James Burke : The Day The Universe Changed: "The Way We Are", 2 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 1 of James Burke's ground-breaking series "The Day The Universe Changed" which explores the evolution of Western Scientific thought starting from the fall of Rome.

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[voodoojedizin]

My one and only criticism of this entire series is the fact that he completely omits the hundreds of inventions that came from China. And in fact gives credit to some Europeans for inventions that came originally from China. An excellent book called the genius of China describes 3000 years worth of inventions, which almost all ended up shaping western society.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

He goes over that in Connections 1; about (in his words) "the Chinese inventing everything" and why, once Chinese inventions found their way to the "west" they had a far greater impact than in China. He cites two major reasons:

A) A ubiquitous bureaucracy (to run massive irrigation systems) and it's effect of pigeonholing everyone. So no possibility of altering "social status".

B) The notion of "Chi" which indirectly precludes going from the specific to the general (ie. scientific induction).

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Oops, typo.

I meant the notion of "Shen" (神) which was at the heart of "Taoist" (Tao: 道) philosophy and hence the philosopher-chemists, or in modern lingo, the "Chinese technologists" of the time.

- JBW

[voodoojedizin]

But I'm sorry that's a very shallow statement, China did do great things. For one thing China was unified, considering the size of the country and the diversity of its people that was no easy task and it was its technological inventions which help it do so. I understand the Chinese philosophy and why they didn't exploit the rest of the world, using their technological advances. But that does not mean they didn't do great things with in their own country with that technology.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Such as?

[Ionian1006]

@JamesBurkeWeb - Gunpowder? Marvelous invention that has saved millions from living long lives.

[ion010101]

Not, "we". Some of us were curious - a minority. A few.

[ma049]

China did invent raea

[Ionian1006]

Wellllll- I guess they were responsible for paper- in one form. Not a very good form for most uses, but paper nonetheless.

[wotan237]

i think the afro -centrics are now claiming the role that Greece had....they say the Greeks got their ideas from Egypt...but Burke just said the Egyptians were lazy and satisfied with marking off land with geometry and doing nothing else and I dont think Egyptians were black anyway....they are even saying there was a good amount of black blood in the Greeks... sounds like wishful thinking to me... Also, i think the Arabs , Chinese and Indians were at one point ahead of Europe but they faltered

[KimberlyRPeacock]

Burke love him. What I would pay for a couple of hours of Burke's quality a week. Instead we are left with mostly garbage, even on the science channel!

I started watching Burke on TLC and bought the VHS tapes and need to convert them to DV. I wish Burke would make connections 4, 5 ,6 and never stop!!

[KimberlyRPeacock]

Burke love him. What I would pay for a couple of hours of Burke's quality a week. Instead we are left with mostly garbage, even on the science channel!

I started watching Burke on TLC and bought the VHS tapes and need to convert them to DV. I wish Burke would make connections 4, 5 ,6 and never stop!!

[vinha1006]

There was another series, even older that I sw on here for some time, but I have forgotten the narrator's name. I think it might have been Eugene or something like that, and the ending part involved the Nazi death camps in some way.

HELP???????????

[spencnaz]

@JamesBurkeWeb it was the imbuing everything with the concept of 'shen' that was the fatal hangup for Chinese technology during that time period.

[KingsduVTT]

@voodoojedizin it is only fitting that China is now dominating and will do so for the next few decades leveraging Western innovation and technology. As we did from them. He have now come full circle !