Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011)
The reason for this is that historically most civilizations, or phases of civilizations have lacked two things. One is the strong, persistent social institutions needed to maintain the momentum of scientific progress. The other is a solid socialised understanding of scientific methods. To maintain consistent scientific and engineering development you need both, and possibly a third in the from of the printing press, otherwise advances are at the whim of individual people, their influence and attitude to methods.<p>Solid rational investigative techniques go back a very long way. Even the Romans had a good understanding of how to prove a theory. Galen&#x27;s work on the renal system for example involving public demonstrations on live pigs. The Antikethyra mechanism shows how advanced engineering could be in the Greek world at the time. The problem was there was no institutionalisation and formalisation of these methods to enable their systematic and sustained application, so they melted away when the thinkers and artisans, or small groups of them that made these advances died or disbanded. In the Arab world yes there were universities and medical schools, but these were the personal projects of particular rulers and their favourites that lasted a while and then melted away.<p>There was nothing wrong with the Arab world, or ancient China, or India. It&#x27;s just that the several necessary ingredients for sustained progress in science happened to come together in Europe first.