemaeus’ work that Grosseteste discusses in his own optical thesis (see A. C. Crombie, “Grosseteste and Experimental Science”, OUP 1953, pp.120ff). This of course ignores the work of Islamic scientist most of which Grosseteste was not aware of. Alhazen wrote extensively about refraction in the tenth century formulating an incorrect quantitative law and his predecessor Ibn Sahl had actually correctly defined Snell’s law in his treatise “On the Burning Instruments” (see Roshi Rashed, “A Pioneer in Anaclastics: Ibn Sahl on Burning Mirrors and Lenses”, Isis, Vol. 81, 1990, pp. 464-491). A reference is not always a valid reference! Again on Peter Olivi and the imputus theory Ms. Parkinson is not wholly correct. He did indeed discuss the impetus theory but he rejected it as had Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon before him so quoting him as a source for its success is rather strange. Why Olivi and not Aquinas and Bacon both considerably more well known and influential and why not the long list of other scholastic thinkers who did not reject but support the theory? (see Marshall Clagett. “The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages”, University of Wisconsin Press, 1959, pp. 505-525 and Glick, Livesey and Wallis Eds., “Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia”, Routledge, 2005, pp.267-269). I have removed your comment on the invention of reading glasses because it is highly misleading. There is no known connection between the theoretical discussion of optics in Europe in the 13th century and the invention of spectacles in Northern Italy. The invention of spectacles appears to have been the result of simple trial and error by artisans and to have no scientific basis what so ever (see Glick et al. as above pp. 167-168 and Edward Rosen, “The Invention of Eyeglasses”, Journal of the History of Medicine, Vol. 11, 1956 pp. 13-53 & 183-218).

To your comments on the “Islamizing” of the article you should note the following. The word “Islamic” in the concept Islamic Science does not denote the Islamic religion but denotes science that was carried out within the Islamic cultural area in this case the Islamic Empire. The scientist who carried out this work were Muslims, Christians, Jews Sabians, Zoroastrians and possibly a couple of Hindus and Buddhists as well. An alternative designation is Arabic science where the word “Arabic” does not denote the Arab Peoples but refers to the language in which the majority of this science was written. The writers were Arabs, Persians, Uzbeks, and many others. It would appear from some of your other minor changes that you are editing this article according to your religious convictions and not according to historical fact. In the Middle Ages the areas of sciences practiced other than Islamic/Arabic are Byzantine, Chinese, Hindu/Indian (where Hindu refers to the culture rather than the religion), European and Mayan there is no historical terminus “European Christian Science”.

Your claim that, “From the 12th century onwards, Christian scientists in western Europe began to make significant advances in fields from optics and physics, to surgery, engineering and navigation” seems to imply that they made advances beyond those of the Chinese or Islamic scientists, this is not the case. Through the appropriation of Greco-Arabic science in the 12th century European scholars were able slowly over the next centuries to bring Europe up to the level of their Islamic rivals but it is not until the 15th or even the 16th century that they succeeded in surpassing them.

I know this explanation is rather long but I want you to understand why I have eliminated those additions of yours from the text that I have.Thony C. (talk) 15:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Logicus comment: Well spoken Thony C. on the issue of replacing the unjustifiable qualifiers 'Islmaic' and 'Muslim' with the alternative 'Arabic', referring to the language of scholarship rather than the person's religion, which is surely irrelevant. This change should be implemented throughout Wikipedia history of science articles.--Logicus (talk) 15:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Was the 15th century scientifically backward ?

The article currently claims

"But this initial period [i.e. the 15th century] is usually seen as one of scientific backwardness. There were no new developments in physics or astronomy, and the reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe."

But surely far from science being backward and thus regressing in the 15th century, in physics the Parisian impetus dynamics analyses of motion spread to Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe, Nicholas of Cusa's impetus dynamics De Ludo Globi introduced the crucial thought experiment later adopted by Galileo that a ball set rolling around the surface of a gravitationally concentric sphere would continue forever, and Paul of Venice seems to have been the first to draw the logical conclusion from Thomist inertial Aristotelian dynamics that "Unequal weights fall with the same speed in the void because the relation between their weight and there mass has the same value." (i.e. v α w/w, hence v = k, a constant) [see Duhem's analysis on p423 of Roger Ariew's Medieval Cosmology.], a conclusion traditionally falsely attributed to Galileo in positivist history of science.

It is also difficult to believe Leonardo was not responsible for any scientific advances, in anatomy, aeronautics, or whatever.

And in mathematical astronomy there were important developments in trigonometry by Regiomontanus later used by Tycho in his parallax analyses in his 1573 De stella nova, and also the publication of the progressive Alfonsine Tables. It should also be noted that scientific progress within the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic view of the universe is not impossible.

