> Japan went from insular agrarianism to a world power to collapse to continued scientific development through to the 21st century. As did much of the Far East. Why not the Middle east?

There are lots of theories, of course, but one I find interesting is that East Asia, in addition to never being colonized to the same extent as most places, emerged with national boundaries largely intact. The Middle East was under foreign control for, well, basically forever (Romans -> Ottomans -> mandates) and ended up with some pretty weird national boundaries. This encouraged a lot of strife.

There's also the oil theory; countries with huge natural resources seem to often struggle to develop normally.

> (Romans -> Ottomans -> mandates)

Hittites -> Assyrians -> Babylonians -> Macedonia (aka Alexander the Great) -> Egyptian -> Romans -> Byzantine -> Mongols -> Ottomans

That area has been locked in war and conquest for pretty much all of human history.

Shouldn’t Persian (Achaemenid) follow the Babylonians and precede the Macedonian empire?

In 334 B.C, he utterly beat the armies of Persia – Steve Harris

I'm working off of my High School history class from 16 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if I forgot something (or got something out of order).

I did play some Age of Empires, Civilization, and a few other history games that helped solidify my memory though.

And the Neo-Assyrians. It's easy to lose track, but they get credit for arcade-supported aqueducts, while Romulus and Remus were still in diapers, to water the Hanging Gardens of ... Nineveh.

But they were known at the time mostly for impaling their enemies.

Well, it is in the "middle."

> countries with huge natural resources

Can confirm. That's why Russia is sliding down scientifically. People gravitate to where money and prestige is, and when you have money squirting from the ground, that demands (and receives) disproportionate attention. Another side effect of this is that it suffocates technology and innovation by both depriving it of investment, and by shaping the tax structure that excludes the possibility of survival for most non natural resource businesses unless they cheat on their taxes. It's a complex problem without a clear solution. Only Norway has been able to manage it well so far.

Norway and United States?

Not corrupt enough to turn resource extraction into a source of wealth for the ruling regime. Unlike Russia.

Is this claiming that ethnic diversity within a country's borders causes strife, and in turn hinders scientific development?

Not ethnic diversity, but lack of a shared identity. Outside of the major cities, the people living in the middle eastern countries were more loyal to their tribe and village than whatever power happened to currently be in charge of the country. That's also why it seems like so much religious extremism comes out of the middle east; a shared religion is one of the only things in common among the people living there, so any calls to action normally use religion as common ground to bring people together.

This is saying people are loyal to their tribes, and view the government's interests as unaligned with those of their tribe, presumably giving rise to a lack of common cause in something that a government might foster like scientific development. But if "tribe" were synonymous with "ethnic group" then you'd actually be saying that multiple ethnic groups sharing a government are a cause (not necessarily the only one) of scientific stagnation. But it sounds like you're not. So what defines these tribes if not ethnic group?

I think implicit in your argument is a belief that utility ("interests") trumps identity ("who we are") in loyalty dynamics. I think that belief is.. not universal..

I believe the OP was suggesting that externally-imposed boundaries can hold areas in an unstable state for long periods of time, but when they are gone there is unrest that takes time to achieve a stable society and that scientific progress is best achieved when people arent worried aobut their food/safety/corrupt warlord.

I think it may be more useful to think of "tribe" or "clan" as a political organizations that form the base of decentralized governments than ethnic groups, since many tribes can exist within any given ethnic group, and many ethnic groups can exist within geographic areas governed by decentralized bodies.

So, 'tribe' here doesn't necessarily mean an ethnic group. Depending on scenario, it might really just mean 'village'; in some sense, large regions of some countries never _really_ became part of the nation at all.

A hypothesis: not diversity, but division. Consider the Kurds; their traditional territory is in about 5 modern countries, and they don't particularly get along with any of their governments.

That isn't directly related to "scientific development", but that, like most things, relies on economic and political stability.

The theory rsynnott is referring to is what you'll find if you google "colonial borders"

For example, some people have pointed out when European colonialists set borders, they were more concerned with natural resources and the opinions of competing colonial powers than with what the locals thought of the borders.

