Why did modern science develop in europe

Despite the fact China India and the Arabic world were more advanced then Europe for centuries

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Why did modern science develop in europe

Paradigm shifts caused by political turmoil

European Exceptionalism of course.

unironically, enlightenment.

also all kinds of meritocracy and liberty in general.

Islam was crippled by the Mongols and fundamentalism, while Europe had the Renaissance and Enlightenment

And what about China and india

European secularism

This. Secularism is literally the foundation of the entirety of modern society.

The Mongols did slot to the Arab society

and africa. they exploited all their easy resources and didnt transgenascend.meme

t. joseph needham

In the case of arabs it was probably islam. I wouldn't be surprised if europeans developed better chemistry equipment precisely because they were allowed to distil alcohol. And that whole thing with:
>Hey Abdul I discovered something amazing
>Does it fit with what the Quran teaches?
>Well, no but-
>Absolutely haram.

The chinese just were too far away from any competition to feel the need to develop anything new, probably because their emperors were moody assholes or something. Honestly, it has to be "more authoritarian = more stupid".

>the chinese

The chinese were still amazing, they simply did not stimulated themselves by comparing themselves to foreigners because there were no foreigners around to compare with.
Just look at this!:
youtube.com/watch?v=4TzLejrJ6I8
They did all that in their own bubble.
Thus the confucian tendril of the "Sailing and exploring is bad!" retardation was born.

Yes, I am aware that the chinese have been impressively creative and skilled inventors and engineers for thousands of years. Which makes it all the more tragic and frustrating.

>frustrating

While were at butthurt about china failing expectations.
They had their massive commi culture purge but did not ditch the "rhinohorns make your dick grow and your balls more fertile" medicine.
In fact they reinforced it due to lack of western medicine (or because they killed all the doctors...).

"Our nation’s health work teams are large. They have to concern themselves with over 500 million people [including the] young, old, and ill. … At present, doctors of Western medicine are few, and thus the broad masses of the people, and in particular the peasants, rely on Chinese medicine to treat illness. Therefore, we must strive for the complete unification of Chinese medicine."

Christianity stimulated scientific thought

But greek bagans were also scientifically inclined.
Wouldnt it be the greeko-roman influence on christianity that carried the scientific thought instead of christianity in its more primal form?

>Why did modern science develop in europe
Aristotle.

>were more advanced then Europe for centuries
They invented a few things here and there before they were introduced into Europe, even important stuff like the printing press in the East, but empiricism and the scientific method are what they needed.

Aristotle was and still is a prime influence of Catholic thought.

Renaissance and Enlightenment were moments of rediscovery of his stuff.

>Aristotle was and still is a prime influence of Catholic thought.
That is why they post like ignorant children

>Enlightenment were moments of rediscovery
Nope, paradigm shift from natural philosophy to modern science

>Why did modern science develop in europe
>Aristotle
Aristotle was more a hindrance. Galileo got into arguments with the church because he argued against Aristotelianism, which was the main line of thought of most scholars and the church at that time.

People might be referring more to the mentality practiced by Aristotle and other greeks rather than his exact theories?

But even then, the Greeks were mostly content with only making hypothesises and not testing them.

The Catholic Church single handedly created science

Distilling alcohol for medical purposes is one of the things that they were actually quite good at.

From what I gather, Christianity and the various aspects thereof.

First, you've got your basic monotheistic bedrock. It's a good starting point for believing the universe to be well-ordered, logical, and utterly separate from its Creator. As opposed to the more popular polytheistic views wherein nature is run by a bunch of incestuous superpowered crazy people.

Second, you've got the Catholic Church giving the region cultural and intellectual stability. They preserved ancient works and re-integrated those recovered elsewhere, while also providing an environment in which they could be studied. The church also absorbed bits of Greek philosophy which seemed to play well with Christian theology and the aforementioned bedrock.

Third, you've got the Reformation. This was the first time in a while that the common people really got to question the orthodoxy and come up with their own ideas en mass. This tendency stuck around and eventually accumulated with the Enlightenment.

China's main problem seemed to be its intellectual and cultural isolationism. Not sure why Islam failed to follow suit with Europe. They were doing pretty good for a while. I assume it had to do with the pre-crusades fracturing.

It's almost like you can't empirically test the vast majority of philosophical ideas.

And secularism perfected it by having no theological restaints if something didn't fit perfectly with the religion's dogma.

Greeks and Romans were barely competing with China in that department.

The Protestant Ethic created modern science. Read Bacon,

Age of exploration and Eurocentricism. Colonialism made Europe eich and bored.

Also, there were many non White philosophers/scientists that simply arnt credited because of European dominance in science and so on. Part of having a continuous narrative I guess.

mongols and the trade winds allowing easy access to the new world and the explosion of wealth that followed

When did "modern science" start, properly?

A combination of factors including the Catholic Church, Christian thought, and Greek heritage, which all came together and produced the core principles of the scientific method during the 13th and 14th centuries, leading to the Scientific Revolution.

1277

>1277
What happened in 1277?

Third Paris Condemnation.

