This interview goes a long way to fill a gap in media portrayal of the Muslim world. It creates a picture of intellectual life, especially in Turkey, with limitations and struggles, but with reality. Mr. Edis is sophisticated and well-informed on the history of science--not something that comes automatically with a background in physics. And it's a pleasure to run across a journalist who knows that Newton was interested in alchemy.

The only problem I have is with the blurb: the Golden Age of Mesopotamia was golden, and Edis seems to say so in the article. What he says is that it wasn't in the modern sense scientific. That doesn't mean that it wasn't a golden age of intellectual ferment, a time of great human creativity.

It is beyond pathetic that one billion people live under the crushing despotism of Islam.

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy says in Physics Today that there have only been 8 patents awarded to Pakistan in the last sixty years. The reason is the lack of skeptical inqury taught in the universities. Its an interesting read.

http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_8/49_1.shtml

He states:

"Science can prosper among Muslims once again, but only with a willingness to accept certain basic philosophical and attitudinal changes—a Weltanschauung that shrugs off the dead hand of tradition, rejects fatalism and absolute belief in authority, accepts the legitimacy of temporal laws, values intellectual rigor and scientific honesty, and respects cultural and personal freedoms. The struggle to usher in science will have to go side-by-side with a much wider campaign to elbow out rigid orthodoxy and bring in modern thought, arts, philosophy, democracy, and pluralism."

One can imagine that he is Muslim. The Malaysian deal was Quid Pro Quo with the Russians in exchange for a military arms deal between Russia and Malaysia as well as other soft concessions and money of course.

Anyway why is this relevant? With OPEC money they can buy all the science and technology they need. All they need do is diversify their holdings so that when the oil finally gives out they can maintain their social welfare programs which pay people NOT to work today, and all their children, grandchildren etc etc. What does it matter that they simply buy into the West, as the Saudis have, e.g they own more than a quarter of Citigroup outright. If that means they're fat dumb and happy at home why do we care that no one has a job, women can't drive and slavery is essentially still in force in a Muslim caliphate? It's their country let them run it the way they see fit.

The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the first and second scientific revolutions. They didn't. Not all cultures make smart choices. Some make very poor choices which almost guarantee their implosion. Go read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" as well as Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for some of these key differences. The thesis that there is some way back from this backwardsness may turn out to be false. Arab/Muslim cultures may be on a permanent glide path to obscurity which itself is made blurry by some of their nations fantastic wealth.

Today, Edis calls himself an "Enlightenment rationalist." "I am a bit of a physics chauvinist," he writes in his book. "I think that according to the best of our current knowledge, our world is an entirely natural, physical place that does not depend on any supernatural powers."

Sometimes humans behave in a way that can only be described adequately through use of the fantastic.

In his book on string theory, Brian Green wrote that the universe finally makes sense now that we have a mathematical theory that encompasses gravity and particle theory.

But while he wrote that, ethnic cleansing was taking place in former Yugolavia. Rape camps and all that.

It seems strange to claim that the world makes sense when such terrible things happen in it.

I think this is why even educated people can resort to the supernatural -- because there's nothing in science that can adequately express or explain the grotesque, terrifying ugliness of which human beings are capable.

Enlightenment rationalism doesn't come close. There's no screaming or crying allowed in science.

On the other hand, in the modern world, science and prosperity go together. The Muslim world is going to stay poor if they don't start teaching their kids real science.

This is a terrific article as it goes against the politically correct view that Islam is not a danger to Western Societies, non-Islamic cultures, or even the planet.

It's raises the question of what conclusions and actions we in the west can or should do in response to Islam's growing influence here.

Do we dare print cartoons that offend Muslims? Infiltrate respected mosques to video and demonstrate the bigotry and hate that is often taught?

Worse, the article raises questions about the west. Questions about conclusions that we have been repeatedly told to draw by Broadsheet feminists. About how the west is ruled by a Patriarchy and actively oppresses women. About how there is no male pill because male scientists want to enslave women. About how female genital mutilation is very much like vagino-labial plastic surgery. About how evolutionary psychology is an anti-feminist science.

I find a lot of parallels between "feminist science" and "Islamic science" including what will happen if we fully embrace feminist science.

Much is missing from this interview. "Orthodox." Islam, via the Koran, does not distinquish between the personal and the public. Many commentators on religion have made this point. A Muslim's individual identity is not distinguished from the groups in the eyes of the faithfuls definition of "God." Hence, theocracy is the orthodox form of government and clerics the only acceptable rulers. (There is no "render unto Caesar..." It's all "render unto God..."

In addition to missing a Renaissance that separated culture from religion, they have not yet had a Reformation, where religion is at least nominally separated from the individual so personal freedom becomes a goal--the most precious goal. Sufism came the closest, distinguishing itself from its Islamic source, but the mainstream rejected it. It's not the form anybody speaks of when they talk about Islam today--unless they happen to be spiritually minded--as opposed to religious--regardless of their tradition.

If the Iraq War makes anything clear, it's that no force outside of Islam is going to influence it directly. When it changes (which is inevitable) it will be due to influencial indigenous leaders and groups that do so. Attaturk in Turkey took a secular stand, like so many great early modern leaders, but the question now is how deep his influence was. As the home of the greatest Sunni empire, it is disconcerting to think what could happen if Turkey entered an escalating fundamentalist era.

Hopefully, all the young Muslims coming to this country to learn will take back a message (if they are forced to go back) and the current "crusade," doesn't make their lives miserable while they are in this country. Recent events. however, like the doctors taking part in a terrorist plot in England do not bode well for the immediate future. Are even the most educated and accomplished unable to distinguish the greater issues at stake for them and their culture? (Where is Gandhi when you need him?)

I'm not sure denying the current state of affairs is as wise as entering it into the discussion, and breaking through the ignorance. Reactionary leaders by definition want to cling to the past, and it's not hard to see the power they weld by examining the politics of the US today.