About this ebook
First, during the Crusades, scientific knowledge from across the world, in captured Arabic books, was given a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was all transmitted from the Greeks. The key cases of Euclid (geometry) and Claudius Ptolemy (astronomy)— both concocted figures — are used to illustrate this process.
Second, during the Inquisition, world scientific knowledge was again assigned a theologically-correct origin by claiming it was not transmitted from others, but was “independently rediscovered” by Europeans. The cases of Copernicus and Newton (calculus) illustrate this process of “revolution by rediscovery”.
Third, the appropriated knowledge was reinterpreted and aligned to post-Crusade theology. Colonial and racist historians exploited this, arguing that the (theologically) “correct” version of scientific knowledge (geometry, calculus, etc.) existed only in Europe.
These processes of appropriation continue to this day.
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About the author
C. K. Raju holds an honours degree in physics, a masters in mathematics, and a PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute. He helped build India’s first supercomputer Param, and was an editor of the Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research. He has written books on physics (Time: Towards a Consistent Theory, Kluwer 1994), history and philosophy of mathematics (Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson 2007), and on time at the interface of science, religion and ethics (The Eleven Pictures of Time, Sage 2003). He argues that theology has penetrated hard science (mathematics, physics) through time beliefs adapted to inequitable politics. He advocates that science should be de-theologised in the interests of equity and harmony.
Professor of History UCLA
