Originally Posted by kerry edwards

It looks like Jared Diamond has some competition:

http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=tqm4xd5mqkk5px43d968m19qmf4w3g5y

How Christianity (and Capitalism) Led to Science
By RODNEY STARK

When Europeans first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere, but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Maya, Aztec, and Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders, so were the fabled civilizations of the East: China, India, and Islamic nations were "backward" by comparison with 15th-century Europe. How had that happened? Why was it that, although many civilizations had pursued alchemy, the study led to chemistry only in Europe? Why was it that, for centuries, Europeans were the only ones possessed of eyeglasses, chimneys, reliable clocks, heavy cavalry, or a system of music notation? How had the nations that had arisen from the rubble of Rome so greatly surpassed the rest of the world? . . . . . . . .