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Science has been developing since ancient times, originating from ancient Greece, China, India and developing on its own soil, and the wise men of every country on the planet have contributed a lot to the scientific revolution.
But it was the ruling elite and intellectual elite of Europe who really made science a system and a discipline, so why couldn't intellectuals in other countries come up with theories comparable to those of Newton and Darwin?
The answer may be very simple because:European imperialism, unlike all imperialism before it, admits its ignorance.
All imperialism wants to conquer the world, but the empires before European empires conquered the world because of power and wealth and because they wanted to spread their vision of the world.
On the other hand, European imperialism has to cross the oceans not only for the sake of new territories but also for the sake of new knowledge, the European rulers and intellectual elitesAdmit that they don't know what's in the distance, and they need to see for themselves.
In the century, almost every military expedition from Europe was accompanied by scientists, who were not concerned with how much land the voyage had captured for the empire, they were only interested in new scientific data.
In 1831, the Royal Navy sent HMS Beagle to South America to map the coasts of the Malvinas Islands and Galapagos, with which the Navy could take advantage of the war.
The captain of the Beagle, himself a science enthusiast, decided to take a geologist with him, but several geologists turned him down, and eventually a 22-year-old Cambridge graduate accepted his offer, and this young man was Darwin. During this historic voyage, the captain drew up military maps, and Darwin collected all kinds of empirical data to develop his own ideas, which eventually led to the great theory of evolution.
A few months before Armstrong and Adelyn landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, in the desert of the western United States, which is also home to Native American tribes, a very interesting story happened.
During the training process, the astronauts met an elderly Native American, and through chatting with the old man, they learned that the astronauts were going to land on the moon.
The old man hoped that they would do themselves a favor after landing on the moon, it turned out that the aborigines believed that the Holy Spirit of the race lived on the moon, and the old man hoped that the astronauts would deliver a message to the Holy Spirit, and the old man said it in the local language, and asked the astronauts to memorize it well.
When the astronauts returned to the training base and found an interpreter who spoke the local language, they learned what the phrase meant: "Whatever these people say to you, don't trust them." They're just coming to steal your land. ”
It's just a slightly ridiculous story, but this story reflects it from the sideThere is a desire for conquest at the bottom of Western society, and science is just a tool to take advantage of on the journey.
It is this mentality of "exploration and conquest" that has helped Western society lead the development of mankind.
The essential difference between humans in Europe and elsewhere before the 20th century was that Europeans thought they were ignorant, and the rest of the world was full of unknowns and countless possibilities to explore and conquer. Other countries consider themselves to be the center of the world, having reached the end of human development and do not need to make meaningless efforts.
It was the difference between these two ideas that led to the difference in the status of the two on the world stage a century later.
Nowadays, science is no longer the exclusive discipline of the Western world, and every country that wants to succeed in the future will have to invest huge resources in science and technologyTo admit your ignorance is to maintain your curiosity, and if you are curious, you will not stop exploring, and if you continue to explore, there are infinite possibilities.