But moreover, on the other hand it has never been demonstrated that Buridan's impetus dynamics was original in any respect, indeed if any, compared with Avicenna's impetus theory rather than simply repeating it, and thus that there was any great advance in impetus dynamics in the 14th century over the 11th century.

I therefore flag this apparently false claim for a reliable source citation, and request it be replete with an actual justifying quotation from that source in accordance with the Wikipedia:Verifiability courtesy requirement stated in its footnote 2. --Logicus (talk) 15:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the world of Wikipedia, where entire centuries of time may be dumbed down and simplified into one egregious statement. Instead of just tagging that statement, though, feel free to be bold and add new information from scholarly sources on the 15th century.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Very funny. Actually it was Thorndike's thesis that 15th century scientifically backward. Just waiting to see if anybody can give a reliable quote.

Logicus: I assume the reply to Pericles is yours. Your original rant is in fact half way correct and the 15th century was anything but scientifically backward so why don't you do as Pericles says and change the article. Thorndike's comment (if it's the one I think it is) refers specifically to Regiomontanus and Peuerbach who are, in my opinion correctly, credited with having renewed both mathematics and astronomy begining in the middle of the 15th century. Thorndike in an essay on Regiomontanus (that I have probably got somewhere!) begs to differ and finds nothing good to say about either of them. Although Leonardo made some interesting studies on various areas of science in his lifetime very little of it was ever published so one should be wary of including him in such articles as this one.Thony C. (talk) 17:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Thony C.: Yes, and thanks for your generally supportive comments. But my contribution was not a rant, but rather a linguistically temperate discussion without resort to pompous or theatrical language so far as I am aware. And rather than being only half right on your analysis, of the 6 possible examples of scientific progress in 15th century I gave, on my count I was at least five-sixths right given you only caveat the Leonardo possibility.

As for your disputing whether any scientific progress by Leonardo can be counted just because he published little, this raises an interesting question, namely whether publication is required for a scientific development to count as such. Note Aristotle never published, we only have his lecture notes in Physics and Heavens. And there have been many scientists who never published or whose publications were lost, but whose work reported by others counts as scientific developments e.g. Avempace. And in the case of Leonardo, if he never published then what sense do you make of the title of Duhem's pathbreaking Leonardo studies: those he read and those who read him that famously sourced Galileo's mature dynamics in Parisian scholastic impetus theory via Leonardo ? Moreover, people can communicate scientific progressive developments to the relevant community verbally even without writing, e.g.by lecturing, or by showing plans or drawings. Re the latter, just consider the Tycho-Ursus geoheliocentric originality dispute. And note that re Leonardo and anatomy, in his 1996 Grant referred to "the significant anatomical progress that was made by such keen anatomists as Leonardo da Vinco (1452-1519), Bartolomeo Eustachi (ca.1500-1574),...." [p205 Grant 1996]

In short, I suspect your thesis that Leonardo did not contribute any scientific progress because he did not publish much fails. I suggest first one needs to identify what scientific progress he did make in his notebooks or wherever, and only then turn to the question of whether it was communicated.

But more generally, can you make any additional positive contribution to my 5 concrete examples of scientific progress in the 15th century, with any more examples ?

--Logicus (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus: Science and or progress in the 15th century some musings: I used the word rant to mean protest and if in so doing I inadvertently ruffled your feathers consider them now apologetically smoothed.

On the subject of Leonardo, I agree that science is disseminated by other routes other than formal publication, manuscripts are read and copied, letters are sent and lost, A converses with B who in turn converses with C and so on down the line and before dismissing Leonardo’s contributions or lack of them to scientific progress these form of communication must be considered. However in three areas with which I claim some form of at least semi-knowledgeable acquaintance this can be fairly certainly ruled out. Firstly in mechanics there are some semblances between the work of Leonardo and the so-called juvenilia of Galileo these can however be easily explained by the common mediaeval souces consulted by the two men. In anatomy Leonardo’s drawings are of an incomparable quality but his anatomical knowledge is that of the mediaeval interpretation of Galen whereas Vesalius’ De fabrica although artistically inferior contains his own modern anatomy correcting the mistakes to be found in the corrupted mediaeval Galen as well as those in the more correct Renaissance Galen. So there is here definitely no influence that could be inferred. In optics almost the same story applies and nowhere in the literature of the 16th or 17th centuries is there a direct or indirect influence of Leonardo to be found.

