The Arabic Roots of Science, and Their Fruit to Come

18th-century Arab astronomer Hevelius, colleague of Royal Society fellow Edmund Halley, using a telescope fitted with one of his own quadrants

If asked to trace the roots of modern Western science, most educated Westerners will point to the scientific revolution that flowered in Europe following the Renaissance, with Copernicus’s 1543 “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres” the main marker. There and then, it is thought, science began asserting an account of nature separate from that of religion. Study up a bit more, though, and asArabick Roots, a fine new exhibit at the Royal Society, describes, you’ll find those empirical roots snaking back into the Middle East, where Arabic, Persian, and other pre-Renaissance cultures planted seeds that Western scientists have been harvesting ever since. Copernicus, for instance, relied partly on observations made by Muhammed al-Battani (858-929), who had figured out the year is 365 days (and a bit more) long. Chemist Robert Boyle cribbed heavily from work done by 13th-century Muslim chemist Al-Iraqi. Royal Society physicians learned about inoculation from doctors in Constantinople and Aleppo.

How does this entwined history play out today? I’ll be moderating a panel next week at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha, Qatar,  that gathers journalists and scientists to look at this question. “Unveiling Arab Science,” the opening plenary, ably co-produced by my friend and fellow writerMo Costandi, will include Rim Turkmani, the Syrian-born astrophysicist who curated the Royal Society exhibit, journalists Ehsan Masood and Waleed Al-Shobakky, and neuroscientist and writer Homayoun Kheyri. We’ll look at how Middle Eastern has given rise to modern science, how the entwined but different histories of the regions and their cultures shows itself today, and how ongoing changes in the Middle East may change science and scientific culture there.

I feel lucky to be moderating this panel.  The program description is below. If you’ve a question you think we should consider in the panel, please drop me a line or put it in the comments below. I’ll file a report here afterwards.

Program for “Unveiling Arab Science,”* opening plenary at WCSJ 2011

Science in much of the Mideast region operates under unique cultural, economic, and religious constraints. If we are to intelligently report and write about it, we must understand these constraints – and sometimes work around them. Historical tensions between belief and reason sometimes complicate scientific inquiry here, as elsewhere. Meanwhile, both science and science reporting also face constraints imposed by autocratic cultures; a highly stratified economy; economic, educational, and infrastructure problems; a traditional lack of transparency; and relative weakness in both a scientific publishing tradition and the sorts of public-information-office pipelines that Western reporters take for granted. Even as researchers and institutions in both traditional science centers like Cairo and emerging new centers such as Saudi Arabia’s KAUST seek to loosen some of these constraints, journalists writing about science here face a uniquely complicated task. We’ll explore these difficulties and try to leave journalists with both useful perspective and sound practical advice.

Our title is imperfect, as we’ll be considering scientific history and tradition in other Middle East areas and cultures as well, such as Iran (once Persia).

David Dobbs writes features and essays for publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Wired, the Guardian, and other publications, and is working on his fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion.