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Jan. 23rd, 2009 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI finished watching the last Science and Islam. It's the one that connects up to the Renaissance as we're going to be studying it, Europe becoming the shiny science place.
It was mostly about figuring out with maths and observation that we aren't the center of the universe. I think I would have liked this better if I'd understood the swirly circles that were half the visuals this week. I realise the point of the swirly circles was that they got more and more complicated while still failing to describe a system that really needed a huge great rethink, but still, confusing is less fun.
I found it fascinating that the first part of the science series was about the translation movement and making all the texts be in Arabic, and then it ended by the printing press not being a good fit for the very complicated Arabic and that being one why the center of gravity of science shifted. Printed books, in letters like this, being much easier to spread around. Science depends on language and communication. I can understand that bit.
I was quite furious, though not surprised, to hear that this kind of history was deliberately erased by colonial powers. Europeans used their scientific superiority to justify taking over areas they claimed were in decline, so they had to prove they were in decline, so they said all the discovering happened long ago and far away and look over here shiny. So the story of science had to have lies worked into it for politics.
Some days humans really get on my nerves.
But systematic enquiry and comparing facts to theories and then changing the theories so they fit and work better, that's plenty shiny. Need more of that.
It was mostly about figuring out with maths and observation that we aren't the center of the universe. I think I would have liked this better if I'd understood the swirly circles that were half the visuals this week. I realise the point of the swirly circles was that they got more and more complicated while still failing to describe a system that really needed a huge great rethink, but still, confusing is less fun.
I found it fascinating that the first part of the science series was about the translation movement and making all the texts be in Arabic, and then it ended by the printing press not being a good fit for the very complicated Arabic and that being one why the center of gravity of science shifted. Printed books, in letters like this, being much easier to spread around. Science depends on language and communication. I can understand that bit.
I was quite furious, though not surprised, to hear that this kind of history was deliberately erased by colonial powers. Europeans used their scientific superiority to justify taking over areas they claimed were in decline, so they had to prove they were in decline, so they said all the discovering happened long ago and far away and look over here shiny. So the story of science had to have lies worked into it for politics.
Some days humans really get on my nerves.
But systematic enquiry and comparing facts to theories and then changing the theories so they fit and work better, that's plenty shiny. Need more of that.