Why did Modern Science develop in Europe?

This question has always been on my mind:

Why did modern science and mathematics essentially develop in Europe...

Despite the fact that the Arabic World, China, and possibly India were MORE advanced than Europe for centuries in scientific and mathematical thought, heck it was the Arabs that re-introduced Greek and Roman texts to the Europeans that sparked the Renaissance but it seems at that moment Europe started to take over in terms of science while Arabic science and other civilizations started to decline...

I think many would see Galileo as being the first truly modern scientist (Copernicus and Kepler were great but they had ideas that many Arab scientists still had)

It wasn't really until Galileo and then Newton, where Europe started to completely out-distance the whole world in science...and then the gap just got wider in the 17th,18th,19th centuries

It wasn't just - or even mostly - the arabs. (btw, the arabs had a self-devastating anti-science thing going since the 11th century). Do you think it was a coincidence the renaissance starts at the same time with mass migration of byzantines to Italy?

Re why science/math in Europe: Greece #π

One thing to bear in mind is the relationship between ideas and implementation, and therefore between having the brains to come up with ideas and the money, technology and industrial power to take advantage of those ideas. I mean, Hero of (edit: Alexandria, thank you) had invented a device which rotated using steam power at the turn of the 1st millennium, and a wind-powered organ - had you shown him a design for a locomotive or a windmill, he would have absolutely understood what they were. The problem was that nobody could manufacture a boiler large enough and strong enough to be used to generate that much power, or lay down track and the related infrastructure which actually makes locomotives useful.

Edited to remove the confusion of the two Heroes.

Hero of Alexandria, iirc.

Indeed - I was out by two centuries and a couple of thousand miles!

Btw, (edit) (and then second edit due to serious error ) the original form of the name is Heron.

As Kyriakos may recall from other threads. I put these things down more to metalsmiths, masons, and monks than philosophers or theorists.

But I don't think it comes down to Byzantines or Arabs influencing Europe...after all, Byzantines and Arabs influenced other parts of the world too. And I don't think Italy's Renaissance is all that important either. If you look, the same advancing trends were happening elsewhere in the world, just more slowly. So what we have to find are catalysts, not causes per se: what made it happen so fast in Europe? Population size, political fragmentation and competition, the Church and its educational system (including universities), the growing power of capitalism... Europe undergoes a revolution c. 1000 that creates and intensifies all of these.

Erro said:

Why did modern science and mathematics essentially develop in Europe...

Despite the fact that the Arabic World, China, and possibly India were MORE advanced than Europe for centuries in scientific and mathematical thought, heck it was the Arabs that re-introduced Greek and Roman texts to the Europeans that sparked the Renaissance but it seems at that moment Europe started to take over in terms of science while Arabic science and other civilizations started to decline...

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It was a matter of institutions. Political (and therefore social and economic) institutions and relations. Europe was more politically fragmented (and many a scientist had to flee from one or more states and rulers, and seek shelter with others), but was culturally and commercially integrated. Material stability was attainable to scientists, without demanding from them a "catholic" (universal, single) thought/alignment as a condition. It was perhaps no accident that those countries that for longer were subject to the plagues of the Inquisition and teaching controlled by a single church fell behind on scientific inquiries after the 17th century (counter-reformation). There were attacks against scientists in other nations (see Pristely's case, for example) Priestely's case, for example) but these were not carried out by the state. So they were always localized, temporary, and not too damaging to their freedom. England and even France benefited immensely from a more relaxed state policy that enabled and encouraged scientists to freely experiment. Even the italian states, divided as they were during the Renaissance, and later northern Italy (but not the south!) enabled them the same liberty.

In my opinion the Italian Renaissance is much more a product of the commercial strength, wealth, and personal liberties resulting from political fragmentation of the italian states of the era, than from any Byzantine effect. The fall of byzantium and emigration of some greeks may have changed the course of that movement somewhat, influenced the interests of the Italians, but in no way did it cause the Renaissance.

Funny that people now "wonder" why the EU is stagnant... hint: political unification

Europe's biggest asset was always its political fragmentation. Now wasted by a generation of fools.

Re Galielo, this is the modern classic on his times and the conditions for him reinventing himself as the at-the-time neologism of a "mathematical philosopher".
https://books.google.se/books/about/Galileo_Courtier.html?id=c3ljJpB2NM0C&redir_esc=y

There's a reason historians of science display this recurrent kind of motion to return to the 17th c. It's when something resembling what science still looks like seriously cropped up. It's why the generation of 1950's historians of science came up with the moniker of "the scientific revolution" for the period.

innonimatu said:

It was a matter of institutions. Political (and therefore social and economic) institutions and relations. Europe was more politically fragmented (and many a scientist had to flee from one or more states and rulers, and seek shelter with others), but was culturally and commercially integrated. Material stability was attainable to scientists, without demanding from them a "catholic" (universal, single) thought/alignment as a condition. It was perhaps no accident that those countries that for longer were subject to the plagues of the Inquisition and teaching controlled by a single church fell behind on scientific inquiries after the 17th century (counter-reformation). There were attacks against scientists in other nations (see Pristely's case, for example) Priestely's case, for example) but these were not carried out by the state. So they were always localized, temporary, and not too damaging to their freedom. England and even France benefited immensely from a more relaxed state policy that enabled and encouraged scientists to freely experiment. Even the italian states, divided as they were during the Renaissance, and later northern Italy (but not the south!) enabled them the same liberty.

In my opinion the Italian Renaissance is much more a product of the commercial strength, wealth, and personal liberties resulting from political fragmentation of the italian states of the era, than from any Byzantine effect. The fall of byzantium and emigration of some greeks may have changed the course of that movement somewhat, influenced the interests of the Italians, but in no way did it cause the Renaissance.

