Judaism, Christianity and Islam did not and to a large now do not acknowledge the harmony of science and religion.
So I must presume you have never read about the Islamic Golden Age (800 AD – 1258) and the first Renaissance of the 12th century in Christian Europe?
It was in medieval Christendom that the scientific concept of impetus, the predecessor to our modern conservation of momentum in physics, was discovered. The first experiment on it was conducted by a Christian natural philosopher in the same century that Muhammad was later born.
In his
Mechanics, Hero of Alexandria (10 AD – c. 70 AD), an important Roman era mathematician and engineer, states unambiguously and uncritically on the authority of Aristotle that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Now, this is a fundamental error that could have been proven wrong were Hero to have engaged in an experiment. Yet Hero did not do this nor any other ancient thinker.
It took a Christian philosopher named John Philoponus (490–570 A.D) to actually perform one of the earliest recorded experiments in the sixth century, to support his theories (which were critical of Aristotle courtesy of a set of Christian presuppositions), by dropping a heavy and light ball in the sixth century AD.
Philoponus discovered that both balls fell at almost the same speed: the objects (regardless of their mass) experienced the same acceleration when in a state of free fall. He had uncovered the equivalence principle, one of the fundamental principles of modern physics: drop two different weights, and (ignoring wind resistance) they will hit the ground at the same time.
Here is what Philoponus wrote concerning his experiment with the heavy and light balls:
"...But this [view of Aristotle] is completely erroneous, and our view may be completely corroborated by actual observation more effectively than by any sort of verbal argument. For if you let fall from the same height two weights, one many times heavier than the other you will see that the ratio of the times required for the motion does not depend [solely] on the weights, but that the difference in time is very small. ..."
— John Philoponus' refutation of the Aristotelian claim that the elapsed time for a falling body is inversely proportional to its weight
Philoponus also believed that objects could move in a vacuum and argued against antiperistasis (the untested Aristotelian theory that an object is kept in motion by air which travels from the front to the back, giving it a push).
Why did Philoponus reject this positively erroneous Aristotelian idea that his pagan forebears had simply endorsed on the authority of the great man? You guessed it, his Christian faith. Note the part which states: "
Philoponus' theological work is recognized in the history of science as the first attempt at a unified theory of dynamics" (David C. Lindberg (15 March 1980),
Science in the Middle Ages, University of Chicago Press, p. 11ff,
ISBN 978-0-226-48233-0).
In the 14th century, the Catholic priest Jean Buridan postulated, based upon his reading of Philopponus, the notion of
motive force, which he named "impetus". Buridan pointed out that Aristotle’s unmoved movers were not biblical in origin and moreover did not correspond with experimental observation.
He wrote:
When a mover sets a body in motion he implants into it a certain impetus, that is, a certain force enabling a body to move in the direction in which the mover starts it, be it upwards, downwards, sidewards, or in a circle.
The implanted impetus increases in the same ratio as the velocity. It is because of this impetus that a stone moves on after the thrower has ceased moving it. But because of the resistance of the air (and also because of the gravity of the stone) which strives to move it in the opposite direction to the motion caused by the impetus, the latter will weaken all the time.
In my opinion one can accept this explanation because the other explanations prove to be false whereas all phenomena agree with this one (
Questions on Aristotle's Metaphysics XII.9: 73ra)
And he gave a religious basis for this idea, just like Philoponus before him:
"God, when He created the world, impressed in the celestial orbs impetuses which moved them without his having to move them any more…And those impetuses which he impressed in the celestial bodies were not decreased or corrupted afterwards, because there was no inclination of the celestial bodies for other movements. Nor was there resistance which would be corruptive or repressive of that impetus."
When Buridan moved towards the idea that motion does not require a continuous impulse — that objects left to themselves simply keep moving without any outside help — he enabled later generations to break with Aristotelian teleology, which had resulted in bad physics courtesy of his flawed metaphysics, and provided the groundwork for modern dynamics.
The 12th century Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides likewise explained that:
The art of medicine rests both on experience and reasoning and the things which are known through experience are much more numerous than those known through reasoning. Since any individual’s experience is necessarily limited the physician must go beyond his experience and study prior physicians going back to Hippocrates and Galen – science is the root whereas the practical part is the branch and there can be no branch without a root.
And then we have the achievements of medieval Islamic scientists too:
Medieval Medical Experiments
Ibn al-Nafis, a Muslim physician from the 13th century, was more adamant in the need to base medical knowledge on experience rather than what he read. He explained “as regard the function of organs, we rely only on what is dictated by investigative observations and accurate research; not caring whether it conformed with, or differed from, the opinions of those who came before us.”
Again, the facts unfortunately prove your claims wrong.
Your understanding, or at least appreciation, of the achievements of past religions seems to be acutely lacking, if I may kindly say so.
