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How Europeans Invented the Modern World
American Thinker ^ | David Deming

Posted on 07/05/2010 8:38:13 AM PDT by ventanax5

Both Greece and Rome made significant contributions to Western Civilization. Greek knowledge was ascendant in philosophy, physics, chemistry, medicine, and mathematics for nearly two thousand years. The Romans did not have the Greek temperament for philosophy and science, but they had a genius for law and civil administration. The Romans were also great engineers and builders. They invented concrete, perfected the arch, and constructed roads and bridges that remain in use today. But neither the Greeks nor the Romans had much appreciation for technology. As documented in my book, Science and Technology in World History, Vol. 2, the technological society that transformed the world was conceived by Europeans during the Middle Ages.

Greeks and Romans were notorious in their disdain for technology. Aristotle noted that to be engaged in the mechanical arts was "illiberal and irksome." Seneca infamously characterized invention as something fit only for "the meanest slaves." The Roman Emperor Vespasian rejected technological innovation for fear it would lead to unemployment.

Greek and Roman economies were built on slavery. Strabo described the slave market at Delos as capable of handling the sale of 10,000 slaves a day. With an abundant supply of manual labor, the Romans had little incentive to develop artificial or mechanical power sources. Technical occupations such as blacksmithing came to be associated with the lower classes.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 1861to1865; csa; entrepreneurs; godsgravesglyphs; greece; history; rome; technologies
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1 posted on 07/05/2010 8:38:15 AM PDT by ventanax5
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To: ventanax5

bump


2 posted on 07/05/2010 8:44:30 AM PDT by fso301
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To: ventanax5
No sale on that one. For centuries the Pantheon, built by Romans was the largest unsupported dome in the world.

There isan interesting book I have just finished called "Justinians Flea". It postulates that the great bubonic plagues which killed over 25 million people in Byzantium alone, so loosened Constantinoples grip on its territory that European states developed from the Franks, The Allemani, The Rus etc.

3 posted on 07/05/2010 8:45:04 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: ventanax5

/src on/According to Zero’s NASA is was the Muzzies who created the modern world./src off/


4 posted on 07/05/2010 8:45:17 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: fso301
Obama figures we should all be living the green life in thatched huts. ;-)
5 posted on 07/05/2010 8:54:32 AM PDT by Dem Guard (Throw the trash out on November 2nd!)
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To: ventanax5
“What a racist rant!
Europe is the ancestral home of the white devil slave master and nothing more!”
—”the enlightened Left”
6 posted on 07/05/2010 8:59:03 AM PDT by Happy Rain ("Liberals frolic at ersatz enlightenment because conservatives keep the savages from the door.")
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To: ventanax5

Greeks and Romans were notorious in their disdain for technology.

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/crap.wav


7 posted on 07/05/2010 9:01:33 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: C19fan
Speaking of Zero - I think the zero was the greatest invention of all. Arabs lay claim to the zero and decimal numbering system, but evidence supports that it came from India and was popularized by Arabs due to their influence / power at the time. It's easy to believe Indians are responsible for this innovation since the best mathematicians consistently come from India, not the Arab world.

Just think how hard it would be to do calculus using Roman numerals.

8 posted on 07/05/2010 9:03:42 AM PDT by uncommonsense (Conservatives believe what they see; Liberals see what they believe.)
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To: ventanax5
Absent from this article is the fact that for the most part it was Christian Europe which developed universities, orphanages to care for babies who would otherwise be killed, hospitals, hospices, guilds which protected widows and other charitable organizations. It was monks who preserved the writings of the Greeks like Aristotle, sitting at desks copying them. It was Christian Europe who furthered philosophy, mathematics, developed a realistic form of art and music which like Mozart trains the brain. It was in Christian Europe where the concepts of liberty, unalianable rights and those that inform the founding of our government.

We forget that at our peril. We toss it away when rather than just confer respect on those who hold different ideas from their heritage, we act as though those ideas are equally promoting of human well being as were Christian Europe.

Progressives are really tolerant of destruction of our most precious heritage. We need to re-learn our history and pass it on.

9 posted on 07/05/2010 9:05:34 AM PDT by amihow
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To: uncommonsense
I think the zero was the greatest invention of all. Arabs lay claim to the zero and decimal numbering system,

And at the time, the Arabs were NOT Muslim, contrary to popular belief.

10 posted on 07/05/2010 9:10:17 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Jimmy Valentine
No sale on that one. For centuries the Pantheon, built by Romans was the largest unsupported dome in the world.

While it's undoubtedly an impressive feat of engineering and construction, how did the Pantheon's unsupported dome improve people's lives in any way similar to the way that the agricultural and industrial advancements in Europe did?

11 posted on 07/05/2010 9:13:11 AM PDT by Bob
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To: dfwgator

Sigh...

“Arabic” numerals were invented by the hindus, including the zero.
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numeral.html

It’s telling when the only known arab achievement is one they have stolen from their hindu victims of the world’s greatest genocide.


12 posted on 07/05/2010 9:18:17 AM PDT by LastNorwegian
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To: ventanax5
The Romans were also great engineers and builders. They invented concrete, perfected the arch, and constructed roads and bridges that remain in use today.

Apart from the concrete, arches, roads and bridges, what have the Romans ever done for us?

13 posted on 07/05/2010 9:22:46 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: ventanax5
They invented concrete

Amazing they could do that with no real knowledge of chemistry.

14 posted on 07/05/2010 9:26:21 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: amihow

a-MEN. Say it loud and often!


15 posted on 07/05/2010 9:30:54 AM PDT by 13Sisters76 ("It is amazing how many people mistake a certain hip snideness for sophistication. " Thos. Sowell)
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To: Yardstick
They invented concrete
Amazing they could do that with no real knowledge of chemistry.

Same way with gunpowder. You had to mix sulfur, potassium nitrate and charcoal in just the right amounts. Wherever did THAT idea come from? I suspect some alchemist was mixing stuff and of a sudden BOOM! "Hey, what great fireworks it would make!" says he.

16 posted on 07/05/2010 9:56:36 AM PDT by Oatka ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." –Bertrand de Jouvenel)
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To: dfwgator

The roads? That goes without saying.


17 posted on 07/05/2010 10:32:32 AM PDT by MattinNJ (Iron Man 2-a great conservative movie.)
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To: ventanax5
They invented concrete

Which their Italian descendants are well-known for into the present day....

18 posted on 07/05/2010 10:38:19 AM PDT by mikrofon (And its *many* uses...)
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To: dfwgator

>>>what have the Romans ever done for us?

The Romans POPULARIZED A SYSTEMATIC TAXATION system, developed in the East (Pergamum in Western half of Turkey).

Tom Holland in “Rubicon” says that Rome came to find it a “honey pot” as they sold off tax collection franchises throughout the East rather than rely on the established local tax bureaucracies.

This innovation created the first “military-fiscal complex.” It also led to the Romans getting kicked out of Turkey at that time by Mithridates executing all Romans and pouring molten gold down the throat of the Roman commissioner, Manius Aquillius.


19 posted on 07/05/2010 10:47:45 AM PDT by Hop A Long Cassidy
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To: ventanax5
Thus the world was transformed, not by philosophers, scientists, or politicians, but by engineers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs

It can be argued that the philosophers and politicians (and theologians) set the stage so that the engineers, craftsmen and entrepreneurs could thrive.

20 posted on 07/05/2010 11:38:14 AM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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