Scientific literacy is a skill to which all of us nonscientists can aspire. I was good at science and mathematics at school; but not so outstanding as to consider a career as a scientist. As we age, we regard science as something for students, children and boffins at universities. This is rather disturbing, because all of us are impacted by the findings and applications of the sciences.

If you regard scientific issues as outside the purview of the general public – think again. It is true that scientific research is nonpolitical – the physicists examining the nature of subatomic particles are far removed from the everyday thrust-and-parry of parliamentary politics. Nuclear power, however, is not.

Be that as it may, let’s focus on a recent and worrying development. The new authorities in Syria, from the fundamentalist organisation Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) have revised school textbooks and curricula by removing all references to evolutionary biology, and the Big Bang, the current paradigm for the origin of the cosmos. The new HTS regime wants to repudiate the more secular platform advocated by the previous ruling party in Syria, the Ba’ath organisation.

It is their country, to be sure, and the Education ministry can modify the curricula at all levels of education if it so decides. However, there have been strong protests by ordinary Syrians against this revision of the curricula. This measure, deleting evolution and Big Bang, places the HTS authorities squarely in the same camp as the fundamentalist religious right in the United States, who intend to replace scientific theories in biology and cosmology with creationism and its modernised cousin, Intelligent Design.

Of course there is debate about evolutionary biology. Charles Darwin was extremely worried about the reception of his theories by the scientific community. The most preeminent paleontologist of his time, Louis Agassiz (1807 – 1873), world-renowned expert on the natural history of life, strongly opposed evolution. When Agassiz spoke, people listened. Darwin and his supporters in the scientific community responded to all the objections launched at evolutionary biology. Agassiz, the ‘great man’, was proven wrong, back in the nineteenth century.

The material, natural causes of the biological and geological worlds has been a sore point for many religions since then. Darwin was not the first, nor the last, to navigate what is broadly termed the culture wars.

Being a materialist, in the philosophical sense, does not automatically make you correct. There is currently a strong materialist explanation for the origins of human behaviour – DNA. The claim ‘it’s in the genes’, has become a standard explanation for every aspect of human social behaviour, from war-making to mathematics. As we can all see, attributing human and animal behaviour to genes is seductively simple, yet wrong. Ok, if the word wrong is too strict, let’s say simplistic instead.

The late Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002), American paleontologist and historian of science, wrote regular science and natural history columns which, among other things, attacked the genetic reductionist view of human nature. Originally called sociobiology, and now repackaged as evolutionary psychology, Gould heavily criticised his fellow scientists, such as Konrad Lorenz, for falling into a genetic determinist trap.

The sociobiology trend went against the rising demands for gender and social equality advocated by the Left in the 1970s and 80s. Sociobiology’s proponents, such as the late great Edward O Wilson (1929 – 2021) responded to critics by suggesting that they were motivated by preconceived political prejudices, not pure science. Gould demonstrated that the practice of offering supposedly scientific rationales for existing inequalities goes back centuries.

Gould’s approach to science could hardly be labeled anti-scientific. He helped to communicate biology and natural history to the public.

Abiogenesis, the origin of life itself, is not part of evolutionary biology. It is however, a growing topic of interest to biologists and geologists. While the first materialist, nonsupernatural explanations for the origins of life go back to Ancient Greece, it is the work of Soviet Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin (1894 – 1980) that must be singled out here.

Working on the origins of life from chemical processes, he was the pioneer in formulating a scientific approach in explaining how pro to life forms could arise in the conditions of life in the Earth’s early history. Amino acids formed from the chemical and highly volatile conditions prevalent on Earth – the prebiotic soup – was the theory formed independently by Alexander Oparin in the Soviet Union, and J B S Haldane, a British scientist investigating the same topic. Known as the Oparin-Haldane theory, it blazed the trail for other scientists to follow.

Oparin’s initial findings got a recent boost, when researchers recreated the high levels of radiation and electrical energy conditions of the early Earth in a laboratory. The gradual changes of lifeless chemicals into self-replicating nucleotides, combined with enzyme catalysts, has been reproduced by researchers.

American scientists from the 1950s were able to recreate the spark of life – the famous Miller-Urey experiment. Recreating the conditions that gave rise to the earliest organic molecules is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Scientists are now looking for life in places which we would initially consider too hostile for organic matter to form. Hydrothermal vents, located at the bottom of the ocean, are a place where mineral-rich fluids bubble up and interact with CO2, and that combination forms long chains of fatty acids.

When examining science news, it is important to remember that no single person can be an expert in every branch of scientific endeavour. We can however, aim for a scientifically literate population, and make ourselves immune to rampant misinformation circulating in the toxic ecosystem of social media. No one person possesses the gateway to an ultimate truth. All of us must come together with the scientific community for the purpose of reaching greater understanding.

