And be sure that the scientific method is an invention as much as anything else, as much as any steam engine or chemical process. It wasn't done centuries ago, it had to be developed and invented.
See also: Georgia Guidestones
The scientific revolution was different from the science that had been achieved in the Oriental world in a number of crucial ways, the most important being that through the experimental method, it gave men control over nature in a way that had not been possible before. Example, Benjamin Robin’s extraordinary application of Newtonian physics to ballistics. Once you do that, your artillery becomes accurate.
This man wanted to know where his cannonballs would land.
1 Rebuttal (via) (He does go on to say that developing nations adopting capitalism and “private property rights” “achieve what the West achieved after 1500, only faster”—it’s not really clear whether or not this is taken as laudatory or a warning.
Also, his account of “the average American” and “the average Chinese” involves a lot of hand-waving.)
(I think it’s also quite possible the Europeans were just a lot more bloody-minded and thusly got there first.)
