Europeans have had a phenomenal run for the past few centuries.
Other civilisations may have been leading before them, but scientific research was not a strong suit of any civilisation before them.
Ancient Europeans, Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, Arabs, everyone sucked at scientific exploration.
The modern scientific aptitude is fairly recent. We have now developed reliable methods to test our hypotheses /ideas. In older times, most inventions were based on 'chance ' and pure luck. Modern Europeans have put into place the infrastructure, financial backing and a reward system for their scientific community, industry, etc.
In non European countries, science (and indeed education) , is still not granted the prime role it should have. These countries (say India ) spend money and resources mainly on culture preservation, basic infrastructure, survival, etc. People in leadership positions in Indian universities tend to be extremely low on the scale of intelligence, skill, real achievements and honesty towards their profession.
(P. S. - we have done reasonably well in space research.)
There are some non European countries that are beginning to rise in the scientific arena, now. China being a prominent one.
Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Turkey are doing well, too.
Europeans have had a phenomenal run for the past few centuries.
Other civilisations may have been leading before them, but scientific research was not a strong suit of any civilisation before them.
Ancient Europeans, Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, Arabs, everyone sucked at scientific exploration.
The modern scientific aptitude is fairly recent. We have now developed reliable methods to test our hypotheses /ideas. In older times, most inventions were based on 'chance ' and pure luck. Modern Europeans have put into place the infrastructure, financial backing and a reward system for their scientific community, industry, etc.
In non European countries, science (and indeed education) , is still not granted the prime role it should have. These countries (say India ) spend money and resources mainly on culture preservation, basic infrastructure, survival, etc. People in leadership positions in Indian universities tend to be extremely low on the scale of intelligence, skill, real achievements and honesty towards their profession.
(P. S. - we have done reasonably well in space research.)
There are some non European countries that are beginning to rise in the scientific arena, now. China being a prominent one.
Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Turkey are doing well, too.
The Israel ,Turkey are nowhere near the league of Japan and and south korea. Taiwan is just like another city of china.
Explain Newton and Leibniz then...Whites gained the edge from 1589 AD to 1750 AD....and then just jumped on rest of the world...colonizing Americas was not that big of a think once they had caravek ships that cross oceans and sail against the wind...the only other race that achieved that were Polynesians
Colonizing the Americas,Australia,africa was no big deal for the chinese which had the largest maritime fleet and technology centuries before the European nation.
While both China and Europe remained steeped in societal turmoil, China went on to make three well-known important discoveries: woodblock print and paper, the magnetic compass and gunpowder—all of which facilitated Western Europe’s transformation from the "Medieval period" to the "modern world" as noted by Francis Bacon in 1620:
"These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries".
As these scientific and technological innovations were incorporated into European society, Europeans began to attain hegemony over a vast expanse of the world.
After that,in Europe, the old social and intellectual orders were being transformed.
The new world of the sixteenth century saw a surge of economic energy, the rapid expansion of trade, and the acceleration toward the rise of capitalism. Strict allegiance to the Vatican and its canons were challenged, and the social upheaval that had begun to brew, at least in Germany.As a result of the Reformation’s emphasis on one’s ability to access truth individually without the interference of religious authorities, at least in Protestant countries, the Scientific Revolution began in europe.
Europe experience two such phase of stimulus for scientific growth .
In both eastern and western civilization a brief phase of reformation occurs based on socio-economic-cultural factored stimuli which spur innovation and science ,china experience such a phase before the reformation movement,and renaissance phase of Europe.Such a phase occurred in china in the 6th BCE when Daoism was at its zenith. Daoism was associated with early science because it attempts to understand nature from an intuitive and observational perspective and was especially innovative in chemistry and astronomy.
It was a very different era, Eastern society in general was taught to respect nature, to leave it alone and to accept its consequences.
Europe just found itself in the middle of such a phase by 17th century .Europe’s step toward modernization aided by the pursuit of economic gain, which led to the rise of modern capitalism.In ancient China , “wealth held no prestige, affluence, or “spiritual power.” “It could give comfort, but not wisdom” and “the one idea of every merchant’s son was to become a scholar, to enter the imperial examination and to rise high in the bureaucracy,” not to accumulate more wealth.
The West attached monetary gain to science.
We will never know how East would have developed modern science when the right intellectual and economic conditions combined and a mercantile system fully realized. The western intervention prevented that phase,so we will never know how much.
Science could have developed just differently in east ,for china didn't initially interpret science in the same modulus as west, where,West's interpretation of Pythagoras theorm was a2 +b2=c2,meanwhile Eastern scholars interpreted it as
Same thing but different methodology,so you shouldn't really ask me to explain the discoveries of Newton & Leibniz.
But one must also acknowledge that by mid 19th century, there were lots of scientific innovations that occurred in EAST.
The west also stagnated the development of science and technology significantly in their attempt to monopolize the most advanced technology and prevent indigenous development in many parts of the world where it would've treated the Western establishment's profit margin.
We wouldn't know if the West hadn't hijacked the world order ,how science and technology would have eventually developed. The east are surely more interested in the wellbeing of entire mankind and science would have been
possibly more collaborative and less monopolized;which seriously hinders scientific development now.
And currently East asia dominates in scientific research and science output among all continents,even in the west dominated world order.
Only US leads from china,and there is Japan,korea,and small nations like Singapore is also chipping in.
So,who knows? When one presumes white men is responsible for the advancement of science and development based on 2 centuries, when in the long run,it might have been the white race that has actually set back the human civilization by tens of thousands of years ,not just decades or centuries,through their insatiable greed, belligerence & ignorance?
Human civilization wouldn't have stayed in the feudal system, human civilization is not about a century but millions of years are still ahead,and the world order and policies that the white race has championed might have set the world on peril.
By now,White race has been the biggest threat to humanity on earth.
Claiming the world would have been stuck in 17th century without white race only shows delusion and overestimation of white race.
Edit:
Oh and regarding Leibniz, his approach to writing in binary code made direct references to the hexagrams and cosmological ideas found in the 9th-century manual, the
I Ching.
Leibniz’s researched Eastern philosophy extended to earlier periods of thought, and he wrote extensively about the 9th-century divination manual, the I Ching. The manual, attributed to Fu Xi, was first assembled during China’s Western Zhou period .