The bishop of Paris forbade the teaching of Aristotle's Physics as absolute fact at the University of Paris. Until then the authority of Aristotle was such that nobody questioned his work on physics, which as it turns out was almost entirely bullshit. But after 1277 that dogma was broken, and natural philosophers could look beyond it, which meant science started progressing again for the first time in 1500 years. Over the next few decades, the University produced some of the most revolutionary minds, most notably Buridan who founded classical mechanics, and Oresme who essentially founded calculus.

But that sounds like it was the event that created the possibility for modern science to develop, not the event that actually created modern science. The bishop of Paris was not the developer of the principles of modern science. Who was?

Nobody credits the bishop for inventing modern science, but that event marks the beginning of Western scientific progress.

There are several principles constitute the scientific method, none of which can be ascribed to a single person:
- The belief in a rational universe governed by logic. If anyone can be credited for establishing that principle, it's Peter Abelard. He did it by defending Aristotle's Logic, and convinced the Church of its validity. The basic thinking was that since God is benevolent, and since he gave us reason, he must have made the universe rational as well, and meant for us to use our reason in order to understand it and better glorify God by learning the inner workings of his creation. This is the foundation of scholasticism, and made natural philosophy (the ancestor of science) the most prestigious field after theology. Saint Thomas Aquinas also did a lot of work in support of that.
- The belief that the universe can be translated entirely into the language of Mathematics. This partly follows from the previous point, but it's not clear when it was established, just that by the 13th century it was considered like an obvious truth in both Paris and Oxford.
- Scientific theory. One of the most important elements of the scientific method is the rejection of dogma, and the belief that scientific systems can always be questioned again and replaced if found wanting in light of new evidence. The origin of this is in the caution natural philosophers had to use in regard to the Church. Unlike ancient Greeks who would just state things as fact, natural philosophers would merely suggest possibilities. But this principle was most strongly established in 1277 with the breaking of Aristotelian dogma, since it now became clear that even the most accepted truths could be questioned and rejected.

- Experimentation. Empiricism was accepted on philosophical principle by the 13th century, but natural philosophers did not yet carry out experiments. This was already done in the field of alchemy however, and that's probably how it came to be extended to the other sciences.

The scientific method wasn't consciously perceived as one though until it was formally described by Descartes and Francis Bacon. And there was of course a long interruption in scientific progress throughout the Renaissance, during a period when Aristotle was once again turned into dogma, until Galileo rediscovered 14th century physics and put an end to Aristotle once and for all.

Great post, thanks. Do you know how many of these principles or their analogues popped up outside of Western Europe? I know something similar to empiricism made an appearance in India

Basic rationalism existed among the Greeks already, their most important contribution being Aristotle's logic, and that also made it to the Muslims. And yes I think there was an Indian empiricism although I don't know much about it I'm afraid, and that also made it to the Muslims. It could be that there was some influence on the West on that side, but I don't think there's any solid evidence either way.

I think the concept of scientific theory and hypothesis is purely Western though, and that this made the biggest difference. That and rationalism was developed philosophically quite a bit further in the West than anywhere else, far beyond Aristotelian logic (which became quasi religious at Western universities), for reasons of Catholic philosophy.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, and into the Middle Ages, Greek learning gradually vanished from western Europe. It was the Mediterranean centres of Muslim learning which kept Greek thought alive. Arab intellectuals such as al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes authored lengthy commentaries on early Greek treatises on democracy, theology, psychology

nothing is taboo in Greek philosophy. Nor is any proposition admitted on faith alone. Logic and nature, ethics and politics, even art, music and literature must be justified through reason. No custom, tradition or religion stands above scrutiny. The very existence of God must be cast off if good reason cannot be mustered in support of it.

Although come to think of it I'm pretty sure everything the Muslims and the West inherited in terms of empiricism just came directly from the Greeks as well (again Aristotle mostly).

Europeans have an average IQ of ~100 whereas the Arabs have an average of about 85. As for China, the whole of asia got caught up in some weird stagnant cultural pool.

Aristotle claimed the Wisdom of 'Two Thousand Years' This was largely from the 9 books of the Enneads which was from the Ancient Egyptians

Dude Enneads were written after Aristotle was dead.

It would help if you read a history book in your life.

most of modern science was developed by Europeans between the 15th and 19th/20th century...its not "eurocentric" its reality

Because they weren't

what are you talking about "they weren't"

no historian of science would disagree with the notion that much of modern science developed in Europe starting with Gallileo, Newton and so on

lol rekt

>Using IQ for a long gone age that we have no IQ tests of and a completely different environment.

I think he meant developements pre-modern science/european enlightenment.

I was referring to the second part lad

developed quite a while after all of them went to shit.

Decentralization of state power lead to intense competition, churn, turnover, whatever you want to call it. Culminated in the liberalization that was a core component of the Enlightenment.

Most other major civilizations... power was highly centralized due to long-lasting, stable unification (social, political, religious, etc.) that caused them to stagnate.

agreed about other civilizations being more centralized compared to Europe which had more competition between states?

individualism

property rights (& inherent self ownership) theory

we stopped being monkeys & became humans

now if we eradicate all the remaining monkeys we be gods

Carthage invented clear glass, clear glass was not invented or widely used anywhere in Asia. In the late 13th century clear glass was used to make glasses which allowed European academics to continue to read and write for years longer than anywhere else in the world.