So what are the reasons why modern science developed in Europe

[user1]

1. Invention of printing press (moving typeset) and subsequent price drop in printed material.

2. State support for the scientific research.

3. Formation of scientific guilds and the subsequent sharing of all scientific material among the scientists; plus peer reviewing of all scientific research and its dissemination.

Most interesting thing is that the process of peer review was started by Muslims while they were compiling the hadith.

Also, research was not disseminated among the sciemtists to the extent among the Muslims. Amount of written material was not much before the advent of printing press, hence lesser number of people could have access to them. Even before the invention of printing press, the golden age of Islamic science was over, so, they could not take the advantage of printing.

There are some forms of knowledge which are still considered as family property and shared only with the family members - for example, the Hakims with their natural remedies and their secret formulae.

Caliph Haroon.ur,Rashid was a big proponent of science, the scientists in his court brought forward the idea that all Quranic miracles could be just the natural occurences (a view consistent with Quran). Religious scholars reacted and from this point forward they formed religious guilds with their own ideas of the natural world; this has plagued the Mulim world till the modern date.

There is an old Indian proverb: All that is not given is lost.

 

[+4vsgorillas-Apebane]

Europe was very far behind and backwards. Then natural selection came in with the black death and half the population was wiped out. As will most populations, the clever and richer people survived and the dumb and poor were wiped out. The survivors then bred with each other for cleverer and stronger children.

Thus the golden age and the renaissance.

The world is slowly drifting back to an Asia led world with China at the forefront. India still have to clean up their mess of a government. The middle east, outside of small pockets of progress like Iran the middle east will never recover their old glory and go the way of the Pharoahs.

 

[nang2]

thanks to political chaos

 

[GameSparta500]

I doubt so. Infact, Newton based off much of his work from Islamic scholars. Such as Al-Haytham who wrote about the laws governing the movement of bodies (later known as Newton’s 3 laws of motion) and the attraction between two bodies – gravity. It was not, in fact, the apple that fell from the tree that told Newton about gravity, but the books of Ibn al-Haytham.

You should read this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/30/religion.world

That is ridiculous, Newton did not rip off Al-Haytham, that is blatant revisionism....Newton's work was much more mathematically rigorous than Al-Haytham

thats like saying Einstein "ripped off" Newton and Maxwell when formulating General Relativity

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

That is ridiculous, Newton did not rip off Al-Haytham, that is blatant revisionism....Newton's work was much more mathematically rigorous than Al-Haytham

thats like saying Einstein "ripped off" Newton and Maxwell when formulating General Relativity

Where did it say "ripped off"

I'm just saying; Newton's work was discovered centuries ago during the Islamic Golden Age and he himself used those theories to build on his own.

 

[MastanKhan]

What are the reasons why modern mathematics and science developed pretty much exclusively in Europe

despite the fact that countries like China, The Arabic World, India were more advanced than Europe for centuries, it seems like that completely shifted during the Rennaisance (which was started by Arabics translating lost greek texts) but then Europe started to dominate math and science

Hi,

It first started with the invasion of the mongols---to save the libraries and books---they were shifted to regions beyond the reach of he mongols---most ended up in europe---.

Secondly---a revolution happened in the madrasahs as well---. Arithmatic and algebra was taken out of the curiculum---thus the progress of the muslims stopped-.

 

[flamer84]

Sheer will to survive and prosper.Cut off from main trade routes by islamic expanse,lead by a besieged mentality from continuous agression ,Europeans became very warlike and hell bent on doing everything to survive,thus came the age of exploration who tried to find alternative trading routes than those passing through the Ottoman empire.Say what you want but it takes guts to do what Pizzaro,Cortes did and take on empires like the Inca,Aztec with a handfull of soldiers (be they equipped with primitive cannons,musquettes,horses),one small step and you end up with your heart torn from your chest on top of a pyramid (like many Spaniards did).After the riches of the New World came to the continent,many other European states wanted a piece of the pie insuring constant warfare but warfare also brings innovation.In a race to outdo thy neighbour,Europe progressed.

 

[Georg]

What are the reasons why modern mathematics and science developed pretty much exclusively in Europe

despite the fact that countries like China, The Arabic World, India were more advanced than Europe for centuries, it seems like that completely shifted during the Rennaisance (which was started by Arabics translating lost greek texts) but then Europe started to dominate math and science

Sorry at what time China India or the arabic world was more advance than Europe?

Greece, Romans, Kelts, Holly Roman Empire, Vikings.... at what time the others were more advance?

The key in euro domination is in my eyes the discovery of book prinitng in the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg.
Book writing by hand is slow and very expansive...

Suddenly they could mass produce books...
- knowlege was avaible for many
- no knowlege was lost anymore
- new research results and ideas could be transported over great distances in all directions quickly

beeing able to store huge amount of knowlege, that was suddenly avaible for many, lead to many new ideas that boosted mechanical mathematic medical astrology construction etc. research... which lead to discovery of steam power...which revoluted the world again by entring the industrial age...which paved the way to the modern world.

Just a little sidenote... 2000years ago the Romans were one step away to discover and manage steam power...they had already discovered the basic knowlege about steam power, the only thing that was missing the idea how to use it effective... just imagine how far the world would be today, if the industrial revelution would happen 2000years earlyer, was chatting with a curator of a roman museum some months ago about this topic... he said if that would have happen we would have been at the Mars already...

