Why Did Modern Science Emerge in Europe? An Essay in Intellectual History

Abstract

Joseph Needham, renowned sinologist, is famous for a question he once posed, now bearing his name: Why didn’t modern science develop in Asia, above all China, but possibly India or Islamic culture? Needham never found an answer that satisfied him. Neither, if a single solution be wanted, has any of the many other attempts to address the issue. In fact, it may be the wrong question to ask. Astounded by the achievements he saw in Chinese history, Needham wanted to know what prevented the birth of early modern science in Asia, and his question has directed similar efforts to discover what factor(s) were missing or weak in other great cultures. A problem with this approach is that it traps us into making comparisons that never end and that, at some level, aim at finding the essences of true science. I want to suggest something different. It begins with the premise that these cultures did not fail in some fundamental way, but that Europe succeeded more. It succeeded more, and in a greater number of domains, scientific and technological, because it gained access to more in the way