I think Dawkins could find more strong evidences to show us how Muslims haven't contributed to humanity. Using only nobel prize winners seems a weak approach to take, logically. From the article: "Muslims were responsible for many achievements during the Dark Ages, including alchemy and algebra, their contribution since then was questionable." Even if we accept his premise that the only way to contribute to humanity is through science, he should show us how poor is the scientific production in the muslim world vs the rest of the world. Number of papers, studies, patents, I don't know, but his approach looks like he didn't want to take the subject seriously.
It's not like there aren't some very wealthy Muslims in the world. Maybe one of them should set up their own version of the Nobel Prizes. It's not like all of humankind wouldn't benefit.
What's more import, feeding a million Ethiopians with money donated for food or winning a Nobel prize in science? Nobel prizes are wonderful and the people that receive them are important to our civilization; but I give more credit to those that are selfless and giving to those in need.
Those that give to people in need, that's wonderful, but that's fleeting. If I spend 10 million on food for the poor, after they have fed, what's changed? They are hungry again. But if you win a Nobel prize in science, it's likely that you have done something that has significantly improved the lives of people living or kept people from dying. And once the next year rolls around and someone else wins the next Nobel, your contribution will still be playing dividends for a very long time. Both are wonderful things that should be encouraged.
Well you should look into the "Clinton global initiative". They are raising money to build an infrastructure for people in Africa for farming and processing viable foods for trade and feeding themselves.
Yeah it's a great association. They seemed to really understand that you must build infrastructure or the people will always starve. I also believe those that win Nobel prizes are very important; but not the baseline of a certain society to achieve greatness.
I agree, not a baseline, but it is an indicator. One of many. I have personally had many problems with the grandiosity and overly floral way that Dawkins says many of his thoughts. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a brilliant man, much much brighter than I am. And, I think he is right most of the time. But he is the living embodiment of pomposity, and I think that clouds many ideas that should be more accessible to every day schmoes like myself. In this situation, I think he has chosen an indicator, but just one of many, and looking at just one could show a false positive. Also, he hangs it out there on twitter without the careful reasoning something like this deserves. He is supposed to be an intellect. It's fine to be on twitter to tell a joke or talk about how someone looked fat in their Jeans, but it's not the right medium to actually analyze why one religion might be hindering it's followers from pursuing discoveries that may lead to a better life. Dawkins, how bout using that brain of yours to actually take a stab at why we see the indicators. Also, there are so many other indicators, perhaps he should break down a few more, and analyze it by more than just Muslim or not Muslim, how about Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Atheist. If religion in general the cause, than why are so many of the Nobel's won by Jews? I think this is a pretty fertile topic for an intellect like Dawkins to really go indepth in.
Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize. For what? I think you have to look at the prize as a joke. It's extremely skewed toward winners in western nations. The list of Israeli Nobel Prize winners isn't exactly impressive: Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Hahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Dan Sechectman, and Ada Yonah. Considering 42% of all Jews in the world live in Israel, the list is shockingly small, and limited mostly to those who tried to make peace with the Palestinians (call it an encouragement). It doesn't help that the British Empire devastated the middle east through its occupation and arbitrary drawing of nation borders and installation of monarchies. All set in motion since about the time the Nobel prize was instituted. Or that two of the oldest and western-like nations in the middle east were pitted against one another in a bloody war involving WMDs, and then we bombed one of them to near the stone age ($1T didn't fix the place) and have crippling sanctions on the other since. I've encountered a number of muslim people in the past several years that I find to be most impressive. A sportswriter. A physician. A surgeon. College professors. Some of the highest skilled high tech engineering types. The guy who headed the IAEA and the potential peacemaker in Egypt is one of the brightest guys in the world. The guy who designed the modern Chicago skyline (skyscrapers) was a muslim. It's pretty clear to me that there are plenty of contributions going on. They're just not getting the notoriety that others' get.
First, as I said above, Nobels in the sciences. That's very different than other ones like the peace prize. Next, I mentioned Jews, not people from Israel. Also, I was not trying to prove some point other than pointing out that it's not just that the Muslims are religious (someone else mentioned that Dawkins was just trying to denigrate the Muslim religion as he would any religion) if there is an issue with contributions to society, it reaches beyond the just being religious to something in their culture. Or actually, I was saying this is something that Dawkins should discuss, one way or another, and be honest about where that discussion leads. In the sciences Jews with Nobel Prizes in Chemistry 31 Jews with Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine 53 Jews with Nobel Prizes in Physics 49 Now, what does that mean? not much, I contend that most of those people were actually secular Jews, they just came from a culture that prides education. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates As I said earlier referencing the Mongols, and you bring up with the Christians, I agree completely that much of the reason the Muslims are behind in this area of their culture is because they have a history where those who pursued their lust for knowledge were wiped out, along with much of the actual books. Nowhere did I say in any way shape or form that Muslims are less intelligent than you or I. I have worked on a project with a Muslim in another lab who was nothing less than brilliant. I am referencing culture as a reason why they don't value the advancements of knowledge like we do here in America. This is not some innate inability, just the opposite, a simple change in philosophy and they could be world leaders again. Sure there are contributions, but considering 23% of the world is Muslim, we should expect about one quarter of advancements to come from Muslims. Do you believe this to be the case? Perhaps its just a misguided perception, but I just don't think so.
You missed the point. In the sciences. Jews from Israel: ZERO or ONE. What's special about Jews outside Israel? After all, it was Israelis who invented VOIP and Lempel-Ziv-Welch compression (LZW, like all the .gif files in the world use it). There's a bias against people from the middle east, at the very least. And Peace is what most of those countries need, not science. The contributions along those lines will lead to more science. I mean, it's hard to do science in a lab that looks like this: Oh yeah. Obama's prize is proof they have no problem giving the award to Muslims.
OK, I thought a little more about it. 23% of the world population is Muslim. In America there are 6.2 million Muslims or about 2.1% of the population.. In America slightly less than than that are Jewish, about 5.4 million Jews in America. If it were simply a matter of the Middle East being ignored, we should see Muslims outside of the Middle East garnering Nobel Prizes on par with the rest of the non-middle east population. I am not saying that this is enough of an indicator to really point to anything meaningful, which brings me back to my original point that Dawkins didn't go nearly far enough into the subject to be able to make the types of conclusions he seems to be making. All I'm looking for is some more input, some more data, some other indicators.
The muslims I've met are deeply spiritual. I was out to dinner with one of my friends and warned him he was about to eat pork in the bacon wrapped around his steak. There's an obvious bias against muslims or even people from the middle east here. One of those doctors calls himself a persian instead of Iranian for some reason. I think that's a hint. There's this, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism One recent study found that half of all American Jews have doubts about the existence of God, compared to 10–15% of other American religious groups.[2]
I really wish I hadn't brought up Jews at all, because then there is this terrible tendency to compare and contrast the two when the real question is "is the Muslim Religion hindering it's people from making significant advancements to the world?" I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question. And I am not making any type of statement about the abilities of the religious, I am strictly talking about the effects that believing in God, believing that faith works, believing in magic, if that hinders ones ability to make significant social and scientific contributions. Likewise one could as if being an Atheist hinders ones ability to ??????
I think the parallel (jews, muslims) was drawn fairly. The concept raised was the one of racial bias. I really don't think the Muslim Religion hinders its people from making advancements in the least. No more than having black skin prevented people from "thriving" in the US all along. I'll draw the parallel there for you. Google Black Wall Street. When it was over, 13 blocks of Tulsa looked like that burned out neighborhood in the picture I posted earlier.