 

[xyxmt]

Two reasons

1. Wars specially WWI and WWII
2. Cold Climate

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

1.More competitive environment
2.Discovery of the americas and monopoly on its colonization.
3.Adoption of printing press earliest.
4.First development of capitalism on a ground roots level.Every other eastern empire didn't allow capital accumulation at the base level(by extracting too much tax) to the extent that allowed social mobility(particularly from the 16th and 17th centuries).Economic development is crucial for technological progress,as without demand there is generally no innovation.
5.Eventual successful seperation of state function(by 18th century) from religious dogma/doctrine.
6.Because Newton was born there.There are imo 2 stages in human history - before and after Newton.Without doubt the greatest man of all time in terms of impact of human understanding of the world.

 

[axisofevil]

I doubt so. Infact, Newton based off much of his work from Islamic scholars. Such as Al-Haytham who wrote about the laws governing the movement of bodies (later known as Newton’s 3 laws of motion) and the attraction between two bodies – gravity. It was not, in fact, the apple that fell from the tree that told Newton about gravity, but the books of Ibn al-Haytham.

You should read this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/30/religion.world

Actually its thought that Newton stole some of his famous work from the Kerala School of Mathematics which came up with such ideas 200-300 yrs before him!

The British and other Europeans stole and "vacuumed" up everything through the world. While they were separate nations in Europe, they all worked together in some aspect. They would pool all their new found knowledge together and with the tremendous resources and wealth obtained from colonies at the expense of the ppl over there, would use it to generate and sustain the industrial revolution.

 

[axisofevil]

Sorry at what time China India or the arabic world was more advance than Europe?

Greece, Romans, Kelts, Holly Roman Empire, Vikings.... at what time the others were more advance?

The key in euro domination is in my eyes the discovery of book prinitng in the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg.
Book writing by hand is slow and very expansive...

Suddenly they could mass produce books...
- knowlege was avaible for many
- no knowlege was lost anymore
- new research results and ideas could be transported over great distances in all directions quickly

beeing able to store huge amount of knowlege, that was suddenly avaible for many, lead to many new ideas that boosted mechanical mathematic medical astrology construction etc. research... which lead to discovery of steam power...which revoluted the world again by entring the industrial age...which paved the way to the modern world.

Just a little sidenote... 2000years ago the Romans were one step away to discover and manage steam power...they had already discovered the basic knowlege about steam power, the only thing that was missing the idea how to use it effective... just imagine how far the world would be today, if the industrial revelution would happen 2000years earlyer, was chatting with a curator of a roman museum some months ago about this topic... he said if that would have happen we would have been at the Mars already...

A bunch of what ifs.....India's metallurgical advances were far above anyone else for 2000 yrs! China had invented the printing press long before 15th century. And it looks like the exposure and transmission of such ideas from the East is what the Europeans built upon, after suppressing the natives and their quest of knowledge.


Your historical books and facts are doctored and full of distortion to some degree. Just look at Marconi and his discovery of the telegram. Your books fail to mention Bose and how his discovery in fact is what enabled Marconi!

Nearly 100 years after Guglielmo Marconi's first transatlantic wireless communication, a group of scientists of the US-based Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) reported that -"the origin and first major use of the solid state diode detector devices led to the discovery that the first transatlantic wireless signal in Marconi's world famous experiment was received by Marconi using the iron-mercury-iron coherer with a telephone detector invented by Sir J.C.Bose in 1898".

Don't forget the mainstream racism at the time, such discoveries by non Europeans where subject to strenuous and rigorous testing and whereas European Scientists had it easier.

 

[Deidara]

Outside the Euro-gene sphere only one nation has become completely Europeanized and that is of course Japan. Science comes naturally to a European mind. Hence the question is what it mean exactly to become European? What did the Japanese gain that they didnt have before ? I cant tell. But if anyone wants to take the trouble the answer lies in the case study of Japan.
Just to put this post in perspective i would like to share the fact that post-WW2 17 science nobel prizes have gone to Japanese scientists. That makes Japan a member of the second league of nations in the science nobel prize count. (The first league being made up of USA, UK and Germany) The telling thing is the third league also contains only Europeanized nations. We can say in nobel prizes Japan stands smack in the middle of the European line.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Simple: Big Science Budget and Education Budget

 

[fitpOsitive]

What are the reasons why modern mathematics and science developed pretty much exclusively in Europe

despite the fact that countries like China, The Arabic World, India were more advanced than Europe for centuries, it seems like that completely shifted during the Rennaisance (which was started by Arabics translating lost greek texts) but then Europe started to dominate math and science

European went through the same process as we are now passing. They came to get education to Arab world and India for centuries. London in 12th centuries was same as any slum in Mumbai or Karachi today.
But Mathematicians and Physicists were working from both the sides through out the history. Its a big curse that Europeans don't admit the share by others. Even other people from other parts of the world were working in their own way(specially China , Russia, Eastern Europe and North African areas by then).
I think the biggest invention of human history is Banking system+paper currency (inflation based economies) rather than wheel. People were buying commodities for nothing(paper notes). This created a fortune that gave everybody a chance of having many many clothes, own cars, buy land for papers and what not.
Industry touched the moon and research accelerated at an unprecedented pace.
The biggest achievement of Europe is not to develop to an unprecedented point, but rather keeping the control of this banking system, attracting and keeping the best talent from around the world, and overall sensitive technology control. By the way yesterday it was manufacturing silk cloth was sensitive technology, today is atomic technology and tomorrow some other technology will be sensitive technologies.
Any nation running on same lines will attain the same status tomorrow.