[ExI] Eurocentric Bias in Human Achievement

[Lee Corbin]

John Grigg writes

> What were the major factors that caused such a large share of human
> achievement to originate from the Western/European world?

There are many reasons, as you allude to below. 

> I have read such things as multiple national rivalries & wars that
> inspired competition and technological innovation,

right

> geographic and cultural diversity that made it hard for super empires to
> monopolize everything as seen so often in China (and thereby
> limit competition),

right  (i.e., I agree: I've encountered the same explanations in my readings)

> many river systems and rich farmlands, a wide variety of pack
> animals and crop plants,

Oh?  Is east Asian really more limited these ways? Or is it
that the geographic and animal diversity between China and
India required surmounting a much more daunting physical
barrier than in the West?

> and a Christian worldview that involved seeing history/time as moving
> forward instead of simply moving in endless cycles of life and death,
> were at least some of the key advantages of the West.

Yes.  Murray gives some credit to "St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274)
[who] make the case, eventually adopted by the church, that human
intelligence is a gift from God, and that to apply human intelligence to
understanding the world is not an affront to God but is pleasing to
him.

Well, that helps explain the difference between Arabic and Western,
but not between East and West.

For another take, that I don't agree with, see the Amazon reviews
of "The Great Divergence".

And we have Diamond's cogent explanations in "Germs, Guns, and
Steel", although his attempted explanations of why the Western
Hemisphere lagged the Eastern are completely flawed. As I've 
mentioned on this list before, I made a graph of Eastern Hemisphere
vs. Western Hemisphere early accomplishment in
http://www.leecorbin.com/EastVsWestCiv3.html
wherein I show that the Olmec, Aztec, Inca, and Mayan rate
of advancement was at *least* as high.  It's just as though they
got a late start!

Lee