Hi Freddie, you must have the day off? Did you see the doublepluscool websites I found yesterday?
argos.evansville.edu
fordham.edu
I think I figured out the reason the Dark Ages were so Dark. The simple explanation is "No Greeks." At least, not where the Dark Ages were happening. I have a hypothetical explanation that is more complex and potentially more satisfying, which is, "You can't tell anyone anything if they already think they know everything." Which is why science did better under the Protestants, and as you know I am Catholic and it pains me to say it, but I think that it must have been quite a disencentive to research when you risked being burnt at the stake for saying something the Catholics didn't want to hear because they already thought they knew everything important.
I don't know if you are aware of the great influence the Islamic world had on Western civilization, via their universities in Spain and North Africa, but it is starting to look to me like that was because they were receptive to, and in large part passing on, learning that was Greek, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian and so on. As were the Romans, to a lesser degree, in their time.
Now I'd like to know why these guys didn't go to Northern Europe until around 1100.
Oh, yeah, and interestingly enough the Islamic world quit being a great place for science about the time that the Ottoman empire finally conquered Constantinople (1453) and all the Byzantine scholars went west, which is also, curiously, about the same time as the great boom in Western science. |