Some people go further, thinking in at least some instances colonial governments intentionally created the situations for internal strife, as doing so could make regions easier to control. Set the borders so that area is 75% Religion A, 25% Religion B then you can appoint powerful local deputies from Religion B. Your powerful deputies will never support a popular revolution, as it'd make them lose all their power.

Later the colonial power leaves, but the borders stay in the same place - along with a generous helping of resentment and fear between the groups - and the stage is set for internal strife, political blocs formed along ethnic lines, and so on.

And if European colonists produced messed up borders, why couldn't Ottoman colonists have caused the same effects?

That doesn't mean ethnic diversity causes the problem - but there are several elements that set the scene for problems, and ethnic voting blocs are an easily measured component, though not sufficient on their own.

The Ottoman situation was arguably even messier, because the Ottomans had one set of provinces, and then the Mandatory authorities had a somewhat different one.

National identity. Colonialism tended to produce totally novel countries, and often who was put in charge was largely random.

It’s not just a colonialism thing either; in Europe wars often resulted in territorial change; the territory was then the cause of the next war.

Could you elaborate? In both Ireland's and Korea's cases, despite their relatively small size, both nations have notable scientific output. What's different about them?

Both do NOW. In Ireland’s case, honestly, we probably have the EU, a massive stabilising influence, to thank for that, along with treaties that make the border a day-to-day non-issue (you can walk across it without noticing). In the case of Korea, the opposite happened; the border became so fixed due to external influence that there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.

Dublin has long been a cultural center, since early Christianity, but modern Irish science benefits hugely from the tax incentive to move Pfizer there.

South Korea is the successful planned economy, like Singapore; on paper it's an open economy, and people are free to start businesses, but the top level is heavily coordinated between the government and megacorps. It was a military dictatorship for years while growing at over 5% a year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee

Maybe national identity is the issue, rather than ethnic identity. In Japan's case, they had continuity of government and a professional bureaucracy.

The point that marks the end of the Islamic Golden Age is the Siege of Baghdad of 1258.

As the Mongols expanded, each time they encountered an empire, they offered them two alternatives: a) Pay tribute to the Mongols, b) War with the Mongols and their vassal nations.

The caliphate chose the war option, unaware of the true military strength of the Mongols, who they considered primitive barbarians. The result was the complete destruction of the empire, their infrastructure including libraries, and the death of most scholars.

However, parts of Spain were under Islamic control from 711 AD to 1492 AD, and Sicily from 878 AD to 1060 AD. It was there were books from Islamic libraries were translated to Latin, giving origin to the European Reinassance.

Yes. But the Mongols (Golden Horde) reached Germany eventually in the late 14th century, but that was their apotheosis; they never came back after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe#Agai...

By the time that happened Baghdad had been already razed to the ground and looted by the Mongols.

This defeat made the Islamic civilization become militaristic, less secular and lose their interest in science.

From there, it was a downwards spiral. Ottoman rule followed by the Arab revolt, Sykes-Picot and perpetual war.

I paused at that paragraph as well.

It is very possible that the achievements of modernity have changed the game. That said, the game was (is?) rise and fall. Rising civilizations leave a heritage to be mined, so there is an overall direction of rise... but every one of the many scientifically advancing cultures in history has declined. It would be prudent to expect the same for ours.

That said, modernity has almost certainly changed at least some of the rules. Even the term "The West" has become complicated. Our civilization is now essentially global. A scientific invention in France immediately arrives in Seoul. A joke told in Houston is heard in lagos. A book popular here is likely popular there.

The practical link between Rio De Janeiro and Tokyo is stronger now than Baghdad and Casablanca then.

There's common interests between the nations and modern technologies have helped facilitate the exchange of both goods and ideas, but I doubt if we can call ourselves a "global civilization" just yet. That would mean some sort of world government, which we definitely don't have. And to me, that just means that the rules of the game haven't changed at all.

Civilization and government aren't the same thing, and the rules.

The Phoenician civilization didn't have a single government, yet we consider them a single civilization. The definition isn't a hard one with a clear "is" or "is not," but I think we're clearly there.