When examining the Holocaust, a recurring and important question arises; ordinary Germans knew what was occurring in the death camps, so why did they do nothing? The full horrors of the industrialised mass slaughter in the camps were publicised by scholars, escapees, journalists and other anti-Nazi figures. Why did ordinary people remain complacent?

That question acquires contemporary importance and relevance when we examine the details of the Israeli government’s genocidal violence against the Palestinians of Gaza. While the criteria of what constitutes genocide may be subject to debate, there is no question that Israeli actions amount to genocide.

Amnesty International is just one of numerous human rights organisations that has used the description of genocide to reflect what West Jerusalem and its Zionist supporters are committing in Gaza. Indeed, multiple statements by current Israeli government politicians reveal the genocidal intent of Zionism with regard to Gaza. Threatening to cut off water, food, electricity and medicine to the Palestinian population in Gaza is a very clear statement of genocidal intent.

The very suggestion that the Israeli military is carrying out a genocide in Gaza prompts a furious reaction from Zionist supporters across the world. Indeed, Zionism’s partisans have become effective Holocaust deniers, excusing and rationalising the crimes of Israeli forces in a manner reminiscent of traditional Holocaust revisionists of old.

The late Raul Hilberg (1926 – 2007), the great Viennese-born historian and pioneering scholar in the field of Holocaust studies, examined this politics of memory in his 1996 memoir. Denouncing those who persisted in Holocaust denial, he engaged in documenting the sophisticated bureaucratic machinery of mass killing in Nazi Germany.

Yet, Zionism’s fervent supporters, including their followers in Australia, respond with vitriolic fury at the mere comparison of Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza and the Holocaust.

Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian American scholar and writer, travelled to Gaza to write an on-the-ground report about what was happening there. She described Israel’s scorched earth tactics as comparable to the Holocaust of World War 2. Her article, originally commissioned by The Guardian US, was denied publication. The main objection of the Guardian’s editors was Abulhawa’s use of the Holocaust as a comparison with Israel’s ongoing attack against the Palestinians of Gaza.

Here is where I get a bit confused. Hilberg made quite clear, in his magisterial books on the Holocaust, that the industrialised mass killing of people involved numerous and meticulous bureaucratic measures, without which mass murder of an ethnic group would be impossible.

In covering the issue of Beijing’s policies towards the Uyghurs in China, the imperial governments of Washington, Ottawa, London and so on quickly and forcefully made clear their contention that Beijing is guilty of genocide. Why? Beijing is accused of carrying out forcible sterilisation of Uyghur women. Whether that is true or not, I do not know.

What I do know is that Washington, Ottawa and London immediately accused Beijing of genocide. No, Uyghurs are not being rounded up, stripped of their clothes, force-marched and shot, such as the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Yet, the imperialist trio had no hesitation in launching the politically and emotionally charged claim of genocide at Beijing. It appears the charge of genocide is to be used as a political football against governments deemed hostile to Washington’s interests. However, the mere suggestion of a using the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza elicits a furious reaction from Zionists and their supporters.

In Hilberg’s preeminent study, Perpetrators, Victims Bystanders (1992), he provided useful and necessary categories of participation when examining genocide. He elaborated on those communities and persons who, while not actually pulling the trigger in shooting people, carried out the policies and actions which facilitated the Holocaust, and comparative genocides such as the Armenian mass killings of 1915.

Keep in mind the categories described by Hilberg, when considering the following news item. The Dutch government released the names of 425 000 Nazi collaborators during the German occupation of their nation. These archives were released in early January this year.

The Dutch authorities promised to release the relevant documents from the archives back in 2023. They kept their pledge, in an effort to confront the distressing aspects of their own complicity in the genocide of European Jews.

We regard these collaborators as accomplices, helping to grease the wheels of the genocidal Nazi war machine. What does it say about the governments of Washington, London and Ottawa who consistently and unfailingly supply weapons and armaments to the Israeli authorities, enabling the latter to prosecute their genocidal campaign in Gaza?

As Joe Biden’s term in office comes to an end, it is important to reflect on his legacy – as an enabler of genocide. During his presidency, he never hesitated to send millions of dollars worth of armaments and ammunition to West Jerusalem, thus assisting Netanyahu’s government in its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

In December 2024, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSN), released a report highlighting the prospect of famine in northern Gaza. With the total blockade of food aid to northern Gaza, FEWSN warned that 75 000 Palestinians were at risk of undergoing famine conditions, and all the diseases consequent of mass starvation. The FEWSN is an organisation funded by the US Agency for International Development.

Not only did the Israeli government of Netanyahu denounce the FEWSN report and its findings, it demanded – along with the US government – that the original report be retracted. Its demand was granted earlier this month. I thought only totalitarian dystopian regimes, such as Stalinist Russia, engage in famine denial?

