Iliamna1

The Scientific Method has been used over many eons, but was formalized as an actual step-by-step process only in the last few centuries that I know of.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

That is probably true... And it certainly has paid off... Wish more of the pseudo shrinks could learn it.... Psychology has become a real cult of the PC crew..

son of witless

Yes but, , , , , why in the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s did Western Europe suddenly leap over all of the Mediterranean based nations ? Why did geniuses such as Newton, Descates, Pascal, Napier appear when they did ? Up until that time the Arabs and Italians pushed the boundaries of Mathematics and Science. As I said earlier up until the late 1600s the Turks had the most powerful and advanced military on Earth.

I believe wealth and power shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic because of the shift brought about first by Portugal's circumnavigating Continental Africa, and opening up a new trade route to Asia and the spice trade, and then the discovery of the Americas.

Mathematicians and Scientists are expensive pets to maintain and grow. As wealth shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean facing nations , so did science.

So say I. Spain and Portugal are the two nations that belong to both Worlds. They are Mediterranean and Atlantic. They were also the first of the nations the benefited from the great wealth of the Americas. In the 1500s they arguably were the richest nations on Earth. However they soon lost out to the Northern European nations of France and England.

Iliamna1

Everything you say is true, but learning has EXPONENTIALLY increased with the advent of the formalized Scientific Method and its affect on Western thinking.

son of witless

Why did this appear? Why not in Middle Eastern Culture ?

Iliamna1

There is a nice summation of the history of the Scientific Method in Wikipedia, under 'Scientific Method'.
Just look it up. I don't know 'why' it didn't rise in the Middle East, but that system of thought was developed in Europe and the Americas and has worked well for us in the advancement of our technologies and is now utilized all over the world..

son of witless

America inherited the scientific, mathematical, military, and economic supremacy of Western Europe over the Mediterranean nations, and we advanced it. I am interested in why a region loses that supremacy and another region gains it. Within the middle east and the Mediterranean areas powers came and went for thousands of years, but somebody in the area always had it or regained it. Most of that area was warm. India and China at times were more advanced than the Middle Eastern nations, but they were for the most part isolated from the Mediterranean.

Beginning in the late Renaissance period the Northern and Western Europeans finally reached parity with the Middle East and from about 1600 on they began to surpass them. America is a continuation of Western European Cultural and Economic dominance. When you include Russia's emergence under Peter the Great, as a player in the battles against the Turks, it is not just Western, but Northern Europeans taking leadership from the Southern Warm Climate nations. It isn't even about Christianity verses Islam. The Christian Italian city states of the 14th through the 16th centuries shared in the economic and scientific dominance of the Mediterraneans, and lost it a few centuries later, like the rest of their neighbors.

In modern times, Europe after two World Wars and the stupid EU has lost it's Economic and Military status. It may argue it still has some scientific and cultural prowess. The US is the continuation of Western European dominance. When we fall, probably Asia will assume economic, military, and scientific leadership. South Korea, Japan, and of course China will pick up the baton.