On the more general subject of scientific progress in the 15th century I used the expression “halfway right” not to infer that some of your statement were correct and some others not but rather to say that although it is wrong to label this century “backward” it is probably equally wrong to speak of progress. It is rather more a century of revival, re-ordering and of the laying of foundations for eventual advances that were made in the following two centuries, In my opinion the two greatest contributions to the progress of science in the 15th century are in themselves not scientific. On the one hand it is the rediscovery of linear perspective together with the adoption of naturalism in art and on the other the reinvention (in Europe, they had already been invented in Asia) of the various forms, woodblock, copperplate and moving type, of printing. Combined in the extravagantly illustrated large tombs of the 16th century they laid the foundations of the sciences of anatomy, botany, zoology, metallurgy, geology and cartography. The later was revived in the 15th century by the introduction into Europe of Ptolemaeus’ Geographia in Florence in 1409 (?). This reintroduction together with an increased interest in astrology and astrological medicine led to a revival in the study of astronomy that saw the publication by Peuerbach and Regiomontanus of new text books for the study of astronomy (Peuerbach’s New Planetary Theory and their joint Epitome of Ptolemaeus) that in their turn served as a foundation for all of the astronomers working on its renewal in the 16th century. Returning to linear perspective, its study led to a mathematical interest in the regular Platonic solids and the semi-regular Archimedean solids as well as the conic sections an interest that bore fruit in the work of Kepler at the beginning of the 17th century. Also in mathematics you are right to point to the contribution of Peuerbach and Regiomontanus in trigonometry but these were first published in the 1530s. Also of note are Regiomontanus’ manuscripts on algebra, which although never published were almost certainly read and can be shown to have influenced the development of the subject. Cusanus certainly wrote some very stimulating mathematical works and again his influence should not be ignored. To close you are wrong in one thing you wrote, “Paul of Venice seems to have been the first to draw the logical conclusion from Thomist inertial Aristotelian dynamics that "Unequal weights fall with the same speed in the void because the relation between their weight and their mass has the same value." The distinction for having first proposed this probably goes to John Philoponus. Thony C. (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus: Thanks for all this, will digest. Just two quick points. (i) What do you reckon about including the 1478 Treviso arithmetic, first Hindu-Arabic Algorithmic textbook, as possibly scientifically important ?

(2) On Philoponus you are surely wrong, including on such as on latest extracts in Sorabji's latest 'Commentators' book, which as I always thought, shows he held speed in void proportioanl to NATURAL weight i.e. specific weight, rather than also same for bodies of different specific weight. Philoponus had no concept of inertial resistance necessary for tbhis conclusion.--Logicus (talk) 19:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus:On Philponus see David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, 2nd Ed., 2007 Pb., page 310. [Why, what does he possibly say or give new evidence that can countermand all the previous evidence that he believed speed of fall proportional to specific weight, as Galileo also did in 1590 ?--Logicus (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)]

The Treviso Arithmetic is just a so-called abbacus book (the double ‘b’ is not a spelling mistake); these are textbooks for teaching the rudiments of mathematics to apprentices in small private abbacus schools. They take their name from the Liber Abbaci of Fibonacci, which was written in 1202 and which made the use of the Hindu-Arabic number system widespread in commercial arithmetic. The Treviso is only famous because it is supposedly the first commercial arithmetic to be printed, it isn’t, there is an earlier one. From its contents it is no different to hundreds of such reckoning books or practica that were written between the beginning of the 13th century and the beginning of the 18th century. Thony C. (talk) 17:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

You seem to miss the logical point here. According to Swetz in Capitalism & Arithmetic which translates it, it was the very first ALGORITHM book, not an abaccus book, although of course it was not the first commercial arithmetic. What was the preceding Hindu-Arabic numeral ALGORITHMIC book you claim ? But thanks for your learned briefings, whose implications am still digesting. A basic problem here is the criterion of what constitutes scientific progress.--Logicus (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus:Sorry! My explanation was too rushed. An abbacus book (two "b"s) has nothing to do with the abacus (one "b") but is a textbook of algorithmic arithmetic and as I say the Treviso is not particularly special apart from being the first one printed (which I suspect is what Swetz says; I don't know his book and it is not here in the university library so I have ordered it through inter-library loan, which may take a couple of weeks). In the opening sentence the Treviso says that it is a textbook for the art of the merchant which is usually called the art of the abbacus (two "b"s!)(Italien: l'abbaco).Thony C. (talk) 20:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus:OK, thanks or that clarification. But what are you now saying ? That the Treviso was not the first ALGORITHMIC commercial arithmetic textbook, but only the first one PRINTED ?