It is incumbent on all of us to meticulously document and expose the genocidal policies of the Israeli state, and expose the deceitful rationalisations offered as excuses by Zionism’s mouthpieces. We must condemn the governments which act as accomplices to genocide. Demolishing the entire conditions of life, and undermining the ability of the entire Palestinian population in Gaza to live and sustain itself, qualifies as ethnic cleansing.

We have all heard of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519) the great Italian inventor, painter and scientist. That is the way it should be; there is no doubting his unparalleled genius. But how many of us know that the person, who can rightly be called the father of automation predated Da Vinci by two hundred years, and was a Muslim? Ismail Al-Jazari (1136 – 1237), a mechanical engineer and scientist, laid the foundations of automation and robotics through his prodigious inventions.

In fact, it is more chronologically correct to call Da Vinci the Al-Jazari of Europe. Today, we worry about robots taking our jobs, and automation has definitely undermined the need for manual workers in many industries. Anxieties about automation go back centuries, and indeed, Al Jazali invented machines that were not just playthings for the rich, but devices with practical applications.

First, we need to make some observations about our own Anglophone culture, so we can better approach an enormous gap in our understanding of science and society.

In our Anglophone nations, we regard ourselves as the products, and inheritors of, western civilisation. We have defined our origin story from the philosophical and cultural legacies of Ancient Greece and Rome. We like to think that our contemporary philosophy, for instance, traces its origins back to the thinkers of ancient Athens and Greek city states.

That is all well and good – and we have gained numerous insights from the cultural and scientific contributions of Ancient Greece. Marx and Engels themselves were fascinated by the achievements of Greece, and the associated Greek city states that made up Ionian civilisation. However, this point of view completely ignores the historic and no less remarkable contributions of non-European and nonwhite civilisations.

In our time, if there is one nonwhite culture that is demonised and vilified, it is the Islamic world. Maligned by harmful stereotypes of bearded fanatics waving guns, the Muslim communities in the West are targeted as an ‘enemy within.’ This rampant Islamophobia, heavily promoted by a corporate media owned by a financial oligarchy, blinds us to the incredible innovations, both scientific and philosophical, of the Islamic civilisation.

Ismail Al-Jazari, a mechanical engineer by trade, lived through turbulent political times as a loyal servant of the Artuqid dynasty. The latter was a 12th century Islamic Turkmen dynasty that ruled in what is today central southern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria. Al Jazari’s birthplace, Diyarbakir, was a central stronghold of the Artuqids.

Every car driver today can tell you all about the crankshaft, a crucial feature of the internal combustion engine. Al Jazari was the first to design a basic crankshaft, elaborating the mathematical principles in converting reciprocating motion into rotational motion. His purpose in designing such a device was to come up with an effective water-drawing machine to assist farmers with irrigation.

Using a wheel which set in motion several crank pins was an innovation of Jazari’s. While wheels and crank pins had been used for centuries, it was Jazari’s connection of transforming rotary motion into linear movement that was crucial for the future emergence of steam engines as well as the internal combustion engine.

It is true that Jazari built upon the inventions of his predecessors. He was familiar with engineering techniques in China, Persia and so on. But it was his unique mindset and toolkit that made possible innovations which had a lasting impact. He documented his extensive efforts in a book of knowledge that has survived and been translated down the ages.

He also invented what can be regarded as the world’s first ‘robot’ – a musical device that automated the different functions of a musical quartet. Well, okay, he designed four robot musicians; a flautist, a harpist and two drummers. Much like a modern day music box – prior to digital music and Spotify – Jazari’s contraption could be programmed to play different melodies and tunes. This musical robot band, operated by hydraulic switching, is the earliest example of a ‘programmable’ instrument.

He also designed a water-driven hand washing device, with humanoid type servants offering soap and towels. The ‘peacock fountain’ was a hydraulic automaton, an early ‘robot’ to assist in the function of handwashing hygiene. A major portion of Jazari’s Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices was devoted to fountain mechanisms.

All this groundbreaking work and innovation in the field of mechanical automata make a strong case for regarding Al Jazari as the ‘father of robotics.’

Before any readers through seemingly clever yet monotonous retorts my way – ‘what about Al Qaeda?’ is one screaming red herring that gets tossed around when talking about Islam – denunciations of jihadist groups is not my concern. If you wish to condemn Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram – be my guest. You may find shrill denunciations of these groups in the mainstream media echo chamber provided by Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corp propaganda outfit.

In our Anglophone community, the Global South is largely ignored, or treated as just a passing curiosity. Sure, we hear about Israel in the Middle East, particularly in the context of that nation’s military attack on Gaza. Maybe South Korea and Japan get a mention, because they are integrated into the US military apparatus.

This deliberately manufactured systemic cultural ignorance deprives Anglophone audiences of information regarding the accomplishments of nonwhite cultures. Redressing this imbalance is a necessary component of challenging the dysfunctional role of the corporate media in our hyper-consumerist society.

No disrespect is intended to Leonardo Da Vinci. Let’s give Ismail Al-Jazari the credit he deserves.