Muslim Progression and Non-Muslim Regression in the News

Found these two great stories today. First, Islamic Artisans Constructed Exotic Nonrepeating Pattern 500 Years Before Mathematicians. Some highlights from the article:

“Here is evidence it [the pattern] was being used, if not understood, 500 years ahead of when we had any idea what was going on with [it] in the West,” says physics graduate student Peter J. Lu of Harvard University.

And,

O’Connor says that the heyday of Islamic mathematics occurred between the ninth and 13th centuries. “By the 15th century, the Renaissance was going on in Europe,” partly stimulated by the introduction of mathematical concepts from the Islamic world, including trigonometry and algebraic symbols, he says. “If they [quasicrystals] had been out there the whole time, it’s rather nice that everyone had overlooked them.”

In quite the opposite trend of sophistication, Psychics have been Hired to Search for Bin Laden.

Psychics were recruited by the Ministry of Defence to locate Osama Bin Laden’s secret lair, it was claimed yesterday.

Newly declassified documents revealed that the MoD conducted an experiment to see if volunteers could ’see’ objects hidden inside an envelope.

….

However, after running up a bill of £18,000 of taxpayers’ money, defence chiefs concluded there was ‘little value’ in using psychic powers in the defence of the nation and the research was taken no further.

….

And Mr Pope said: “I don’t think this was a waste of public money. Many people will say so, but I think it is marvellous that the Government is prepared to think outside the box.

“And this is as outside the box as it gets.”

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Has it really come to that? They couldn’t find anything better to do for 18,000 pounds? I wish someone would pay me money to “guess what’s in the envelope” .. Allahul Musta’aan….