And what about my above query about what Lindberg says about Philoponus. Forgive me, but I don't have a copy of that particular Lindberg book.--Logicus (talk) 14:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Logicus on Philoponus:

You, Thony C. claimed: "To close you are wrong in one thing you wrote, “Paul of Venice seems to have been the first to draw the logical conclusion from Thomist inertial Aristotelian dynamics that "Unequal weights fall with the same speed in the void because the relation between their weight and their mass has the same value." The distinction for having first proposed this probably goes to John Philoponus. Thony C. (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)"

But may I point out that even if Philoponus had proposed that in free-fall unequal weights would fall with the same speed, this would not mean what I wrote is wrong, at least because Philoponus was 6th century and Aquinas was 13th century, and so Philoponus cannot possibly have drawn this conclusion from Thomist inertial dynamics which only emerged 7 centuries later. My point here is not who first proposed equal speeds in free-fall for unequal weights is true, because it seems Paul of Venice did not, but that it seems he may have been the first to point out it was implied by Thomist inertial Aristotelian dynamics, an important logical inference in itself, and thus not absurd in that respect as Aristotle himself had held it to be as the basis of a reductio against motion in a void. Duhem's research in his Systeme suggests Paul of Venice may have been the first to do so in a publication at least inasmuch as Duhem provides no earlier examples of anybody else drawing this important conclusion, although I suspect there may well have been, since it was surely an obvious consequence as soon as Aquinas had introduced the notion of universal inertial resistant mass and revised Aristotle's law of gravitational fall in a vacuum to v @ W/m rather than v @ W/0, given the proportionality of weight and magnitude or mass. (@ = is proportional to )

In David Furley's translation of Philoponus's Physics 678,29-679.23 in Sorabji's 2004 The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD Volume 2 Physics, Philoponus says:

"But if bodies in themselves have more or less downward tendency, they will obviously have such a difference among themselves even if they move in a void and the same distance in a void will be traversed in less time by the heavier and in more by the lighter, not because of being more or less obstructed, but because of having a greater or lesser downward tendency in proportion to the difference in their NATURAL weight." [My caps for emphasis.It is thought natural weight meant specific weight rather than absolute weight.]

However you may interpret exactly what Philoponus means here about the precise relationship between the speed of free-fall and the natural weights of bodies, it hardly attests he held unequal weights would fall with the same speed. He is normally interpreted as holding speed of fall in a void would be directly proportional to specific weight, as Galileo did in his 1590 De Motu Pisan dynamics before his change to his 1638 Discorsi position that bodies of different specific weights would also fall with the same speed in free-fall.

By the way, as I understand Aristotle's position from his Physics 215a25-9 and Heavens 308a29-33 & 313b16-21, in a fluid medium bodies fall with an average speed in proportion to the excess of their specific weight over that of the medium, that is, v @ Wb - Wm, where W = specific weight, his overall law of gravitational fall being v @ (Wb - Wm) / Wm.

I await to see what Lindberg 2007 says, or what you may report he says.

On Lindberg on Philoponus: Consulting Lindberg's 2007 reveals he does not say Philoponus anticipated Galileo's thesis that all unequal weights fall with the same finite speed, as Thony C. suggested. For as Lindberg says on p310 "Philoponus did not state that the rapidity of motion in the void would be directly proportional to the weight, but presumably he expected this to be presumed." Thus Lindberg's opinion is in line with Logicus's on Philoponus if "weight" here refers to specific weight. --Logicus (talk) 16:18, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Some claims from indian without proofings

I see many claims espsecially in "india sciences" section. we know that europe received most sciences 'only' from Islamic world but I saw in this article some muslim scientist got some sciences from india...how can this be proved ? -. must be prove that Indian had those sciences first....where is the books,proofs etc ? -. then must be prove that Muslim scientist used those indian sciences...with good references/sources.

logically if Indian had such mathematics sciences before so indian should invented algebra, advanced mathematics etc like Muslim did. but they did not.

why so easy write in this good articles with "blind claims" like that ? it can be stealing

so please don't write everything in all articles before it can be proved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shatree (talk • contribs) 13:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Shatree It is a well know and well established fact that Islamic science borrowed heavily from India science in its early phases especially in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. For a detailed history of Indian science go to the article on Indian science that is linked to from this article, there you will find all the souces and referrences that you require.Thony C. (talk) 14:41, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

An additional comment: Your logic is a bit fallacious. The history of science is not so simple as an idea simply being invented by one culture and then being borrowed by all others. Throughout history it has often been the case that as one culture borrowed concepts from another culture they enhanced those ideas with novel contributions. With most concepts in science it cannot be said that any single culture originated the concept on its own. Most ideas evolved over time as different cultures each added their own contributions, one borrowing from the other. It is also often true that one culture uses a more primitive version of an idea centuries before a later culture uses a more advanced version even though no connection can be proved. The fact that no connection can proved does not change the fact that the first culture created the idea first albeit in a more primitive form.

Indian mathematicians did indeed invent a lot of the basic concepts of algebra and advanced arithmetic although their formulations were not so sophisticated as the Muslims. Algebra, for example, was not invented in one stroke. There is no single point in history at which you can say that algebra went from totally not existing to existing. Its invention is commonly attributed to al-Khwārizmī because most experts see his writings at the first fairly comprehensive and fully systematic approach to the concept. Also, as a practical matter our modern algebraic techniques can be directly traced to his writings. But still it is not true that nobody had ever applied algebraic techniques before al-Khwārizmī. Indians had applied many of these techniques centuries before, although, again, in less systematic ways than al-Khwārizmī. And these concepts were borrowed by the Muslims, particularly by way of the Persians.

--Mcorazao (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yuck: Wrong title or wrong content

The Middle Ages is a European historical period. An article on science in the Middle Ages is interesting precisely because there has been a myth that the Middle Ages represent a Dark Age specifically in European History. Science in the Islamic empires or in India (or anywhere else) is not part of this history except and insofar as such science affected Europe.

The content as it stands is a mess. Yes, the "Dark Ages" idea is misleading, yes, Europe is not the only part of the world that matters, and yes, the scientific achievements of other civilisations have been historically downplayed and ignored. However, one does not rectify that by imposing a European historical periodisation on the rest of the world. That's just completely muddled, and completely misses the point of the article.

I don't know enough about science at this time to edit the article, but as a user of wikipedia I make a plea to someone who does to clear out, minimise, or redirect material that simply shouldn't be dominating the article. VsevolodKrolikov 15:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by VsevolodKrolikov (talk • contribs)

Yes, I agree entirely. Thank you for putting your finger on something that has annoyed me since I found this article. Rwflammang (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Scientific Revolution

Does the Scientific Revolution article really need to be summarized in an article about the history of science in the Middle Ages? The SR didn't begin until the Middle Ages were pretty much over by anyone's definition, no? --Arkuat 04:39, 2005 July 17 (UTC)

This is one of the most stupid treatments of the history of science that I've ever seen. There is no overview, which would put the reader in context; there is no mention of proto-science, just a slant toward Islamic "science", which really didn't exist after al Ghazzali's fundamentalism destroyed rationalism in that part of the world. Wipe it out and start over, it's a disgrace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.177.148.66 (talk) 11:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I am adding the "POV" warning to this article. If I was a native english speaker I would change this myself.

There's no mention in the text to the Renaissance of the 12th century. Worse: many good things that came trough this medieval renaissance of the 12th century are displayed as if it was from the "traditional" Renaissance (Wich, by the way, was mainly an artistic movement with little scientific production. The true Renaissance in terms of scientific konwledge was the one that ocurrede in the 12th century.)

PS.: I also agree with Arkuat about the Scientific Revolution summarization. --201.50.111.233 11:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

"Because of this regression in knowledge, the long period that followed is also known as the Dark Ages." <-- This is no longer true among historians or medievalists. --201.50.114.212 14:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I would like to second and reassert 201.50.114.212's statements; "Dark Ages" is simply no longer used. Second, to say that "The SR didn't begin until the Middle Ages were pretty much over by anyone's definition" is not accurate. The truth of the matter is that currently there is no consensus, nor has there been consensus for the last forty years. My suggestion (as a historian of Medieval Science) would be to make known that most historians of Medieval Science writing today take issue with the division of the Scientific Revolution from the rest of Medieval Science. What I mean by this is that you have two prevailing camps of thought--one believes that the process of thought was uninterrupted and that in reality there was no "Scientific Revolution." Personally, I belong to this camp. There is, however, another camp who makes a compelling argument that that science in the Medieval Period was functionally different from science in the Early Modern Period (I direct you to The Measure of Reality). In conclusion, as a professional I suggest that you simply make known the fact that there are two stances on the matter, agree that this article is not the place to determine a matter that professionals in the field are actively debating, and perhaps make regular updates as scholarship in the issue are produced. Should you all desire or request, I could go through and provide a detailed historiography of the development of this argument starting in the 1800s (that's when the issues really began). Stoicscientist (talk) 07:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Islamic science

Note: Some lines about Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Omar Khayyám and Averroes's natural philosophy should be added to the Islamic science section. --Kripkenstein 20:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but one should also note that Islamic "science" ended in the 12th Century. There has been no intellectual history of Islamic thought, except mysticism, since that time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.177.148.66 (talk) 12:01, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Science separated from Philosophy?

This article is so screwed up it's ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.177.148.66 (talk) 12:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The claim in the present article, and in the proposal above as well, that in the Middle Ages "science became a formal discipline separate from philosophy" is demonstrably false. Throughout the High Middle Ages and into the Renaissance much of science was taught in the universities as the study of the ancient natural philosophers, especially Aristotle. The close ties of science to philosophy continued through the Seventeenth Century, at least. Newton titled his great work on physical science the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Descartes's Principles of Philosophy and other writings deal extensively with the physical sciences; and Galileo insisted that he be appointed "Mathematician and Philosopher" by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The introduction is supposed to summarize what is presented in the body of the article. A word search on this article for "philosophy" shows no place where the supposed separation from philosophy is discussed, although many examples are given of science being studied in the middle ages as philosophy by philosophers.

