Several historians (z.B. Hooykaas 1972) have argued that Christianity is crucial to the development of Western science. Peter Harrison (2009) believes that the teaching of original sin played a decisive role in this regard and argues that in early modern times there is a widespread belief that Adam has higher senses, intellect and understanding before the fall. As a result of the fall, the human senses became more blunt, our ability to draw correct conclusions was reduced, and nature itself became less understandable. Post-lapses (i.e. people after the fall) are no longer able to rely exclusively on their preconceived reasoning to understand nature. They must complement their reasoning and senses by observing specialized instruments such as microscopes and telescopes. As Robert Hooke wrote in the introduction to his micrography: An important impetus for Arab science was the sponsorship of the Abbasid Caliphate (758-1258), centered on Baghdad. The first Abbasid leaders such as Harun al-Rashid (ruled in 786-809) and his successor Aba Jasfar Abdulléh al-Ma`mesn (governed 813-833) were important promoters of Arab science. The first founded the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), which commissioned Arabic translations of the main works of Aristotle, Galen and many Persian and Indian scholars. He was cosmopolitan in his view and occupied astronomers, mathematicians and doctors from abroad, including Indian mathematicians and Nestorian (Christian) astronomers. Throughout the Arab world, public libraries connected to mosques provided access to a vast collection of knowledge that propagized Islam, Greek philosophy and Arab science. The use of a common language (Arabic) and common religious and political institutions and flourishing commercial relations have fostered the spread of scientific ideas throughout the empire.
Part of this transmission was informal, z.B. Correspondence between like-minded people (see Dhanani 2002), some formal, z.B. in hospitals where students learned medicine in a practical environment and apprentice master, and in astronomical observatories and academies. The decline and fall of the Abbasid caliphate dealt a blow to Arab science, but it is still unclear why it finally stagnated and why it did not experience something similar to the scientific revolution in Western Europe. Contrary to the methods of science, religion does not judge truth empirically, but on dogma, writing and authority – in other words, by faith that is defined in Hebrews 11 as “the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things that are not seen.” In science, faith without evidence is a vice, whereas it is a virtue in religion.