Islam and science: The road to renewal
economist.com
economist.com
Islam is the driver of policy in a number of nations today - there is no obvious movement by these nations towards tolerance of science where it conflicts with rigid Islamic dogma.
I get the instinct of many to not want to tar all Muslims with the brush of radicalism and extremism. I share it. But the facts are not flattering when you look at the actual effects of policies and positions in the nations where Islam plays a key role in governance today. Papering over that by reaching back a thousand years to a supposed golden age of Islamic science is not helpful though. Uncomfortable truths are better faced honestly. You can do this without resorting to bigotry and pointing out things that make people uncomfortable does not have to be bigotry.
Catholicism is the driver of policy in a number of nations today, and there is no obvious movement by these nations towards tolerance of science where it conflicts with rigid Catholic dogma. Even a United States president and a UK prime minister have admitted publicly that they prayed together for guidance.
As long as politics and religion are intermingled this will likely continue.
You can basically take the percentage of the religious population in all countries and sort by that, the exceptions will be the ones that have a > 80% catholic population where it does not have a dominant influence on politics. I'm not too current on Spain and Portugal but those would be good candidates (Spain > 90%, Portugal > 80%).
The good news is that in lots of places the church is still powerful but that its influence is waning. The bad news is that it is still pretty high.
It isn't really accurate to describe science "as flowering in muslim lands" when in reality the patronage of rulers with disposable income was far more important than any religious beliefs. Simply spending money won't create a healthy respect for science in a culture that doesn't respect it.
The timidity that the article describes is still very pervasive. I don't see an easy way out for many of these societies. Simply changing government policy or spending more money can be counter productive and serve as a crutch that hides the real problem.
One can only hope that islam will see the light like other religions did - yet I doubt that, for it seems even more opposed to science that the other religions were/are. There have been various sects trying to bring the enlightenment to islam, but they more or less have failed. (in fact, I believe Mustapha Kamal in Turkey is one of the only example of success - and even that one was not perfect, with religious persecution of the religious minorities)
There are signs that a united califate (islamist empire) might emerge again - the various revolutions could have been an opportunity for democracy to emerge, but the islamists did dominate. Some serious ideological division between islamists are blocking, but politics does wonder everywhere, and when you notice a peace agreement between sunnis and shias, be very worried.
Maybe it can't be like the pacific fall of communism - maybe it will take a war like the fall of fascism.
The way things are, the west will prevail and so will science - with strong collateral damages however.
It is just a shame to spend so many years and resources for such a pointless confrontation - and that's not even counting the human losses.
At least science and progress will prevail. Too bad it might seriously hurt the current leader of the free world - like it did for France and England in WW2.
BTW for those who will cry wolf and racism, here's a nice facebook page in french : https://www.facebook.com/Athes411 - algerians atheists. Yes, some people in countries dominated by islam do fight for their freedom of conscience and for science to prevail. Odds are against them however.
Science requires a "critical mass" to bear its fruits, or people end up burned or with their heads on sticks - like many did, in the middle ages or the other dark periods of humanity.
Society, in the countries where these people live, is fighting against them and their un-islamic beliefs, there are fewer and fewer of them to make a political difference, while we are offering very little opportunity to leave for greener pastures.
Odds are against them - just like they were against galileo, or the russians who did not believe in communism and saw it for what it was but couldn't manage to flee. Science, facts and all that will certainly win in the end- but meanwhile, it won't do any good for the people stuck in a fight against an angry mob of people, which includes some who sincerely believe they have 40 virgins waiting for them in heaven!
EDIT: Secularism and science do conflate. Just like fascist and communist suppressed research that was against their dogmas, and subsidized stupid theories that played well with their beliefs. In the catholic world there was that thing called "the middle ages" for a reason - and then enlightenment. We are currently in the islamic middle ages. Go read the atheist page - it's worth spending some time on. Their last post from only 2 hours ago even has a nice picture of science as a book/shield to protect against religious dogmas : https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=342402572541947&...
Downvotes ? Does not matter. True science holds no belief - just paradigms, which can be reversed with enough time, theories and matching evidence. Any form of political or religious belief is good and helpful - until it starts believing that dogmas are better than facts. Then it steers away from the truth. Science is not a body of knowledge, but more a process of thought.
Because it's Islam that hinders scientific education in the US, right? It's Islamic Creationism that's pushed in US science classes; it's Islamists who oppose stem cell research?
I happen to agree with the pro-life side, but both terms are intended to highlight what the respective sides view as the most important aspect of abortion.
Let's make this clear: if you want to call yourself 'pro life' then you have to be pro life across the board. What I notice is that those that call themselves 'pro life' will usually use the abortion issue as a way of forcing their way of life on others, regardless of what happens to unborn children. They're just a convenience to use in order to restrict the lives of others, they're not a goal per se.
'pro lifers' appear to have no compunction when it comes to bombing abortion clinics and assassinating doctors.
If you're pro-life then I assume that you have transferred 90% of your savings to help out kids in countries where food is scarce?
That would be a lot more effective then getting on the anti-abortion bandwagon.
"'pro lifers' appear to have no compunction when it comes to bombing abortion clinics and assassinating doctors."
That's about as sensible as saying that "Islam" has no compunction when it comes to bombing civilian targets. Or that "atheists" have no compunction about executing people because they're religious. You're painting a very broad group with the actions of a small handful.
Regardless, this conversation has strayed very far from the small factual correction I intended to make.
"Yes, some people in countries dominated by islam do fight for their freedom of conscience and for science to prevail. ."
These two contradict themselves.
1. Islam and Muslims are different things. Today's muslims are also different than muslims who lived 300 or 500 years ago. The political systems they lived under were completely different than the ones of today, as well as economic system. Judging a religion by its followers and by context of the time is a very misleading thing. Muslim rulers of Moorish Spain is very different than the Taliban of Afghanistan. Former lasted for 781 years and the latter lasted maybe just 30 years and there's a lot of controversy on the latter.
How would you compare Mexican and Danish people. Both overwhelmingly Christian, but is it fair to compare these two nations? Which one would "sample" Christian population best? How about Danish of 400 years ago vs. of today? Unfortunately when I hear Mexico the first thing comes to my minds is Cartel. Anyway you got the point.
2. There's nothing in Islam that prohibits scientific research, only those who interpret it interpret within their own level of understanding and especially according to their interest. In a society there are a lot of interest groups and they twist the reality and truth for their own benefit. For example it took very long for printing machine to be used in Ottoman territories and the people who objected those machines used arguments they fabricated abusing the religious understanding. However the reason behind it was purely economical. At that time there was a huge industry of "copiers" whose sole bread winner was duplicating documents by hand and they had good ties with the Court of Sultan. Of course they could not turn around and say we don't want this because it will take away our monopoly but they fabricated all kinds of excuses to have it banned.
3. For a country to have any progress there has to be (relatively good) rule of law in that country. Most of the Muslim countries of today lack rule of law, most are artificial governments (supported by big boys, take Saudis, a client state of USA). This is a long subject so I just want to give a link. Long story short, if you can not build a strong legitimate political system everything else fails, and this has been the case for Muslim countries for the last 300 years. If the laws for the ordinary citizen is different than the ruling class, don't expect cohesion in the society.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16Shariah-t.html?...
4. Western people have been brainwashing themselves. For them the only credible source is only theirs. If you hear from FoxNews it must be true. This credibility bias blinds many and unfortunately deprives themselves and gives themselves this Eurocentric worldview. So I'll just give another link, a BBC documentary (to overcome that bias). Teaser: many think that Renaissance has started in Italy. It actually started in Muslim Spain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtCj0NvhYyI
5. There's this comment on this page:
> Remember Christianity used to be very hostile to religions in time past (Galileo)
Were the Christians or the Christianity or the Church of that time hostile to Galileo. Are all Christians in the same bucket? Who gives one the right to generalize this much?!
Final word, don't build your opinion on the news you hear on media.
2. Overall, it just happens that scientific pursuit to be a more difficult task in Muslim world, isn't it? I'm not comparing here Islam with Christianity, I compare Islam with (almost) everything else.
3. You may have a point with Saudi Arabia, but let's take Iran (which is or should be politically more solid). They have a democratic (therefore questionable) president, but they also have an unquestionable "supreme leader" which is incidentally a religious authority. What does this say?
4. I agree with Eurocentric worldview. Our powers in state (in Eastern Europe), including media, is very oriented to western world and often ignores even our own views (not to mention something from elsewhere). This is nevertheless a consequence of what's happening "out there" and how it affects one's life. I guess that if say development is done heavily somewhere in east, it would demand more attention.
5. You are right, not everything is the same. Not even Christianity itself. Not to praise or something, but I never heard of prosecutions for scientific research in Orthodox Christianity.
It's a simplification to say that the renaissance started in Muslim Spain. The understanding of it being an Italian-led phenomenon is consistent with the fact that its height was certainly in the Italian city-states. But the renaissance was a process of re-discovering learning as Byzantium fell and the knowledge accumulated by the Roman empire drifted back to the West. Much of that knowledge trickled back via Muslim lands because that was the geopolitical reality of the time.
Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators. Speaking generally, the views of the more scientific philosophers come from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in logic and metaphysics, from Galen in medicine, from Greek and Indian sources in mathematics and astronomy, and among mystics religious philosophy has also an admixture of old Persian beliefs. Writers in Arabic showed some originality in mathematics and in chemistry; in the latter case, as an incidental result of alchemical researches. Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism; the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth. In each case the stimulus produced new thought better than that produced by the transmitters -- in the one case scholasticism, in the other the Renaissance (which however had other causes also).
-- A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1945), p. 427
[1] http://maverickphilosopher.blogspot.com/2004/12/bertrand-rus...
There is also the claim that most of these discoveries weren't actually Arabian discoveries, rather Assyrian ones, co-opted by the Arabs.
Interesting read: http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
We shouldn't take this as A came from B or B came from from A. All knowledge is building on top something, somebody has already done.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein
By the way,Einstein's quote wasn't in the context of defending the intrusion of religious dogma into the scientific method. Einstein called his religion 'a cosmic religion' and described himself as agnostic.
... because why?
And who says that we are trying to gain "perfect" knowledge (whatever that means?). We are trying to create the most accurate model of the universe we can. Thus far the scientific method has been wildly successful at doing just that, and we already answered several big questions, such as "Where did we come from" (a: evolution via natural selection), "What is the purpose of life" (a: there is none), not to mention that we discovered some fundamental facts about the Universe. We know the Earth is round, and orbits the Sun. We know roughly how and when the Earth and the Solar System formed. We know that every species on Earth shares an ancestor with every other one. We know the Universe has a Quantum nature (as described by QM) and that on large scales it follows principles laid out by Einstein. We can also trace the history of the Universe to within nanoseconds of its creation. And we've only been doing proper science for about 200 years, out of the 250,000 we as a species have been around. Not too shabby, wouldn't you say?
And if the scientific method is too imperfect for you, pray tell, what is a better way of discovering the nature of reality? Thinking really really hard? Meditating on texts written by bronze age peoples?
I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith.
There are two kinds of knowledge, inductive and deductive, ascending and descending. The vedic literatures explain that knowledge from someone who knows is superior to speculative endeavour. A simple example is death. We can see that billions of bodies are born and die. Yet can we prove by experiment someone born will die? No, in fact there are people trying to make their material bodies eternal through various means. The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force). So is this knowledge equal to doing a scientific experiment?
HOW!?!?! It may lead YOU to nihilism. It doesn't lead me to nihilism.
>I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith.
I'm not quite sure which of the points you think are leaps of faith, but I've cited mainly uncontroversial and fundamental facts. For example, we know that the universe has a quantum nature as defined by quantum mechanics. This isn't a leap of faith, it's based on the fact that the standard model makes predictions, that when verified in the real world, are accurate to an insane degree. The theory of Evolution by natural selection, is also backed by massive amount of evidence. For you to claim that this is a leap of faith is akin to, for example, believing that Jesus risen from the dead, is ridiculous.
