Why Was the Islamic Golden Age of Science… Golden?

Last names as a way to determine ethnic diversity, lost me there.

Cool though, that makes my sister latin american.

Too bad I am stuck with a name thats probably German in origin.

Diversity is fine. It was the tolerance of the society to entertain the notion that feeding a bunch of good for nothing intellectuals was a noble idea that made a golden age possible. Also the possibility to travel and communicate, the spread of information was helpful. Language barriers came down. That tolerance ended around 1250. Muslim lands were still ethnically diverse after that, but no more tolerance for science.

So tolerance of different ideas, customs, religions, foreigners and races seems more important than attempting to induce diversity artificially.

Tolerance naturally leads to diversity - you can see this in areas like scientific teams, hi-tech companies, or top sports teams. If you want the best people you arrive at not evaluating their race, but their abilities. That is if the society around you lets you do that.

My friends son just spent 6 months working in a chemical lab in Sweden. Met few Swedes, mostly worked with people from all over the world. So he helped with a Swedish project, he can now go back to work on his own project and he knows all these people from around the world who work on similar stuff. No one gives a damn about what ethnicity any of the people involved are or if the lab was "diverse". They all concentrate on the project. If a commision goes in and starts counting how many Laplandian scientists are filling a quota the scientists would show the (imaginary) commision their collective middle finger or just leave.

So i would argue that ethnically diverse scientific teams are not more succesful because they are diverse, they are more successful because they are open and tolerant (and that has led to their diversity).

Forcing diversity will not bring the same result.

Long? Sorry.

newtboy

says...

The problem being we live in a society in the U.S. that, despite tolerance and even acceptance of diversity being part of the reason for the creation of the nation, is fairly closed minded and intolerant of ethnic diversity and getting worse rapidly.

We could learn a few things from Sweden.

vil

said:

Last names as a way to determine ethnic diversity, lost me there.

Cool though, that makes my sister latin american.

Too bad I am stuck with a name thats probably German in origin.

Diversity is fine. It was the tolerance of the society to entertain the notion that feeding a bunch of good for nothing intellectuals was a noble idea that made a golden age possible. Also the possibility to travel and communicate, the spread of information was helpful. Language barriers came down. That tolerance ended around 1250. Muslim lands were still ethnically diverse after that, but no more tolerance for science.

So tolerance of different ideas, customs, religions, foreigners and races seems more important than attempting to induce diversity artificially.

Tolerance naturally leads to diversity - you can see this in areas like scientific teams, hi-tech companies, or top sports teams. If you want the best people you arrive at not evaluating their race, but their abilities. That is if the society around you lets you do that.

My friends son just spent 6 months working in a chemical lab in Sweden. Met few Swedes, mostly worked with people from all over the world. So he helped with a Swedish project, he can now go back to work on his own project and he knows all these people from around the world who work on similar stuff. No one gives a damn about what ethnicity any of the people involved are or if the lab was "diverse". They all concentrate on the project. If a commision goes in and starts counting how many Laplandian scientists are filling a quota the scientists would show the (imaginary) commision their collective middle finger or just leave.

So i would argue that ethnically diverse scientific teams are not more succesful because they are diverse, they are more successful because they are open and tolerant (and that has led to their diversity).

Forcing diversity will not bring the same result.

Long? Sorry.