{"id":11844,"date":"2026-10-27T19:50:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T19:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=11844"},"modified":"2026-10-27T19:50:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T19:50:25","slug":"uss-rfk-jr-claims-arabs-dont-produce-science-why-hes-very-very-wrong-us-midterm-elections-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=11844","title":{"rendered":"US\u2019s RFK Jr claims Arabs \u2018don\u2019t produce science\u2019: Why he\u2019s very, very wrong | US Midterm Elections 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>6 Minute, 16 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

\n

United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has sparked uproar with comments he has made denying Arab contributions to mathematics, science and literature.<\/p>\n

In a high-voltage rant on Monday, the US health secretary said, \u201cThere\u2019s five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don\u2019t produce science. They don\u2019t win the Nobel Prize. They don\u2019t win the Fields Prize. They don\u2019t win the Wolf Prize. They don\u2019t produce literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

RFK Jr, who has been involved in anti-vaccine campaigns and has promoted a debunked theory linking vaccines to autism, made the comments during a US election campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan while supporting Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who is up against Arab-American Democrat nominee Abdul El-Sayed, in a tightly contested battle for Michigan\u2019s Senate seat in next week\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Critics said the comments were racist, Islamophobic and factually inaccurate, pointing to modern and historic Arab innovation in multiple fields.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how Arabs have made vital contributions to the human understanding of maths, science and literature through the centuries.<\/p>\n

Arab contributions to maths, science and humanities<\/h2>\n

The period known as the Islamic Golden Age, from around 750 AD to 1258 AD, produced many key Arab contributions to medicine at a time when Europe was said to be in its Dark Ages. During this time, Arabic was the language of science and scholarship.<\/p>\n

1st-4th centuries:<\/strong> The numerals 0-9, which originated in ancient India, were adopted by Arab mathematicians who spread them across the world. They displaced Roman numerals as a more advanced number system in mathematics.<\/p>\n

8th century:<\/strong> Arab and Persian mathematicians were studying the ancient Indian concept of zero in mathematics in Baghdad, long before the Europeans. The number zero was crucial to the development of mathematics \u2013 but was absent from widely used Roman numerals in Europe.<\/p>\n

813-833:<\/strong> The Arab mathematician Mu\u1e25ammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi \u2013 one of those studying the number 0 \u2013 is often referred to as the \u201cfather of algebra\u201d as he was the first to treat the method as a separate mathematical discipline in his work, Al-Jabr. This method provided the first linear and quadratic equations, still used as a core part of mathematical study today.<\/p>\n

965-1040:<\/strong> Ibn al-Haytham, known as the \u201cfather of modern optics\u201d, explained the role that light entering the eye plays in human vision. He was born in Basra in Iraq, but spent most of his working life in Cairo attending to noble families.<\/p>\n

936-1013:<\/strong> Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, called \u201cthe father of modern surgery\u201d, was considered the greatest surgeon in the Middle Ages. He wrote a 30-volume encyclopaedia detailing medical practices and designed and illustrated many surgical instruments. Born in Azahara, in Andalusia, he was known as Abulcasis in Europe.<\/p>\n

9th century:<\/strong> Fatima al-Fihri founded the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. It is often cited as the oldest continually operating university.<\/p>\n

1213-1288:<\/strong> Ibn al-Nafis described pulmonary circulation \u2013 the process by which blood passes through the lungs \u2013 several centuries before Europeans understood it. He wrote more than 110 volumes of work on surgery, ophthalmology and philosophy while working as a chief physician in Egypt.<\/p>\n

915-965:<\/strong> \u00a0Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, regarded as the greatest poet in the Arabic language, was Yemeni and grew up immersed in Bedouin Arabic culture. He wrote in classical Arabic and many of his verses became sayings used in everyday Arabic.<\/p>\n

1100-1165:<\/strong> Muhammad al-Idrisi was a geographer known for making the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most accurate and detailed medieval world maps, and a high point of Islamic geography. He was born in Ceuta in Morocco.<\/p>\n

\"A
A view of a sign reading \u2018The Norwegian Nobel Committee\u2019 inside the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, October 6, 2023 [File: Tom Little\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prize-winning Arabs<\/h2>\n

In more modern times, RFK Jr\u2019s assertion that Arabs do not win Nobel prizes for science and literature is very far from the truth. Here are some of the highlights:<\/p>\n

1960: Nobel Prize for Medicine<\/h3>\n

Peter Medawar won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on for work on acquired immune tolerance, which underpins organ transplantation. He was born in Brazil to a Lebanese father.<\/p>\n

1966: The Fields Medal<\/h3>\n

Michael Atiyah won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award for mathematics, in 1966. He was born in London to a Lebanese father and Scottish mother. Educated in Egypt, he spent much of his childhood in Cairo and Khartoum.<\/p>\n

1988: Nobel Prize for Literature<\/h3>\n

Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, including the Cairo Trilogy, which the Swedish Academy said formed \u201can Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind\u201d. He is still the only winner of the prize who wrote in Arabic.<\/p>\n

1990: Nobel Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Elias James Corey won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing retrosynthetic analysis. He is an American of Lebanese descent.<\/p>\n

1993: Wolf Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Egyptian Ahmed Zewail won the Wolf Prize for Chemistry. The Wolf Prize is an international award which has been presented to living scientists and artists every year in Israel by the Wolf Foundation since 1978.<\/p>\n

1999: Nobel Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Zewail also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for pioneering femtochemistry, which is the study of chemical reactions on extremely short timescales. He also won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1993.<\/p>\n

2005: Nobel Peace Prize<\/h3>\n

Egyptian scientist Mohamed ElBaradei shared his Nobel Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he led.<\/p>\n

2018: Wolf Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Omar M Yaghi,\u00a0 born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family, won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for work on metal-organic frameworks. He shared the prize with Japan\u2019s Makoto Fujita. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) condemned his acceptance of the award because the prize is awarded by an Israeli foundation.<\/p>\n

2023: Nobel Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Moungi Bawendi won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. He was born in France to a Tunisian father, but based in the US.<\/p>\n

2025: Nobel Prize for Chemistry<\/h3>\n

Yaghi also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks. These are crystalline materials with large internal cavities that can capture and store gases, harvest water from air, and trap pollutants. He shared the prize with Susumu Kitagawa from Japan and Richard Robson from Australia.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, vaccine scientist Peter Hotez of the Texas Medical Center weighed in on historical Arab scholarship, saying, \u201cIt was the Arab scientists of the Middle Ages who kept Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen alive to hand it down in the Renaissance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broadcaster Mehdi Hasan described RFK Jr\u2019s comments as \u201cracist\u201d and, in a post on X, wrote: \u201cOne of the men who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year was a Palestinian-American, Omar Yaghi.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the US health secretary to be removed. It said: \u201cTo stand on a public stage as a sitting US cabinet official and dehumanise half a billion people \u2013 and millions of Muslim and Christian Arab Americans \u2013 with fabricated, white supremacist talking points is utterly disqualifying for public office. His sweeping erasure of Arab contributions to humanity is not only maliciously false, but it also fans the flames of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate at a time when communities are already vulnerable to bigoted attacks from other public officials nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has sparked uproar with comments he has made denying Arab contributions to mathematics, science and literature. In a high-voltage rant on Monday, the US health secretary said, \u201cThere\u2019s five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don\u2019t produce science. They don\u2019t win the Nobel Prize….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t