No Helmets Needed?

"The Wogster" wrote in message
...
Edward Dolan wrote:
[...]
The Ancients were human beings of course, but sufficiently different from
us in their thinking that we need not concern ourselves with them. Even
the Greeks and the Romans were not much better.The only kind of
civilization I care about began with the West at about the time of the
Renaissance in Italy.

However if it had not been for the rise and fall of the Italian (Roman)
Empire, then the Italian Renaissance, might have never happened.

There was nothing Italian about Ancient Rome. However, there was everything
Italian about Renaissance Italy. I do not like to see Rome given too much
credit for the rise of Europe.
[...]

Did you know that Aristotle thought women had fewer teeth in their mouth
than men. It apparently never occurred to him to look inside a woman's
mouth and count the teeth. What do you make of that? So much for logic!

That's not logic, perhaps the women he did look at, had lost a few teeth
by that time, so he figured they had less, perhaps with a larger sample
size, the possible truth of his idea would have disappeared.....

Yes, you are thinking like a man of the West, but Aristotle was thinking
like a Greek. Huge difference!

The High Middle Ages were quite innovative in very many technical ways,
but still they lacked scientific thinking. Technology is not science and
is always severely limited in what it can know.

Science and Technology are close relatives. Science is the knowledge,
technology is the implementation of that knowledge. No technology now in
existance, would exist without some scientific discovery.

Very sophisticated technology can exist without any foundation in science
whatsoever. The High Middle Ages proved that.

Here is an example, the science: If you take methane gas, and apply heat
you get a chemical reaction (fire). This lead to the technology behind
the natural gas furnace. One that I am happy about this morning, in that
the temperature outside is -12C, so I don't have to go out and chop wood
this morning.

The rise of science only occurred in the West. It is why Western
Civilization is now dominant in the world. Why it occurred in the West and
nowhere else is very mysterious, but I attribute it to the Protestant
Reformation in Western Europe. Science and technology are two different
things. They may or may not be related. All civilizations have technology,
but only the West developed science. Huge difference!

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota