Is Science Western in Origin? (Dissenting Knowledges Pamphlet Series) by C. K. Raju & Vinay Lal

Author:C. K. Raju & Vinay Lal [Raju, C. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
Publisher: Multiversity and Citizens International, Penang
Published: 2009-06-30T19:00:00+00:00

The Inquisition and religious intolerance

Let us now move on to the second phase of history-fabrication, which concerns the Inquisition and the general atmosphere of religious intolerance that then prevailed in Europe. The two key scientific developments in this time period are known as the Copernican revolution and the Newtonian revolution.

The Copernican revolution

On the stock story, Ptolemy’s geocentric planetary model, which survived for 13 centuries, was displaced by Copernicus’ heliocentric model. This entailed an “upheaval in astronomical thought that we call the Copernican Revolution”.38 Kuhn adds that “Copernicus...first revived the full Hellenistic tradition of mathematical astronomy”.

Notice how this stock story respects the unstated postulate of Western historiography that all knowledge must have a theologically-correct origin. Except for Ptolemy (Greek) and Copernicus (European), all others are pushed to the margins.

We have already seen that the first part of this story is false: Claudius Ptolemy is just a convenient name used for Hellenistic appropriation via an accretive text. In fact, astronomy was continuously modified. Let us now look at the second part of the story.

The shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism is supposedly the revolutionary idea proposed by Copernicus in the 15th c. Strangely enough, even the 11th c. al Biruni, while describing Indian astronomical theories, discusses whether the observed motion of the stars is real or relative. He points out39 that this is irrelevant for astronomy, since both models lead to identical conclusions. He is right, of course: mathematically speaking, one has only to add or subtract the earth-sun displacement vector to move from one model to another. Furthermore, it is always necessary to transform to a geocentric model for comparison with observations. The 13th c. Delhi poet Amir Khusrau seems more excited about heliocentrism when he asks, “Who has seen the sun moving?”

Aryabhata certainly stirred a hornet’s nest when he asserted that the earth moves, and that the stars only appear to move “like the stationary objects on the river-bank as seen from a moving boat”.40 Varahamihira,41 and then Brahmagupta, came down heavily on Aryabhata for this claim, the latter derogatorily referring to him as bhata (a pun on bhatta intended to emphasize Aryabhata’s low caste, hence ignorance). Even many of Aryabhata’s followers were apologetic on this point (and it made no material difference). The entire controversy is paraphrased at the beginning of the Almagest.

Of course, the moment these precursors of heliocentrism are mentioned, chauvinistic Western historians jump to attach to the idea a Greek name: in this case Aristarchus of Samos. They will point to a stray remark from one 14th c. Greek manuscript supported by another stray remark in another 15th c. manuscript to fix a date—but we know all that stuff by now. What is needed is a revolutionary shift away from this Helleno-centrism!

Setting aside heliocentrism, Copernicus’ other contribution is his mathematical model. Surprisingly, for a revolutionary innovator, this is a carbon copy of an earlier astronomical model by Ibn-as-Shatir of Damascus (d. 1375). Ibn Shatir used a technique due to Nasiruddin Tusi (whose advice to Hulegu led to the downfall of Baghdad, and who was rewarded with the Maragha observatory).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.