Following Up on Ibn Firnas' Flying "Machine"

Earlier today Sonja Brentjes, the co-author of the recent Skeptical Inquirer piece criticizing the traveling exhibition 1001 Inventions, replied to my October 20 blog post about her article. Her criticism was lengthy and sustained, so as I did with Philip Coppens' reply to me, I am presenting Brentjes' criticism below in the left-hand column with my reply in the right-hand column. Please do read the original piece before reading the following discussion.

In sum, Brentjes is correct that my broader criticism was inelegantly stated and implied more than I had warrant to assume, but my specific criticisms of the medieval texts in question are not wrong. A later comment from Brentjes noting that I incorrectly called Ibn Firnas a Moor when he was in fact a Berber is completely right, and I apologize for the error.

(As per Brentjes' later comment about typographic errors, I have slightly amended her comments to correct obvious typos.)

BRENTJES' COMMENTS

It is nice that you comment in such a lengthy form Taner's and my little text. But you should be more careful with what you claim we wrote and your accusations in regard to what you believe is our ideological stance. Maybe you should read first some of my research papers.

MY RESPONSE

I have, in fact, read several of your research papers as well as examined Taner Edis’s book, but they are not relevant to the article in question since the claims in one article don’t carry over to others. Edis’s book, however, does contain extensive critiques of Islam and science.

It has become standard to rebuff serious critique against unfounded claims about Muslim contributions to today's sciences and technologies by saying that the criticizing writer rejects Islam and some such nonsense. I don't say anything of this kind and don't believe in such nonsense. Neither do Taner and I make an argument against Muslim contributions to medieval sciences and technologies which had in some fields a substantial impact in various regions of Eurasia. I do know my professional field and I am not an ideologue like the organizers of 1001 Inventions.

I am no Muslim apologist, and I stated in my piece that you made several legitimate criticisms about the exhibit. You are of course correct that I cannot know what is in your heart and my criticisms were perhaps inelegantly stated. The problem I had with your article is this: You have made two distinct types of criticisms, the first factual and the second ideological, and appear to consider both to be in service of science. Factual accuracy is a scientific question, but, after establishing those facts, deciding how to interpret them and what to teach about them is an ideological question. Whether the myth of the Islamic Golden Age is to be supported or opposed (like the myth of Greco-Roman nobility, or medieval chivalry, or Native American eco-harmony) is a question of ideology, not of science, so long as the interpretations are built on facts. (As you point out, many of these alleged "facts" are false.) I freely admit that I differ from most skeptics in this in that I do not support the idea that science yields a specific moral, ethical, or ideological framework. I hope that you will agree that your opposition to the exhibit’s ideological viewpoint is also an ideology, even if it is one that most skeptics agree with.

The issue at stake is that these organizers explicitly write and did so repeatedly that these medieval ideas and inventions are the fundaments of today's sciences and technologies. This is simply wrong. As for [Ibn] Firnas, of course we read the Wikipedia entry. The point which you missed was to indicate that 1001 Inventions could have known better in many cases than what they claim simply by using sources available in the public space like Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica. We did not make a go at their lack of reading original sources and trying to do them justice. We say explicitly that there are earlier sources which, however, do not contribute more than stories. 

As I said before, this is a legitimate criticism of the exhibit, but one I am not able to judge because in your article you did not provide sufficient information to evaluate what the exhibit’s catalog claims. I do not have access to that catalog and can only judge based on what you have written. For example, you write that the catalog discusses Ibn Firnas’ “design improvements,” which, if true, is certainly not supported by the original account.

Neither do we claim that [Ibn] Firnas invented  powered flight as you call it. 

That isn’t me calling it that. In your article you specifically refer to the exhibit as making “this claim of successful powered flight,” from which I took the wording. You also say that the exhibit refers to Ibn Firnas as having a “flying machine.” You then proceed to critique the “Moroccan” chronicle based on the assumption of “powered” flight, which the text does not support. The exhibit is clearly wrong about the text saying anything about a “machine,” but you do not discuss this factual discrepancy and in your brief sentence imply that Maqqiri’s text contains this claim.

He could not have glided given what is said in the Arabic sources about the material he used, namely bird feathers and cloth. The simple scientific facts (physics and physiology) show that if he indeed jumped with that from some minaret or other height he had to fall down. No wonder than that he indeed fell down and got badly hurt. 

The oldest text does not state anything about cloth. The text, which I quote verbatim, states that he covered himself in feathers and attached wings. It does not state how the wings were made, and we have no warrant, as I again stated, for assuming anything about them. The text, as written, could be read to support the glider hypothesis (as the flight historian I cited claims), or it could be a complete fabrication. However, the allusions to this you present in Skeptical Inquirer do not reflect the actual text.

Moreover, you should know that birds do not land on their tails as the Arabic source somehow suggests Ibn Firnas believed and as 1001 Inventions claims as a fact. Hence, either your understanding of science and nature as well as history is fairly limited or you just do not try to understand to arguments involved. I am publishing a long review of all the ideological messages and historiographical distortions, including the many factual absurdities, that 1001 Inventions propagates. It will appear in the electronic journal Aestimatio. Maybe you should read that carefully. It also contains a number of references to research sources. 

I very well know that. It makes no difference that the author doesn’t, any more so than the early explanations that hot air balloons rose by the action of phlogiston disqualify descriptions of the first balloons, or that electricians continue to perpetuate the lie that current moves from positive to negative disqualifies our lights from working. The author was clearly trying to explain why the flight of Ibn Firnas failed, and his explanation tells us nothing about the original facts, which, again, I emphasize could very well be mythical. My point was that you criticized the exhibit for accepting one pre-modern description but did not explain why we should reject this one but not similar Greco-Roman descriptions of scientific experiments that are equally unsupported by archaeology. There may well be good reasons, but you did not explain them.

Moreover you seem to know little about how medieval and early modern historians produced their works. Maybe you should read first about the idealizing, ideological, repetitive character of this type of history writing before you make any claims about the reliability and value of a particular historical text. 

I am the last person to be accused of taking pre-modern texts literally, which you would know if you had “read first” any of my other work. As I very clearly state, the reality of the glider “cannot be proved conclusively short of Ibn Firnas’ glider turning up in Spain.” All I said is that contra your criticism, the text is consistent with a glider, mainly because it is silent on the false details interpolated by the exhibit and criticized by you.

You claim you can read a text - I m not convinced after having read your own text full of wrong claims and failures to understand 1001 Inventions as well as our text. Maybe you should read more carefully in future and think about the implications. Maybe you should ask the authors first when you do not understand instead of jumping to false conclusions.

Best, Sonja

Just like Ben Radford did this summer, you’ve asked me to run criticisms by the criticized first. Did you ask 1001 Inventions for its side of the story?

So, in sum, the criticisms you presented of the factual accuracy of the 1001 Inventions exhibit are truth claims that can be evaluated by reviewing the relevant literature and scientific principles. (And do note, the only factual claim I criticized was your evaluation of Ibn Firnas’ flight, not your discussion of the exhibit's dubious connections between medieval writings and modern science.) Beyond this, the ideological question of whether such material, when found true, should be used to foster Muslim engagement with modern science is beyond the purview of science.