[MUSIC]
In the previous segment, we argued that
for most
of history, Europe had very little
importance, especially Western Europe.
In the modern age, Europeans managed to
conquer
the whole world and change it, thanks
partly
to the fact that Europeans began to think,
in a scientific way, before everybody else
did.
What exactly though, is the connection
between
science and empire?
Between thinking scientifically and the
establishment of the,
of the European empires all over the
world?
Modern science obviously owes a huge debt,
not
only to the modern European empires, but
also
to ancient scientific traditions, such as
those of
classical Greece, China, India, and the
Islamic world.
Yet the unique
character of modern science began to take
shape,
only in Europe, of the early modern
period.
At the same time, the same places, as the
imperial expansion of
Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, the
Netherlands and Russia.
During the early modern period, true,
Chinese
and Muslims and Native Americans and
Polynesians,
continued to make important contributions
to science, it wasn't
just Europeans.
economists, European economists, like Adam
Smith and Karl Marx, they studied the
books of Muslim economists.
Native Americans' treatments of diseases,
influenced European
doctors.
And data gained from Polynesian informant
in the Pacific, revolutionized Western
Anthropology and
Zoology and Biology.
But until the 20th
century, the people who brought together,
all these different
data and discoveries and then the, the
exp, experiments, and in so doing
created the scientific disciplines and
theories, was the ruling
in the ruling elites of the global
European empires.
China and India and the Islamic world,
they produced
people as intelligent, as curious, as
those of Europe.
However, between the 16th century and the
middle of the 20th century
Non-European civilizations did not produce
anything,
that comes even close to Newtonian
physics, or to Darwinian biology,
in terms of scientific theories, that
explain, how the world works.
This does not mean of course, that
Europeans have some unique gene, for doing
science or that Europeans will forever
dominate,
as the study of physics and biology.
Just as Islam began as an Arab monopoly,
but was
subsequently taken over, by non-Arab
people, like the Turks and the Persians.
So modern science began as a European
enterprise, a European specialty.
But it is today, turning into a global
multi, multi
ethnic enterprise, and you can find
Indians, and Muslims, and Chinese,
along side Europeans and people from the
European origins, in the
forefront of science.
What exactly forged the
historical bond between modern science and
European
Imperialism?
What forged this bond was that, both the
scientists and the conquers of early
modern Europe, shared the
same basic mindset.
The same basic view of the world.
They both began, by admitting ignorance.
Both conquerors and scientists began by
saying, I
don't know what's out there in the world.
They both then, felt compelled, to go out
into the world and make new discoveries.
And they both
hoped, the scientists and the conquerors
that new knowledge, that will,
they will acquire, would they, would make
them masters of the world.
We see this connection between a
scientific research and imperial conquest,
most
clearly in the great European voyages of
exploration, of the early modern period.
These voyages
were, one, at one at the same time, both
scientific voyages
of exploration and imperial voyages of
conquest.
European imperialism was in this way very
unique, very
different, from all previous imperial
projects in history.
Previous conquerors assumed, that they
already
understand the world perfectly.
Conquest never really utilized and spread
their view of the world.
For example, when the Arabs conquered
Egypt and Spain and
India, they didn't do it in order to
discover something, that they don't know.
When the Mongols and Aztecs conquered
numerous countries in Asia and in
America, numerous people, what was it they
were looking for, is power and wealth.
They were not looking for knowledge.
In contrast, European conquerors, European
Imperialists in the modern age,
they set out to distant lands in ho, in
the hope of not
only conquering them, but in the hope of
obtaining new knowledge.
And the process of obtaining new
knowledge, was
intertwined with the process of conquering
the new lands.
Already in the 15th century, Portuguese
voyagers explored the coast of Africa, and
simultaneously seized control of all kinds
of islands and harbors, along the coast.
Christopher Columbus went on a voyage to
gain new geographical knowledge, and he
discovered America.
But immediately, also, claimed
sovereignty, claim
control over the lands, that he
discovered.
