Academic Excellence Quotes
During this period—especially the first 500 years, the Islamic world was far ahead of the Christian intellectually and culturally. A university in Bagdad actually had women students as well as men. Ironically, the Muslims studied and preserved the ancient Greek and Roman science and literature while the West slipped into the Dark Ages. The Muslims developed science and the arts to new heights. However, around 1100 a religious orthodoxy began to take hold that saw new innovation of any kind as blasphemous. Intellectually, Islamic society began to decline while at the same time the Christian world was emerging from the dark ages. After the Protestant reformation, Christendom intellectually began to thrive while Islam continued in its anti-intellectual and intolerant mode which still prevents most Muslim nations from modernizing, Note that there was American intellectual interest in Islam towards the end if the 19th century,
This is a very material quotation with regard to Congress creating science-related policies and legislation. The members of Congress know the least about scientific matters than almost anything else that they have to legislate about. So typically they rely on scientific experts. Scientists are witnesses at Congressional hearings and often the political, polarized staff arrange to have scientists who disagree in something. They both have PhDs in the field, but one may be a great scientists and the other, a lightweight. This is where Alverez’s point becomes so critical. The Congress and staff have to learn how to differentiate between a “second rater” or a “Fermi” one of the great physicists of all time.
