From Simon Grove, James Cook University
Michael Snowden’s declaration that astronomy’s success in Western societies
is attributable to the Renaissance
(7 October, p 48)
does not stand up to close
scrutiny and smacks of cultural arrogance. Didn’t Egypt have some of the world’s
finest astronomers, millennia before the Renaissance? And wasn’t Chile largely
colonised by post-Renaissance Europeans?
It is true that astronomy, like many other aspects of science, does not
thrive in most developing countries, but surely poverty is at the root of the
matter. In a society where most people have to worry more about where their next
meal or medical costs are coming from, rather than pondering supernovae and
black holes, it is unrealistic to expect a sophisticated ethos of investigative
science to flourish.
Only someone in a wealthy nation could be blinkered enough to suggest that an
accident of distant European history is a more powerful force shaping today’s
“developed” societies than grinding poverty is for the “underdeveloped”.
Cairns, Queensland
