The Rise of the West
Okay, I have a link now, so I better start writing.
I started this blog when I became seriously dissatisfied with the search function on Slate’s bulletin boards (the Fray), hoping to take advantage of Google indexing to keep track of what I have said. So here is an idea I came up with over the summer that I have yet to commit to, um, page?
The reason the West advanced so much more quickly than the East in terms of science is due to glass technology.
Over the summer I had become curious as to what the West sent back up the Silk Road to China in exchange for silk. When I found out it was glass, I almost immediately saw the connection. What of import is made out of glass? Lenses, specifically the lenses that allowed Galileo to observe that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and the lenses that revealed microorganisms caused illness, not spirits. This explains the persistence of Eastern Mysticism (acupuncture anyone?).
I started this blog when I became seriously dissatisfied with the search function on Slate’s bulletin boards (the Fray), hoping to take advantage of Google indexing to keep track of what I have said. So here is an idea I came up with over the summer that I have yet to commit to, um, page?
The reason the West advanced so much more quickly than the East in terms of science is due to glass technology.
Over the summer I had become curious as to what the West sent back up the Silk Road to China in exchange for silk. When I found out it was glass, I almost immediately saw the connection. What of import is made out of glass? Lenses, specifically the lenses that allowed Galileo to observe that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and the lenses that revealed microorganisms caused illness, not spirits. This explains the persistence of Eastern Mysticism (acupuncture anyone?).
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