Funny that people now "wonder" why the EU is stagnant... hint: political unification

Europe's biggest asset was always its political fragmentation. Now wasted by a generation of fools.

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This is a decent explanation and makes for a good story but it's really hard to demonstrate a causative connection between political fragmentation and scientific advancement, especially at a time when directed state intervention in research was negligible and the resources of the state were not necessarily great. Some authors have emphasized the cultural integration aspect to a much greater degree than the political fragmentation, because it's easier to demonstrate that it was relevant to research, but the cultural aspect is useless in a comparative sense because it obviously doesn't differentiate much between Europe and, say, China.

innonimatu said:

Europe's biggest asset was always its political fragmentation. Now wasted by a generation of fools.

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Nah, this is all just a prelude for the Golden Age of Balkans.

Dachs said:

This is a decent explanation and makes for a good story but it's really hard to demonstrate a causative connection between political fragmentation and scientific advancement, especially at a time when directed state intervention in research was negligible and the resources of the state were not necessarily great.

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Patronage? European courts are places where you can gain patronage, obtain money, etc, and there are lots of them. France, Sweden, Castille, Italian states, Russia, England, etc, episcopal and noble courts, etc, etc. There is an important archaeological theory that wasn't designed for this, but arguably covers it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-Polity_Interaction

That doesn't need political fragmentation, though, or at least not necessarily. The town halls of English cities, nearly all built during the Industrial Revolution, are a fantastic example of that going on - there is competition between civic elites in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool (for example) to show off to each other, and that competition creates a broadly uniform way of doing that showing off. Peer-Polity Interaction is useful in archaeology to counter the common assumption that groupings of similar-looking material remains reflect political groups, because it gives a mechanism by which that similarity can come about despite political disunity. However, I don't think that it needs that disunity in order to work.

I'm not sure that this is the explanation in itself, but if you are answering the age old 'why Europe' question then you need to find catalysts, not causes per se. It's surely the case that Europe had many more sources of useful patronage here than other parts of the world, and it's quite reasonable on that model to suggest that this made economic and technological change go faster.

If you are suggesting some root cause grand theory, then that would probably be different.

I forget where but I read somewhere that it had to do with the Europeans having to sail the oceans to trade with Asia.
Ocean sailing presented technical challenges that helped spur the development of some scientific fields.

No idea if this is true or not, just presenting it here to be picked apart by the more knowledgeable.

The Chinese were themselves based in Asia (as were many others) and they also had ships that could, almost certainly, cross oceans. But how many courts did ambitious merchants have to beg at? Castile was, famously, the fifth court that Columbus tried.

Pangur Bán;14404374 said:

Patronage? European courts are places where you can gain patronage, obtain money, etc, and there are lots of them. France, Sweden, Castille, Italian states, Russia, England, etc, episcopal and noble courts, etc, etc. There is an important archaeological theory that wasn't designed for this, but arguably covers it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-Polity_Interaction

Click to expand...

Yeah, patronage existed, and there may have been more sources for it in Europe than elsewhere, but I feel like it falls under the 'negligible' category in terms of actual impact on the resources available to scientific inquiry before, say, the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately it's kind of impossible to quantify. It would be surprising to me if relatively tiny investments over a long period of time disbursed more or less at random by a bunch of individuals were the key to European scientific advancement.

Fragmentation was a part, but who knows if it was the most crucial. Obviously when many different states compete for few resources, they will fund more expeditions/colonisation (eg greek cities). Then again this isn't the end-all. I think the main push for science/advancement is actually having a viable degree of freedom, and also some ensured income/stability.
There isn't any set condition, obviously. The 3rd-2nd centuries BC saw arguably the most impressive greek mathematicians, yet it was a period of near-endless war between massive greek empires. The athenian golden age also had loads of wars, although their actual city was safe due to naval superiority+ the long walls.

I don't think that political fragmentation was useful so much for patronage/support as for freedom/protection.

People are naturally curious. Given freedom and resources, a large portion seeks to understand phenomenons, and to be more effective at their work or at their hobbies. Research not is often very complex and costly, but in past centuries it was easier: the low-hanging fruit had not yet been picked, specialization had not evolved to requiring large teams to develop better technology. And while professional associations sought to enforce monopolies on knowledge, those monopolies could not cross political borders (now they can - unfortunately).

Patronage was important in providing resources. But my feeling is that protection from persecution was more important. In a big empire if the emperor decreed that no more ships were to be build, you would not build them - or you'd end up executed in some gruesome manner. In medieval Europe of a ruler did not want ships build, or did not want to finance your proposed expedition, you'd try the ruler of the nest country, and the next... There could be no Columbus in China once the ruling dynasty had decided to turn inwards and until it was overthrown (a once in a few centuries event). It was inevitable that there would be a Columbus in Europe. And a Da Vinci, a Galileo, etc. Even those that were arrested wouldn't just be executed (usually) because of the outcry and bad publicity that might cause. An emperor could ignore that, a ruler of a polity in competition with many others would have to weight the consequences: craftsmen and artists would avid it for others, political enemies would explore it...

It's complex, sure. But my feeling is that overall there was an important "freedom effect" from political fragmentation.

@Yeekim: As for the Balkans possibly becoming prosperous... who knows, stranger things have happened if they could dump patents, copyright and all that crap... but we know that as the world stands now some big nations would intervene against weak countries that dared do so.

For one thing, Europeans kept libraries of information, and one did not have to re-think everything. The greatest breakthrough came during the French Revolution. That is when science grew up from absolutes to "it was ok to fail". The need for exploration and expanding technology would not have been enough to push a science just base on absolutes. I am not referring to "the laws" of science, but the way that science was approached. It was not even outside influences, but how scientist themselves viewed the discipline.