Also, even the politics is highly intertwined. Political turmoil or change in one place causes an effect in other places.

> in fact the West is the single sustained success story out of many civilizations with periods of scientific flourishing

I find this statement problematic. The West is leading the current period of scientific revolution, as the Muslims, the ancient Chinese and Indians did during their periods of scientific achievement.

But doesn’t “sustained” just mean that we haven’t seen the end of it?

Globalization certainly makes it harder to end, although certain political forces in the Western world would love a return to a mix of authoritarian fascism and religious monarchies.

> Why not the Middle east?

When Japan was conquered by USA in 1940s, the USA treated it with much more respect than the Europeans did vs the Ottoman Empire from WW1.

As a result, Japan was able to regrow into a world power. While the countries that formerly constituted the Ottomans are under a constant civil war (and major military groups, like ISIS, dream of re-establishing a religious empire of old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Caliphate)

Its not very hard to imagine a "cut up Japan", a hypothetical disarmed Japan where the USA would split between Britain / France / Russia / other members of the allies.

In fact, we can look to the (eastern part) of the Soviet Union to see how well splitting up countries went during WW2. The East / West Germany thing almost surely stunted Germany's growth back into its world standing.

--------

With that being said: the Ottomans were certainly in a decline by the late 1800s, before WWI broke out. But I can't imagine that WWI did those countries any favors.

> (eastern part) of the Soviet Union

Erm, Eastern part of Europe: the Soviet Union.

Whatever, I bet people know what I'm talking about. Cutting up countries is bad for their health!

>> the USA treated it with much more respect ...

the looming threat of communism from Russia and China played an important role in US's post-war policy in Japan and Japan's immediate post war recovery. While Japan was allowed to stay united as one, the Korean peninsula was divided, though the territory was never part of the WW2 theater. The Korean civil war led by the communist North likewise boosted Japan's quick recovery.

>Why not the Middle East?

Well, when your region of the world has been torn asunder by everything, including colonial powers, fascist reactionaries and nationalists, liberal market economies, and international communism; the only remaining cultural artifact that you can call your own is religion. If you want to unify the Middle East, you have to do so under the guise of religion, and in practice that means conservative religious extremism. Iran is sort of a microcosm of this: they deliberately adopted theocracy as any form of secular government or economy was viewed as surrender to one's oppressors.

The only problem is that there's at least three dominant forms of religion in the area to unify under: Sunni and Shiite Islam, and Zionist-compatible Judaism. This has more or less created a local cold war between Sunni theocracies (e.g. Saudi Arabia), Shiite theocracies (e.g. Iran and half of Iraq), and Israel. These hostilities are often fought with insurgencies, which means lots of violence in the border areas between the three religions. This is not a great place to live.

Immigration law is quite complicated and fraught. Every country has a mostly but not entirely irrational fear of demographic shifts (see Texas and Israel), and so they heavily restrict who can enter their country. However, the demands of capitalism mean that most countries have to provide a practical immigration path for college-educated individuals such as scientists. Immigration for the working class is generally disallowed or heavily restricted as a form of labor market protectionism, which means there is vast disparities in who is and isn't allowed to leave a country.

This creates an interesting problem: it is very difficult for these countries to convince educated scientists to remain in their country. Scientists generally don't get along with theocrats all that well to begin with. However, we've also chosen the immigration policy that is most likely to select for (relatively) liberal emigrants and filter out more conservative ones. So there's a vicious cycle: it's easier for scientists to leave the Middle East, which makes the region more conservative, which makes more scientists want to leave.

“Iran is sort of a microcosm of this: they deliberately adopted theocracy as any form of secular government or economy was viewed as surrender to one's oppressors.”

Iran had a secular, democratic government. It was overthrown by the UK and US who installed a brutal dictatorship just so they could get their oil cheap, so you can kind of see how Iranians might conclude that “democracy” isn’t worth the paper it’s written on and the only defense is a bigger bunch of bastards than the other guys’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

The vast majority of emigrants from the middle east are poor migrants to Europe, not educated scientists.

