Posted on 12/28/2005 12:46:28 PM PST by SJackson
The SCOTUS has just declared that any real property in the US is subject to confiscation on the whims of your local politicos. How long will it be until intellectual property is subjected to the same standard?
After all, if a locality can realize more tax revenue by selling your home to some private developers, how much revenue will they be able to realize if they appropriate a patent or a copyright?
L
Thanks!
Interesting arguments for a plethora of reasons Islam isn't to blame for the Muslim world's woeful show in science -- and everything else. But it boils down to the fact that Islam is rammed down the throats of the Muslim world 24/7. That's the common factor. Muslims are terrified of scientific inquiry (what if the Koran says it's bad?) Off with your head!
Demographics -- kill until there are no more infidels, then we kill each other!
education -- indoctrinate the children to kill untill there are no more infidels, then to kill each other!
research -- to kill the infidels...
I'd guess they'd kill until the last man standing had to fall on his sword for lack of anyone to kill.
Now that's a "culture".
Mere ritualism, as opposed to worship or a relationship with a suprememe being.
Well said!
The deeper I get into my advanced Anatomy and Physiology classes, the more awed I become about the miracle of life. Most of my profs are not hesitant to express that view, either.
Before that, however, I don't really get the sense that "science" had any real connection to private property at all. For a period of about 300 years starting in the late 15th century, I think science was studied as a "pure" subject simply for the sake of satisfying someone's thirst for knowledge -- not for the sake of monetary gain. People like Galileo or Sir Isaac Newton had no patents or copyrights that allowed them to derive financial benefits from their discoveries. In fact, it was generally quite the opposite . . . science was such a "pure" subject matter and presented such poor prosoects for financial gain that the pursuit of scientific research required one to either secure the backing of wealthy benefactors for financial support, or work with a religious or academic institution whose primary function was the pursuit of abstract knowledge.
Perhaps there is a clear way to define exactly which forms of science required private property rights and certain government/civic systems to thrive. I'd say that advances in pure sciences required nothing more than the right minds and the proper foundation of knowledge, while advances in applied sciences usually required some tangible financial gain on the part of the person or institution doing the research.
What's most interesting about this second point is that our modern Western social/government systems have also provided the basis for a number of things that are gradually driving the collapse of science, including the use of blatantly incorrect applications of "science" to" 1) reap enormous financial gains and 2) promote political agendas.
yes but the uninformed think they can pick and choose what to do and still be good musi's. They are the appeasers trying to play nice untill they are killed by the islamofacists or converted through fear.
For while applied science depends on security of private property, pure science, again, as you pointed out, relies on "idle" wealth -- either your own [the scientist] or someone else's [outside investor]. That, in turn, means that there must be capital over and above what is required for living. IOW, only a prosperous society can afford the "luxury" of pure science.... And that leaves the Islamic world o-u-t, out.
Certain people in the Islamic world have unimaginable wealth, but Islamic society,as a whole, is becalmed in the stagnate waters of poverty. And as wealth sleeps uneasily on a bed of poverty, money that (theoretically) might go into funding pure science is, instead, spent on bread and circuses.
In closing, to address the puzzlement over the concept of "private property" has been in the Western dominance of science and technology bare in mind that Applied Science, unlike her more ethereal sister Pure Science, is driven by industry and its money which, in turn, is made secure by legal protection of private property.
"3) the Persian numerical system, which was left behind when the Moors were chased out of Europe in the late 1400s. "
Actually that would be the INDIAN numerical system. ;)
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/mathematics.htm
The Hindu-Arabic number system was introduced to Europe in 1202 in Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci)'s "Liber Abaci". It was developed in India, the Muslims got it from them.
"Such is the reason that Saudi Arabia alone has a dozen or so "Universities", but has hundreds of "Islamic Schools".
Hundreds? Don't we wish they were that few. More like THOUSANDS. King Fahd alone, a major source of which Muslim radicalism has grown in these Saudi-financed religious centers through out the world, has erected over 200 Islamic center and 1,500 mosques through out Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa.
Moreover, while Mohammedan and Jewish theologians of the Middle Ages often lapsed into pantheism, the doctrine of the Incarnation (and the dogma of creation from nothing) made the adoption of pantheism logically impossible for Christians. Time must be linear. The natural order must be rational and intelligible.
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