<story><title>Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)</title><url>http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thisiscorrect</author><text>Is this claiming that ethnic diversity within a country&amp;#x27;s borders causes strife, and in turn hinders scientific development?</text></item><item><author>rsynnott</author><text>&amp;gt; Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east?&lt;p&gt;There are lots of theories, of course, but one I find interesting is that East Asia, in addition to never being colonized to the same extent as most places, emerged with national boundaries largely intact. The Middle East was under foreign control for, well, basically forever (Romans -&amp;gt; Ottomans -&amp;gt; mandates) and ended up with some pretty weird national boundaries. This encouraged a lot of strife.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s also the oil theory; countries with huge natural resources seem to often struggle to develop normally.</text></item><item><author>pjc50</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;We will turn to this question later, but it is important to keep in mind that the decline of scientific activity is the rule, not the exception, of civilizations. While it is commonplace to assume that the scientific revolution and the progress of technology were inevitable, in fact the West is the single sustained success story out of many civilizations with periods of scientific flourishing. Like the Muslims, the ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations, both of which were at one time far more advanced than the West, did not produce the scientific revolution.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;.. so far, so good. There&amp;#x27;s always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution. This paragraph is a useful reminder that historical &amp;quot;progress&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t linear or monotonic.&lt;p&gt;This article is very good on the background in the era of the Caliphate and early scientific progress in medieval Europe. Where it falls down is the past century. We can draw  comparison with the Meiji restoration; Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east?&lt;p&gt;Anyway, excellent longread.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dx87</author><text>Not ethnic diversity, but lack of a shared identity. Outside of the major cities, the people living in the middle eastern countries were more loyal to their tribe and village than whatever power happened to currently be in charge of the country. That&amp;#x27;s also why it seems like so much religious extremism comes out of the middle east; a shared religion is one of the only things in common among the people living there, so any calls to action normally use religion as common ground to bring people together.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)</title><url>http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thisiscorrect</author><text>Is this claiming that ethnic diversity within a country&amp;#x27;s borders causes strife, and in turn hinders scientific development?</text></item><item><author>rsynnott</author><text>&amp;gt; Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east?&lt;p&gt;There are lots of theories, of course, but one I find interesting is that East Asia, in addition to never being colonized to the same extent as most places, emerged with national boundaries largely intact. The Middle East was under foreign control for, well, basically forever (Romans -&amp;gt; Ottomans -&amp;gt; mandates) and ended up with some pretty weird national boundaries. This encouraged a lot of strife.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s also the oil theory; countries with huge natural resources seem to often struggle to develop normally.</text></item><item><author>pjc50</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;We will turn to this question later, but it is important to keep in mind that the decline of scientific activity is the rule, not the exception, of civilizations. While it is commonplace to assume that the scientific revolution and the progress of technology were inevitable, in fact the West is the single sustained success story out of many civilizations with periods of scientific flourishing. Like the Muslims, the ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations, both of which were at one time far more advanced than the West, did not produce the scientific revolution.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;.. so far, so good. There&amp;#x27;s always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution. This paragraph is a useful reminder that historical &amp;quot;progress&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t linear or monotonic.&lt;p&gt;This article is very good on the background in the era of the Caliphate and early scientific progress in medieval Europe. Where it falls down is the past century. We can draw  comparison with the Meiji restoration; Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east?&lt;p&gt;Anyway, excellent longread.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcguire</author><text>A hypothesis: not diversity, but division. Consider the Kurds; their traditional territory is in about 5 modern countries, and they don&amp;#x27;t particularly get along with any of their governments.&lt;p&gt;That isn&amp;#x27;t directly related to &amp;quot;scientific development&amp;quot;, but that, like most things, relies on economic and political stability.</text></comment>