Clearly some definition of what is meant is needed here.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Three things:

1. You are correct that the text of the article should expand on what is in the introduction and this point is not expounded upon. Frankly I have been doing some piecemeal edits to the article and have modified the intro but not enhanced all of the other sections to reflect this.
2. You are focusing on Western Europe. Your statement is true to a degree if you focus on that one limited part of the world. But certainly in the Muslim world the separation had emerged (if not to the same degree as in the modern world). Western Europe would inherit that separation from Muslim science gradually over the course of the Scientific Revolution (and the Renaissance).
3. Be careful about terminology. When it says that science and philosophy separated this is meant in the modern sense of the words. The fact that Newton called science "Natural Philosophy" is a separate issue. The term philosopher (in various forms) was used for a variety of things until very recently. However over time various euphemisms emerged to distinguish the different disciplines (e.g. "natural philosophy" was one pre-modern term that tended to be used to refer to physics and related sciences).

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Islamopia

Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 64, Number 4, October 2003

E-ISSN: 1086-3222 Print ISSN: 0022-5037

DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2004.0004

Franco, Abel B. Avempace, Projectile Motion, and Impetus Theory Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 64, Number 4, October 2003, pp. 521-546

The Johns Hopkins University Press

This paper provides a historical reevaluation of the originality and implications of Avempace's critique of Aristotle's causal explanation of the motion of projectiles. It also offers a serious revision of the place which has usually been assigned to Avempace in the history of science. The views regarding projectiles defended in Avempace's Arabic commentary are in sharp opposition to the anti-Aristotelian Avempace that was known in the Medieval West through Averroes. Avempace's commentary reveals only a moderate critic of Aristotle, a critic who did not, in any case, break with the master, and who, therefore, did not even go as far as Philoponus in creating a new and more profound theory of projectile motion. Project MUSE® - View Citation [1]

I cut and pasted this as a sample of the original research that pervades Wikipedia articles on Islamic science. Checking the citations will reveal this is a wide spread problem and for the most part the work of a single editor.J8079s (talk) 19:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the articles touching on Islamic science include many triumphalist accounts -- often drawn from web based sources -- that praise (to paraphrase Thomas Cahill) How the Muslims Saved Civilization. Dealing with that is a more difficult thing; it requires knowledge of the history of the sciences in Islam and in Medieval Europe. All I can suggest is that when you find original research, flag it and ask that it be verified using reliable sources. If that meets with stonewalling, then an RfC on the particular original research is appropriate. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the worst site on the web for these claims even MuslimHeritiage.com is more scholarly than wiki on this subject.J8079s (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I think that your last comment is OTT, some of the internet sources linked to by the propagators of the Islamic bias in the history of science articles are much worse than the wikipedia articles, I do agree with the general tendency of your comments. However I hope that you are aware of the fact that any attempt to improve the situations is going to lead automatically to an editing war. If you start that war I will support you but I'm am not prepared to start it myself.Thony C. (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not cut out to be a "combat" editor. I think this problem needs wide attention and support from reliable editors.J8079s (talk) 02:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is biased to the point it is plain ridiculous

The effort to remove the "dark" from the dark ages has gone to extremes. To point out several plain factual mistakes stated in the article:

• It is stated that there was no dogmatic enforcement on the part of the religious establishment. Why, The sentence of Galileo and the burning of Giordano Bruno are clear examples this is as false as the term "false" can get.
• The claim that Astronomy had gone major advancements during this time - either in The West or elsewhere - is false. There were no major advances in Astronomy between Aristarchus and Hipparchus to Copernicus and Kepler. The tedious data collection made by the Arabs was not needed and was not used during the Copernic dogma shift.

I call for attention of experts in sciences to validate the entire body of "facts" in this article. As it is it's a pamphlet of a very specific approach which is disputable at best. Zarnivop (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Your suggestion that this article needs the attention of "experts in sciences" is off the point; some attention by experts in history would be more relevant.

Concerning the two examples you mentioned:

• The incidents of Galileo and Bruno were during the Renaissance—after the Middle Ages—and are much more complex than you suggest.
• Although some advocates of Islamic science occasionally let excessive national pride get in their way, there is no doubt that the developments of astronomy in the Islamic world were important contributions to the development of astronomical theory—more was going on than mere fact-gathering.

Any assistance you could provide in editing the article based on the scholarly literature would be most welcome. Identifying specific instances where you see evidence of bias or the need for proper documentation would be most helpful. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Steve got there before me and I thoroughly support all that he has written. I would add that your statement on the history of astronomy is woefully inaccurate. First off you neglect Ptolemaeus the most important and significant Greek astronomer and secondly you imply a big names, big events version of the history of science that is to put it mildly totally outdated. Science evolves in small increments along long twisted paths and the Islamic period of science between the 9th and 16th centuries added many, many significant increments to the evolutionary history of astronomy. As Steve says if you have constructive criticisms based on founded knowledge to add to the article please do so, you are more than welcome.Thony C. (talk) 16:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The very approach both of you present stands to prove my claim. The theory that "Science evolves in small increments along long twisted paths" is far from conclusive and is disputed.

