The Rise and Fall of Western Science

We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Before you start reading, take a moment and look around you. There’s a good chance that everything you see is human creations—sophisticated products of human ingenuity and intelligence backed by hundreds of years of accumulated understanding of how and why nature works. The prosperity of our civilization is based on the following virtuous circle:

1. Find out how and why nature works,
2. based on this understanding, develop technologies and innovations,
3. manufacture them…
4. …and sell them.

And if you sell these technologies and innovations – for example, microscopes or spectrometers – to researchers, they can even better investigate how and why nature works, and the virtuous circle rises to the dizzying heights of the immense wealth of our civilization.

However, the virtuous circle needs some important institutions to work properly: Science cannot thrive without freedom of speech and thought, the development of technology, and innovation requires a certain degree of capital accumulation, manufacturing requires stable and predictable property rights, and sales are best organized in a free market. But without Science, the virtuous circle breaks. Thus, we need to understand where and why this wonderful human activity started and where it is heading.

The Technological Sprint of the Late 19th Century

Before the Reformation, one monolithic religious Truth reigned in Europe and there was no room for other opinions. However, the Reformation split this truth into two – mutually exclusive ones. In the gap between the two religious truths, scientific truth began to sprout. Almost immediately, the virtuous circle described above kicked in, and miraculous technologies began to emerge.

For example, in 1742, Benjamin Robins noticed that by combining Newton’s law of motion and the equation of state of gases (discovered a few years earlier by Robert Boyle), the muzzle velocity of an artillery projectile could be calculated. This discovery made artillery much more precise. Frederick the Great of Prussia noticed the discovery and asked Leonhard Euler to translate and supplement Robins’ work. On this basis, Frederick completely rebuilt his army – he introduced fast and accurate horse-drawn artillery, which was an almost unbeatable force in Europe at the time. Napoleon later only copied and perfected this model. […]

— Read More: brownstone.org