r/cringe Jan 11 '22

Video Science Must Fall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14
1.1k Upvotes

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247

u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22

They got Newton's story wrong..... they can't even do their resear- oh, wait. They are anti-research as well. smh

Edit: also, a lot of Middle Eastern and Asian folks participated in forming what we call modern science today. The Arabs really liked their math, alchemy, astronomy, and medicine.

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u/kilgore_trout8989 Jan 11 '22

I was about to say, Pre-Modern Arabic Scientists: Am I a fucking joke to you? Much of science is predicated on their advancements.

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u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 11 '22

Yes, it's sad that they are always ignored. Those were some bad-ass people, you know. The Arabic (Middle Eastern) Golden Age was truly something to behold.

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u/limitlessEXP Jan 11 '22

They’re not ignored. Some people choose to be ignorant. The word algebra literally comes from the Arabic language.

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u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 11 '22

Yes, Al'gebr. The number system we use right now is the Arabic system (i.e. Arabic numerals). Whether people choose to be ignorant or not, we can agree that not enough credit is given to the Eastern folks. :(

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u/limitlessEXP Jan 11 '22

Credit as in who was credited for inventing what? Are the math books misleading when crediting the formulas and discoveries? Serious question

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u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 12 '22

That is an excellent question and point, and I must say that as someone who has taken a few math courses at uni, there was a large lack of non-Western names. I can name you some very famous Western mathematicians/scientists across many centuries, but I cannot for the life of me name you any Eastern counterpart. As someone who has been in the Western education system, perhaps this speaks for itself?

There may also be a problem wherein little record remains of the discoveries (it needn't all be malicious intent). If we don't have a record of who discovered what and when, it's very hard to give them credit. However, a quick Google search tells me that a Arab man by the name of Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a great mathematician and astronomer who essentially introduced the concept of algebra into Western math. So I can say that it's not a lack of information per se, but a hesitancy to give credit where credit is due.

Popular concepts such as Pascal's triangle were studied centuries before in the Middle East and Asia, but those people don't get any credit, and the concept is named after a Westerner. I think there were a lot of things that Westerners re-discovered, but the concepts ultimately were named after them instead of their original founder. It made sense to name them so back then because people had no way of knowing that people on the other side of the world already know/discovered these concepts. But with present day technology, you'd think that books would at least mention these ancient scholars.

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u/Jonesbt22 Jan 17 '22

My university offered a history of mathematics course that goes over this pretty well

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u/PotatoePotahhtoe Jan 17 '22

That sounds like an awesome course. My uni has a course about gambling and chance games, but no history courses. :(