The way I see it science has both slow incriminatory path and paradigm shift path. Kepler's model was the latter, and it did not need nor utilized observations other then thise Tycho Brahe and Kepler himself performed.

You must not force a disputed POV on any article, no matter how strongly you support it. However, it is absolutely valid that an article will deal with the very dispute. In this case it must be clearly stated in the article synopsis and in its name. Zarnivop (talk) 05:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Zarnivop:There are two fundamental points to your comment that require answers.

1) There was indeed a long academic debate on the subject of gradualism versus revolutionary change in the history of science however as I understand it the consensus within the history of science community is that the gradualist view is correct. In opposition to this the Kuhnian concept of paradigm shifts is now regarded with great scepticism. This being the case it is you who is arguing for a disputed POV against the mainstream opinion.

2) Your view as to what constitutes the history of astronomy is unbelievably limited. As presented here you seem to think that only the prevailing mathematical model of the solar system should be taken into consideration when talking about the history of astronomy. Even within this framework your own presentation is defective. As I have already pointed out you ignore the dominant model from antiquity that of Ptolemaeus, which in itself was modified and improved by numerous Islamic astronomers whose model was actually that used by Peuerbach and Regiomontanus when they laid down the foundations of mathematical astronomy in the Renaissance, upon which Copernicus (doesn’t count according to you!) erected his heliocentric model. You also ignore the Tychonic and semi-Tychonic models that dominated mathematical astronomy in the first half of the 17th century and provided a necessary transitional phase to the acceptance of a full heliocentric model that of Kepler. BTW Kepler was not an observational astronomer.

Beyond this your completely ignore the rest of astronomy. From the beginnings in antiquity up to Newton such mathematical models were subsidiary to the main function of astronomy, which was the production of tables detailing the occurrence of celestial events, such as conjunctions and eclipses, and the daily positions of celestial objects, such as planets, these tables were required by astrologers, navigators, cartographers etc. Kepler’s model was actually accepted because it delivered the most accurate tables! Within early modern Europe the calculation and production of such tables was learnt from Islamic sources that had raised this work to a high level of sophistication. It was also Islamic astronomers who developed the instruments and observation methods that were utilised in early modern Europe. Lastly the mathematics that was used by European astronomers, including Kepler was also developed by Islamic astronomers. Thony C. (talk) 17:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It certainly does evolve in small increments as well as large paradigm shifts. That certainly is not disputed by any historian. That's why the small increments of the middle ages are worthy of mention. Rwflammang (talk) 13:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I like the general outcome of this discussion, since it exhibits the same paradigm shifts that I've come to learn since I was a young man. Science is not a monopoly belonging to modern West. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 17:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

As the disputant has disappered without answering the criticisms of his rather strange claims I have removed his 'this article is disputed' banner. I still think, however that this article could be improved!Thony C. (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

ABSURD

Parts of this are written in an absurd tone. Take the opening: “In the Middle Ages, science progressed dramatically from the time of antiquity in areas as diverse…etc. etc.” Why “dramatically”? It’s a cheap piece of journalese and it’s used 3 times in the text. It’s bad enough in itself but even worse as a symptom of the hyperbolical, over-excited tone of the entry. “Progressed dramatically” suggests that that science was idling along in antiquity and then accelerated sharply with the European Middle Ages, when it actually went into reverse. The whole article needs to be rewritten distinguishing clearly between what was happening in Europe (initial regression and slow revival) and what was happening in the rest of the world (fairly steady progress). I suggest rewriting it roughly as follows: "science initially declined in Europe while making progress in other parts of the world."Ettormo (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

"progressed dramatically" marked . I agree. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 20:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

I recently set up automatic archiving for this talk page in order to remove the stale material from the page. I deliberately chose a long period of 540 days for the archiving cutoff since a major function of talk pages is to inform new editors of issues that have already been discussed and resolved concerning the article. Archiving is called for when the talk page becomes too long to navigate effectively. (See the discussion at Help:Archiving a talk page).

Another editor reduced the period to 120 days, which doesn't seem appropriate to a talk page as inactive as this one. Consequently I restored the period of 540 days, pending further discussion. Comments please. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with archiving so slowly is that the people who were involved in the conversation lose track of it, and so no longer respond. In many cases I've seen, new editors of the talk page respond to previous editors who have left Wikipedia. Ancient conversations waste editors' time, and 18 months is an absurdly long period of time to wait for a response. 4 months is already stretching it. I'm willing to go to 5 months. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Five months would be a reasonable time if the talk page were only a place to keep active conversations, but it is not. It is also a place to keep conversations that have been resolved so that other editors can easily consult them. Archiving only needs to be done when the talk page becomes too long to navigate conveniently. Personally I'd favor keeping all discussions on the talk page no matter how old they are, untill the page becomes unwieldy. Since there is not presently a way to set the bots to strip off discussions when a maximum number of discussions or a maximum page size is exceeded, a year and a half would have a reasonable result on this talk page. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Archives are the place to look for resolved issues. Talk: pages are for active discussions. See also the comments below. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:16, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I like threads to be archived when resolved, and for archive-pages to be searchable and long (~120k before starting a new one).

