Obama calls for NASA mission to the Crescent Moon

When I became the NASA Administrator [President Obama] charged me with three things: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

TerryRC wrote:Any lingering doubts where his sympathies lie?

Heaven forbid we try and get along with them as opposed to going to war with them.

Can we have more of the "Obama is a seekret muslin" rants. I'm writing a book on the mental pathologies of conspiracy theorists.

Stephanie wrote:Why wouldn't you want peace with between American and Muslim nations, Keli? Isn't that what Jesus would do, make peace not war?

Stephanie wrote:First of all, that's not what was said........contributions to math, science, and engineering. I think it's a good idea because it has the potential to take some of their attention to their religion and place it on something as a people they can be proud of.

Math, science, and engineering are like kryptonite to fundie-wingnuts of all persuasions, Muslim and Christian alike. Scientific facts disprove all kinds of wild claims made by sacred texts and religious leaders.

Finally, mankinds endless quest for knowledge about the world around him and how to improve the quality of our lives is something shared by people of all faiths, from all nations, throughout history.

Stephanie wrote:First of all, that's not what was said........contributions to math, science, and engineering. I think it's a good idea because it has the potential to take some of their attention to their religion and place it on something as a people they can be proud of.

Math, science, and engineering are like kryptonite to fundie-wingnuts of all persuasions, Muslim and Christian alike. Scientific facts disprove all kinds of wild claims made by sacred texts and religious leaders.

Finally, mankinds endless quest for knowledge about the world around him and how to improve the quality of our lives is something shared by people of all faiths, from all nations, throughout history.

Stephanie wrote:I don't think there are any Jews in Gaza, are there?

Math, science, and engineering are like kryptonite to fundie-wingnuts of all persuasions, Muslim and Christian alike. Scientific facts disprove all kinds of wild claims made by sacred texts and religious leaders.

Stephanie wrote:How can you find anything humorous in that?

Armon Ayers wrote:

Stephanie wrote:How can you find anything humorous in that?

What I think is humorous is that Hussein wants us to focus NASA on the self-esteem of Muslims--Muslims who cut the heads off of people, fly airplanes into buildings, honor kill, stone people to death, treat women like chattel and are sworn to kill the infidel by Jihad.

ziggy wrote:

Armon Ayers wrote:

Stephanie wrote:How can you find anything humorous in that?

What I think is humorous is that Hussein wants us to focus NASA on the self-esteem of Muslims--Muslims who cut the heads off of people, fly airplanes into buildings, honor kill, stone people to death, treat women like chattel and are sworn to kill the infidel by Jihad.

You piant all Muslims with a sarcastic wide brush, yet you bristle (oh, the irony) when Christians are painted with the same sarcastic wide brush. Your indignation is oh so selective.

Ibn al-Haytham (known in as Alhacen or Alhazen in Western Europe) (965–1040), often regarded as the "father of modern optics", formulated "the first comprehensive and systematic alternative to Greek optical theories." He initiated a revolution in optics and visual perception, also known as the 'Optical Revolution', and laid the foundations for a physical optics.

Ibn al-Haytham was an Arab scientist and polymath. He made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to physics, anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, psychology, visual perception, and to science in general with his early application of the scientific method.

SamCogar wrote:Some of the greatest achievements and advancements in Science and Math were achieved by Arabs and/or Muslims and if the Muslim world of today doesn't want to recognize their contributions there is nothing Obama can do to change that.

Ibn al-Haytham (known in as Alhacen or Alhazen in Western Europe) (965–1040), often regarded as the "father of modern optics", formulated "the first comprehensive and systematic alternative to Greek optical theories." He initiated a revolution in optics and visual perception, also known as the 'Optical Revolution', and laid the foundations for a physical optics.

Ibn al-Haytham was an Arab scientist and polymath. He made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to physics, anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, psychology, visual perception, and to science in general with his early application of the scientific method.

The Muslim world would be better served by a frank discussion of how so much of it came to be sunk in backwardness and ignorance, although NASA's administrator is not the natural person to lead it (nor, if he's as smart as advertised, will he volunteer for the task).

Historian David Landes puts it starkly: "The vast bulk of modern science was of Europe's making, especially that breakthrough of the 17th and 18th centuries that goes by the name 'scientific revolution.' Not only did non-Western science contribute just about nothing (though there was more there than Europeans knew), but at that point it was incapable of participating, so far had it fallen behind or taken the wrong turning."

The short version of the story is that in the battle between science and religious obscurantism in the Islamic world, obscurantism won in a rout. Landes recounts that when the Muslims conquered Persia in the seventh century, the commander on the ground was forbidden to distribute the vast collection of captured books and scientific papers. Word came down from on high: "Throw them in the water. If what they contain is right guidance, God has given us better guidance. If it is error, God has protected us against it."

The West had its own incurious religious authorities, as Galileo can attest. But in the West, the material world slowly became disenchanted, creating an expanded space for rationality. Worldly rulers and the church separated, creating an expanded space for freedom. The countries that were most open to technological advance -- primarily England at first -- became the most powerful in a virtuous circle.

"Astonishingly, the regime in which oppression and dogmatism prevailed was not merely wicked, but actually weaker than societies which were freer and more tolerant!" the social scientist Ernest Gellner explained. "This was the essence of the Enlightenment."

How to react to the Enlightenment's absence from parts of the Muslim world is one line of division between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bush's freedom agenda aimed to create the predicate for future success in stagnant Muslim countries; Obama's outreach agenda is much more accepting of the Muslim status quo.