Ferdinand Magellan was the first person,
who managed to find a way around the
world, to circle navigate the whole globe.
But simultaneously
with his geographical explorations, he
also lays a foundation for
the Spanish conquest of the Philippines
and many other territories.
As time went by, the conquest of knowledge
and
the knowledge of territory, became ever
more tightly connected.
In the 18th and 19th century, almost every
important
military expedition, that left from Europe
to distant lands, had on board,
scientists who set out, not to fight, but
to make scientific discoveries.
And also, almost every important
scientific expedition that left
Europe to some distant land, also had
political ambitions of conquest.
The most famous example of this, is the
expedition of James
Cook to the South Pacific Ocean and
Australia, in 1778.
The Cook expedition included a team
of about 10 scientists from various
disciplines, headed by the famous
astronomer Charles Green, and by the
botanist Joseph Banks.
In three years this expedition made
numerous scientific discoveries and
collected immense amount
of new empirical observations on
Geography, Astronomy,
Botany, Zoology, Anthropology, Medicine
and so forth.
The Cook expedition brought back to
Europe, the
first detailed accounts of Australia, New
Zealand, and
many of the Pacific Islands.
Its findings made major contributions
to a number of scientific disciplines, and
it sparked imagination, of
generations of European scientists, with
astonishing tales
about the South Pacific, and the cultures
that the
found there.
Perhaps most famously, the expedition
also helped to find a cure to the disease
of scurvy, a disease
that's cost the lives of millions of
people, in the early modern period.
However, this scientific expedition of
James Cook, had another side to it.
James Cook, was not only a geographer, he
was also a naval officer, in the
British Royal Navy.
The ship in which the expedition sailed,
was provided
by the British Royal Navy, which also
provided 85 well
armed sailors and marines, and equipped
them with artillery, and
muscats and gun powder and all kinds of
other weapons.
Much of the information which the
expedition collected was, had obvious
political and
military usages.
Most importantly, Cook claimed sovereignty
for Britain, of many of the
islands and the lands that he had
discovered, most notably Australia.
When Cook reached Australia, he not only
explored the land,
he also said this is ours, this belongs to
Britain now.
And, and, in this, he laid the foundation
for the British
occupation conquest of Australia and New
Zealand and the South Pacific, and the
foundations for the settlement of millions
of Europeans in the new colonies.
And this lands of course, also to the
extermination of the native cultures
of Australia and New Zealand, and much of
the Pacific islands.
In the 100 years
that followed the Cook expedition, the
most fertile lands of Australia and New
Zealand were taken from the previous
inhabitants, by European settlers.
The native population of Maori's in New
Zealand, and Aboriginal Australians
in Australia, dropped by more than 90%,
and the survivors was subjected to a
very harsh regime, of racial oppression.
For the Aboriginal Australians and for
Maori's of New
Zealand, the Cook expedition was not just
a scientific
expedition, it was also the beginning of
catastrophe, from
which they never managed to recover, even
to this day.
So how should we understand the Cook
Expedition?
Was it a scientific expedition which was
protected by a military force, or was it a
military expedition which a few scientists
joined, in order to, to, to look around?
there is no simple answer to these
questions.
It's like asking whether your gas tank is
half empty, or half full.
It's both.
The scientific
revolution and modern imperialism, were
simply inseparable.
For people like Captain James Cook and the
botanist Joseph Banks, who handled
these expeditions, science and empire were
basically the same thing, the same
project.
To give just one more of art of numerous
examples, of, of how these worked.
Consider another very famous expedition,
the expedition of
the ship Beagle.
The, the ship Beagle also belonged
to the British Royal Navy.
And it was sent in 1831, to map
the coasts of South America, the Falkland
Islands and the Galapagos
Island in expectation of of, of war in
these areas.
The British Navy needed this knowledge, to
prepare in the case of war, in the
area of South America.
Now the captain of the Beagle, he was not
only a an officer in the navy, he was also
an amateur scientist.