I suggest compromising with a 6-month auto-archive, and manual archiving/unarchiving whenever personally thought applicable - I've tweaked the settings to such. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

O.K., that seems like a reasonable compromise. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:16, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable source - Muslimheritage.com material

Content from Muslimheritage.com / FSTC is an unreliable source, as discussed on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science. None of its publications are peer-reviewed, and its authors often exhibit a strong bias and incomplete or flawed citation practices. The site has been used as a source in numerous science and history of science articles to make extraordinary claims about Islamic invention and discovery. I am working to remove these extraordinary claims where they stem directly and solely from a Muslimheritage.com reference. Many of these claims were added by a user who has a history of using flawed sources for extraordinary claims, as discussed on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85. That page details numerous examples where claims from these sources contradict more reliable sources, on a scale which casts the entirety of the material originating from the site into doubt. If you would like to discuss this or any related removal with me, please leave a note on my talk page.

This article in particular appears to have a number of additional questionable sources beyond those which I have already removed. Dialectric (talk) 12:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

balance

The making of humanity Robert Briffault Publisher G. Allen & Unwin ltd., 1919 Original from the University of California Digitized Oct 18, 2007

It must be admitted that, in recoil from the general conspiracy of silence of our histories, several writers who have sought to vindicate the claims of Arab culture have somewhat exaggerated the achievements of Arabian science. Against such loose panegyrics it has been objected, that Arab science produced no surpassing genius and no transcending discovery ; that it was derived from extraneous sources. That is substantially true, but entirely irrelevant. Arab astronomy did not forestall Copernicus or Newton, though without it there would have been no Copernicus and no Newton. Although the complexity of the Ptolemaic system was repeatedly criticized by Moorish astronomers, although Al-Zarkyal declared the planetary orbits to be ellipses and not circles, although the orbit of Mercury is in Al-Farani's tables actually represented as elliptical, although Muhammad Ibn Musa glimpsed in his works on Astral Motion and The Force of Attraction the law of universal gravitation, those adumbrations of the truth were not fruitful of any great reform. The only important facts brought to light by Arabian astronomy, the discovery of the movements of the sun's apogee by Al-Batani, and of the secondary variations of the moon's motion by Abu '1-Wafa, exercised no perceptible influence upon the course of research, and had to be rediscovered by Tycho. Ibn Sina is said to have employed an air thermometer, and1 Ibn Yunis certainly did use the pendulum for the measurement of time ; but neither of those devices, which were independently re- introduced by Galileo, can be counted as a contribution to the growth of science.

That, however, is entirely beside the point. The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. The astronomy and mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any, approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world. What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.

Is Briffault's writing wp:npov? Not when cut and pasted, only when taken in context. The emphasis in this quote is mine, however wp:rs will show that systems and theories of science in the middle ages are those of Aristotle, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and Euclid. As for the spirit and methods we need a more neutral tone.

J8079s (talk) 02:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd be a bit cautious in taking a 90-year-old secondary source as representing the views of modern historians. His book has not had any significant impact on the history of science; a check of the ISI citation indexes finds only three citations of this book, all of which are by writers on Arabic and Persian science. As a personal aside, I never heard of Briffault when I studied history of science.

That being said, despite the greater understanding of the nature of Arabic astronomy, his criticism of reduction of their "discoveries" to adumbrations of truth seems on target. The biggest shortcomings of this passage are its dated positivist historiography, which sees science as purely experimental and thereby dismisses the theoretical framework provided by Greek natural philosophy as " pre-scientific", and its ignorance of the recent extensive study of Latin scientific culture in the Early Middle Ages, as this culture provided the context for the assimilation of Greco-Arabic learning in Twelfth Century Europe.

I'd be unwilling to accept such a dated historical source as reliable. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Seeing no further defense of Briffault, I've deleted the citation as part of WP:Jagged 85 cleanup. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Move Great Names to a separate article?

The header says it all. The section Great names of science in medieval Europe has been around since 2006, and has grown far beyond that original short section. It disturbs the flow of the article and I suggest moving it to something like "Great names in medieval science;" it seems to have too much detail to be a "List of medieval scientists".

Any comments? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Be Bold J8079s (talk) 00:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Moved a slightly enlarged version to Medieval European scientists. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Good move, keep up the good work Steve.Thony C. (talk) 19:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)