The Guardian reports:
The outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins was involved in an online Twitter row on Thursday after tweeting: "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though."
If it is true, it is true. And if it is true, then it is legitimate to ask why it is true, and to inquire whether the influence of Islamic beliefs makes for a cultural climate in which science is less likely to flourish.
There is no bigotry here, and certainly no racism: Islam is not a race, but a religion.
Are all religions equally conducive to human flourishing? No critical thinker would just assume that. It is an appropriate topic of investigation. And if you investigate it honestly, then I think you will come to the conclusion that Islam is an inferior religion when it comes to its contribution to human flourishing, inferior to the other two Abrahamic faiths, and to the great Asian faiths.
Besides the inanition of scientific progress in Muslim lands, there is the following consideration.
Terrorism is inimical to human flourishing. (Can we all agree on that?) Now consider terrorism whose source is religion (as opposed to terrorism whose source is a non-religious ideology such as communism) and ask yourself this question: which of the great religions at the present time is chiefly responsible for the terrorism whose source is religious belief? The answer, obviously, is Islam. Therefore, Islam is an inferior religion when it comes to its contribution to human flourishing.
So, on this point, Richards Dawkins 1; his critics 0.
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