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.
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.