That's only because the vast majority of middle eastern people are poor. Parent comment is correct saying that it is much easier for educated scientists to leave, and they do leave, which is a self feeding loop draining everyone capable of positive change out of the region.

I would guess there are a lot more poor people than scientists in most countries. are emigrants disproportionately poor, uneducated people?

@kmeisthax did not claim otherwise; your respective claims are not in tension.

However, the "We" is ambiguous: US or EU? Or Canada, Australia, Japan?

In recent history we've had the Syrian refugee crisis which resulted in a large number of likely political refugees migrating to EU countries. This is still an abberation: most EU countries generally have immigration systems that favor well-trained economic migrants, and the flow of migrants from the Middle East to Europe will regress to the mean (if it hasn't already). Japan used to explicitly refuse work visas without a college degree, and has generally been very difficult to immimigrate to, but has softened on this because they've ran out of workers. Canada and Australia are similar to the EU in that they favor educated migrants on work visas, though their points system also explicitly favors English and French speaking migrants that can pass strict language tests.

The US is also an abberation: our immigration system favors family reunification ("chain migration") from a diverse pool of emigrant countries over economic migration. Most other countries heavily restrict immigration on the basis of family reunification. Diversity of origins is enforced through both per-country quotas as well as literally handing out green cards to people from countries that don't send us lots of migrants ("the visa lottery"). However, the primary effect of this is to make it very difficult for Mexicans to immigrate. I don't have detailed enough statistics to know if most Middle East emigrants immigrate to the US on work visas or through family sponsorship, but I would suspect that all of the above factors are a wash, as most of our immigrants come from Europe or the Americas.

That's not the point. The point is that the majority of educated scientists in the middle east emigrated to Europe!

Lead poisoning?

> There's always the risk that the West might internally reject the scientific revolution.

In the US I am pretty sure we are already on the decline.

I think it has to do with, during the industrial revolution and post-war, huge scientific advancements and tech grew the economy, fed capitalism by means of providing new desirable goods to consumers (e.g. dishwashers, nicer cars, etc.)

I wonder if we've reached a "peak" of consumer comfort where advances in science/ tech/ medicine are no longer frequent/ impactful enough to meaningfully satisfy consumers, (why do we care about exploring Mars?) so it's easy for people to reject it and say "we don't need science."

I feel we're on decline, because "science, bitch" is used to harass people into doing something they don't want or not ready. And people generally don't like to be harassed, they begin to resist no matter how reasonable things you're talking about are.

I wish society could pick its battles more carefully.

I agree, science has become a club to beat people into submission with (justified or not).

As a European who have lived in the US, I have been of the opinion that the US have been in decline for several decades. I think there is a combination of over reliance of capitalism to solve problems which seemingly can’t be solved well that way: universal healthcare, environmental management, education, urban planning, crime (prisons) etc, and the culture buying into the “American way” which in fact doesn’t provide the social mobility it claims nor makes the population better off, if you remove the richest from the equation. If I wasn’t so busy with other stuff I would be interested in doing research around this.

Agree with sentiments of the parent comment. I believe the prestige and social standing of physics (and, in part, the academia as a whole) is founded in the truly transformational technological advances -- say, the transistor -- made in the past decades.

Problematically, to secure funding today, one is essentially expected to frame every condensed-matter experiment as the next transistor. Not only in grant applications, but increasingly also in the abstract and opening paragraphs of research articles. There's a marked contrast with older research articles in physics, which usually go straight to disseminating the results. (Needless to say that I prefer the old style.)

As a result, a great deal of funding and attention is allocated towards projects that simultaneously 1) Will not improve the quality of life of anyone, even in the long term. 2) Are "de-risked" to such extent that no new scientific insights can come out of them.

I studied physics because I liked it and the way it describes our world. I then went for a PhD and slowly realized that physics (except a few areas) is basically dead. Particle physics for instance deal with completely outwordly stuff, akin to planning a family trip to Jupiter. Sure, it may happen someday but there are more present things.

I got my PhD and left academia (because of this and petty politics around photocopier paper costs) and the only part I really miss is the teaching and the bright minds.