And he decided to take along on the ship,
a geologist, because he was interested in
studying geological
formations that the expedition might
encounter on its way.
It was a good opportunity.
You send a ship to other side of the
world, so why not make some scientific
explorations as well.
He the captain approached several
professional
geologists, but they all refused the
invitation, and he finally offered the
chance to a 22 years old Cambridge
graduate, by the name of Charles Darwin.
Darwin studied in Cambridge to become an
Anglican pas pastor, parson.
But during his studies, he discovered that
he was far more
interested in geology, and in natural
sciences, than in the Bible.
So, when this Captain offered him to come
along
for this expedition to South America,
Darwin jumped on
this opportunity and, as everybody knows,
the rest is history.
While the captain of the Beagle was
spending his time drawing military maps of
South America, Darwin was busy collecting
empirical
data, about geology and botany and
zoology.
Which was the basis of his insights, which
became, later on
the, Theory of Evolution.
So even this, the most important of
scientific theories of the
modern age maybe, it had its origin, in a
military expedition.
I want to give just one more example after
all.
concerning the journey to the moon in
1969.
[COUGH]
There was a story, I'm not sure its true,
but
it's a very good story, so I'll tell it
anyway.
story about the expedition of the American
astronauts in 1969, to the moon.
As everybody probably know, on July 20th,
1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin landed the first two men to land on
the first of, on the surface of the moon.
But, in the months
leading to the expedition to the moon, the
astronauts trained in their remote moon
like desert in the Western United States,
to simulate the condition of the moon.
This area is a desert of the Western
United States, was home to some Native
American tribe.
And there is a story, again I'm not sure
if
it's true, which describes the encounter
between the astronauts and
one of the of the tribes people.
One day as the astronauts were training,
they came across an old man, and old
Native American.
And they asked them, what are you doing
here?
And they told him that they were training,
because they are part of
an expedition, a scientific expedition
which
will shortly travel, to explore the moon.
When the old Indian,
the old Native American heard that, he, he
was silent for a few minutes, and
then he asked the astronauts very
seriously, if they could perhaps
do a favor for him.
What do you want, the astronaut asked him?
Well, explain the old man, the people of
my tribe, they
believe that on the moon, there lives all
kinds of holy spirits.
And I was wondering, if I could use this
opportunity that you're going to the moon,
to pass an important message from my
people to the Holy Spirit on the moon.
And the astronauts agreed.
So the men said something in his tribal
language, and asked the astronauts
to repeat it again, and again, and again,
until they memorized it perfectly.
And, the old man was, was very happy about
it.
And then the astronauts asked, okay, now
that we
know the message, please tell us what does
it mean?
What does it saying?
Oh, said the old man, I can't tell you,
it's a secret that only our tribe
and the sacred spirits on the moon, only,
only they are allowed to know the message.
So what to do?
The astronauts went back to their base,
but
they're very curious, they are scientists
after all.
So they searched and searched, until they
finally
found somebody who could speak this tribal
language.
And they asked him to translate what this
secret message means.
And they repeated the message that they
memorized, and
then the translator started to laugh, and
laugh, and laugh.
And when he finally calmed down, the
astronauts
asked him, well, tell us what does this
message mean?
So the man, so the man explained that the
message says dear sacred spirits
of the moon, don't believe a single word
these white people are telling you.
No matter what they say about science or
anything, the real reasons
they came, they come to steal your lands,
so, don't believe them.
This was the secret message of this old
Native American,
about the scientific expedition to the
moon.
And this message was learned by people all
over the world, in the previous centuries.
That, yes, the Europeans may come with all
kinds
of ideas about science and exploration,
and so forth.
But, on the way, they are also coming to
steal your lands.
We can say then, that in the modern era,
European scientists and European
conquerors, both had the same mentality.
A mentality of exploring and conquering.
They all the time wanted to explore
new territories, and simultaneously, to
conquer them.
How this mentality developed, and how it
affected the world in
the, in the modern era, will be discussed
at greater length
in the following seg, in the following
segment of the lesson.
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