>The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force)
What is the evidence for this "eternal living force". You seemed to be using ancient scriptures as an authority, though you must realize that these books were written by men, just like you and me, just as fallible, with all the faults and weakness of a typical modern human except without the massive body knowledge we have available to us today. I'm not sure how much an ancient Indian man can tell me about the nature of reality given he had less awareness of the real world, than an 8 child of today would. Furthermore, how did this body of knowledge come to be compiled? Thinking on it really really hard? So given all these facts, why should you trust them to tell you anything?
I must've missed a memo.
- There is no evidence that there is any intrinsic purpose to life (except in context of the genetic purpose to reproduce).
- Our entire current understanding of the world strongly suggests there is no higher purpose to life.
Literature on the scientific process is all quite clear that the process does not yield perfect knowledge, nor is it supposed to, nor can it.
Also this is not a conclusion of science (the scientific process is not meant for such things) but rather epistemology and the philosophy of science.
EDIT: In order to avoid simply offering a flippant (if true) one-word reply, let me also say that your comment is as guilty of painting with an overly broad brush as the GP comment.
Some religious folk are anti-science. Some scientists are rabidly anti-religious. Most of both are neither. There are just a lot more religious people than there are scientists, and religion tends to lend itself towards being a pulpit for extreme views more readily than science. Coupling those facts, of course it's going to seem like religion wants to beat science up and leave it for dead.
That's a pretty broad brush, too.
Seriously, both religious and scientific folk need to get over themselves on this schtick. Policy moves forward at a glacial pace because culture abhors all change, and regularly seeks the path of least resistance.
I am reminded of the apocryphal exchange between Napoleon and Laplace.
Put simply, if the theory doesn't need gods, then gods have no business being a part of the theory. That is just simple common sense.
Science does not require faith - it's based on theories you can prove. It also has no dogmas since you can prove even the most established theory wrong and change science with it. Much like the guy you quoted.
I've seen this speculation that this is just a phase that Islam is going through. When Christianity was going through a similar conflict with Science, there were no real fruits of Science to validate it as a system of learning about reality. Christianity came first and had its roots firmly planted before that upstart Science came along. The power struggle was understandable in that progression.
These days, the results of Science are all around us. We have computers, cell phones, nuclear power, and robots exploring other planets. There's really no excuse for the utter dismissal of reality exhibited by large swathes of the Islamic world.
Islam doesn't just demonstrate a different stage of maturity for a religion. Islam demonstrates a radically staunch level of belligerence for a religion. There's no real reason to believe that it's going to outgrow it.
And all Muslims are suicide bombers, right?
You're making an incredibly common mistake here: judging the religion in its entirety — some quarter of the human population — by the behaviors of a very scant minority. Yes, it happens that the minority in question hold positions of power, but are they behaving that way because they believe that way, or because it seems to help them keep that power? (Put more pointedly, are they pandering to a pre-existing, cultural ignorance, or are they manufacturing an ignorance that's easier to control?)
Most Muslims aren't belligerent. Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace, and only justifies violence in direct response to direct attack, whether against the individual, or against the faith. Most Muslims are in the unfortunate position of being kept from the knowledge that would allow them to participate fully in the modern world. They're being kept from that knowledge not for anything to do with the religion, itself (though the religion is often twisted to justify their being kept that way), but to preserve the temporal power of the people that happen to have that power right now.
So, yeah. Let's blame Islam for that.
or against the faith
Wrong answer.
When "against the faith" includes calling for the death or even censorship of cartoonists in other countries who draw disrespectful pictures of a religion's "prophet", the belligerent label is very justified.
And all Muslims are suicide bombers, right?
I didn't say "all". I believe the words I used were "large swathes", meaning enough of those societies to dictate policies that are indistinguishable from the nut job radicals that you claim don't represent everyone. For example, see the stories regarding the destruction of ancient monuments in Afghanistan. See the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt. See the jailing/killing of Christian preachers in Iran.
Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace
That's a bumper sticker and something politicians have to say because they rarely speak simple truths. The Koran is pretty clear regarding the need to commit violence toward infidels. The Judeo/Christian texts (the Bible) aren't a whole lot better, although the mixed books and accounts in it are so imprecise, contradictory and watered down that there isn't a consistent call for domination of others in the world.
Taliban? 20-50,000, by the US military's own estimates. Hezbollah? 1,000 active, with another 6-10,000 volunteer fighters. Hamas' militant wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades? Maybe another 10,000.
No, that's by no means all the bad apples in the Muslim world, but the remainder are even smaller and less well-organized. That should be enough to give some sense of the actual numbers of actual "bad guys".
So, summing the three most widely-known militant Islamist groups, we haven't yet broken a six figure count of people, and you'll apparently happily judge a population five orders of magnitude larger by their actions. Let's also judge all Jews (some 14 million) by the actions of Bat Ayin, a comparable ratio (to within an order of magnitude, anyway), shall we? Let's judge all Christians by the behavior of the Westboro Baptist Church and Anders Behring Breivik.
Or, how about this for a novel idea: let's not judge anyone by the behaviors of someone else.
The Koran is pretty clear regarding the need to commit violence toward infidels.
The Qu'ran is clear about justifying the defensive use of violence. It's also very clear that violence must never be used against the innocent, women, children, anyone with whom you have a treaty or pact, anyone who ceases their active attack against you, or anyone otherwise not actively involved in actively attacking you. And, no: "attacking" doesn't mean calling names. It means physical violence.
As for "violence towards infidels", I assume that like most people with this attitude about Islam, you're referring (knowingly or otherwise) to 9:005, which says, in part, "...kill the idolaters wherever you find them..." ("idolaters" is regularly mis-translated as "infidels").
What everyone blithely (or worse, deliberately) ignores about that verse is that in the verses immediately preceding it, "idolaters" are explained to be people who had declared war on Islam, and were actively, militarily attacking Mohammad and his followers — which is what is meant by attacks "against the faith". The verse is also typically shortened to omit the fact that a Muslim should only "kill the idolaters" after suffering their attacks through the holy months, during which fighting of any kind is not allowed.
But what about 2:190 "Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love the aggressors."?
That sounds awfully bloodthirsty to me...
Look, we can go 'round and 'round about this, but I'm only trying to make a simple, specific point: you're judging a huge portion of the human race by the actions of a tiny portion of the human race.
Should all Americans be judged by the fact that a small number of Americans lied us into invading another country about a decade ago?
And my only point is that excusing Islam for being hostile to Science because it's "younger" than Christianity is a demonstrably poor argument.
All the rest of this discussion about "billions or trillions of nonviolent Muslims" is pretty useless. When a religion and culture seems to produce suicide bomber after suicide bomber and assholes who take over planes to kill thousands of innocent people - at some point the rest of the world has to ask "WTF?"
Should all Americans be judged by the fact that a small number of Americans lied us into invading another country about a decade ago?
What are you talking about? Everyone thought Saddam had an arsenal of dangerous weapons because HE pushed that belief because he was scared of Iran. Numerous non-American intelligence sources supported the belief that Saddam had WMDs. I didn't actually support going into Iraq due to the cost, but military reasons to do so were there. Saddam could have ended the whole thing any time by letting the inspections happen.
Sure, there was a lie. Saddam's. There was also incorrect intelligence. However to still call it a lie by the American government is itself an untruth.
I didn't knew much about Islam, but that is serious.
The many many Muslims who called for the death of the Dutch cartoonist a few years back would disagree with your assertion.
Also, the cartoonists, plural, were Danish.
Don't forget that Islam is nearly some 600 years younger than Christianity and please don't equate Christianity with the west. This is so contrastingly different, Islam is still predominantly present in regions from where it spread. What you know of Islamic countries today is hardly a measure of Islam because the mix of culture and religion there is so perfect you won't be able to tell one from the other.
If you compare the Muslims of Arab with somewhere like India, you will wonder if the Muslims in India have anything common at all, apart from worshiping a common god. Now compare this with Muslims in Afghanistan, you can't really compare a culture of a warrior race(who happen to be Muslims) with some Muslim in Australia.
?
The Catholics were extremely hostile towards forks in religion - Heresy got you the full weight of the ban hammer. Christians were a fairly broad group, larger than just the Roman Catholics.
As for Galileo, he wasn't a religion he was a man and some other men (including one Pope more than the other Pope) really didn't like him. This wasn't so much Christianity or more specifically Roman Catholicism, being opposed to Science, more some people in power not likely someone they regarded as a disagreeable dick. There were supporters of heliocentric models within the church at the time, supporters of Galileo were harder to come by.
Cathedrals didn't build themselves or innovate their own designs; contemplating the natural wonders was once considered equivalent to looking upon the works of God.
I'm not religious, my passions are science, mathematics, history (, and the Oxford comma); the narrative that "Religion Hates Science" has as much depth as spelling Microsoft with a $ or describing Americans as sheeple.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/vubyx/only_a_tiny_m...
There is a word that's used in Islam text, called Bi'dah; which can roughly be translated to "innovation in the religion". People label their own delusions under Islam, when they have nothing to do with the religion (ie. murder, suicide bombings, etc).
There is a class war and power struggle in the middle east right now. I think middle easterners are divided between those that want the empire back and those that want to integrate into the European (pseudo-Roman) way of life.
Neither side is achieving their goals in a proper manner though. Suicide bombings obviously don't help with anything. Integration with Europe has simply lead to colonization and poorer living standards. The middle east is pretty complicated. It's better to actually understand the history of the middle east, rather than post a link to /r/atheism.
That is the position that was widely taken in Western countries. It only lasts so long as the description of God's creation that comes from science is compatible with religion. But once science disagrees with the description of your religion, you're forced to make hard choices.
For most strands of judeo-christianity (including Islam), that point is hit with Darwin.
Integration with Europe has simply lead to colonization and poorer living standards.
The decline of the Middle East actually goes back farther than that. People in the West celebrate the voyages of discovery. But we seldom think about the consequences that direct trade routes from Europe to India and China had on people who were dependent on pre-existing trade routes along the Silk Road, such as the Middle East.
In some ways, that's similar to how most of us try to do in our own ventures what drives progress. It's fairly easy to ignore the consequences involved in disrupting a market, but holding back progress generally has a negative outcome for humanity as a whole.* It may have caused the Middle East to become more isolated, but at the same time, humanity needs to find a way to avoid repeating itself (as we still see such things even today in any rural part of the world). Open communication and integration generally leads to a more free exchange of ideas and calms fears between different cultural groups and nationalities.
*I'm ignoring the ethical consequences here that came with finding North/South America and focusing on the trade routes to avoid going too far off the subject.
More generally everyone who has learned even a little economics knows that when you open up trade, you improve production. That's the whole point of comparative advantage. However lurking in the math is that if 2 parties are engaged in trade, and the third is not, adding the third makes the total better off, but is not necessarily better for all parties.
Comparing the Ottomans and the Western Romans once again, both lost out on most of their profitable trade (as most of the trade was in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire and was no longer filling the Western tax coffers when the Empire split into two). Although I wouldn't take my conclusion as fault proof, but it would appear that countries can survive a string of bad leaders, but if trade that's taken for granted dries up and never returns, then the country is in bad shape if it cannot adapt.
I'm afraid science might contradict Islam (like any other religion).
of course it does , angel and djinns are not scientific facts , neither are people claiming they received the word of "god" from whatever spook out there...
Science looks at nature and try to draw conclusions , facts that one can experiment or things than can predict something. Prove me that djinns or angels exist as the reproducible phenomenon and i will believe in whatever fairy tail you believe in. Religion is based on faith since you cant reproduce any so called "miracle" written in holly books.
Read your sentence : your assume at first place everything is god creation , that's not how science works.
But i dont blame you , some believe in Hubbard or Smith , no matter how smart they think they are. Just dont lie to yourself in saying religion doesnt contradict science , it is dishonest at best.
Sure it does. Qur'an is full of things that contradict science.