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NancyLebovitz comments on On the Power of Intelligence and Rationality - Less Wrong
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You got facts entirely wrong.
Western Europe did not come to dominate the world thanks to science and rationality, but thanks to disease which wiped out the natives, effective use of organized violence, and successful use of divide-and-rule politics. Expansion happened long before scientific revolution had any success.
Key events in Western domination happened in final decades of the Late Middle Ages (the first few decades of 16th century still count as "Late Middle Ages" as far as I'm concerned) - like establishment of naval domination over Arabs in 1509, conquest of Aztecs in 1521, Incas in 1530s etc.
Nazis were quite sane, command of German armed forces was very clever, and Hitler was a very smart politician.
In both cases you can find plenty of intelligence where in mattered - organized violence and politics, and plenty of superstition and silliness in other areas.
Given wrong facts, I'm not sure what you're arguing about.
"Effective use of organized violence" included having superior weapons, and science and mass production contributed a lot to make them possible.
In 16th century there was neither science nor mass production in Europe - and enemies against which Europeans won so readily were still in Neolithic. It wouldn't surprise me if in some parallel universe Roman Empire conquered Americas after their accidental discovery.
Against more modern Islamic powers, Late Medieval/Early Modern European track record was more or less even - Europeans managed to win the oceans, but Ottomans defeated Europeans over and over again until 1683, resulting in net loss of Christian land in Europe. The only major European conquest of lands in which more or less equivalent civilization level existed - India - was a textbook example of divide and conquer, and required neither science nor even much in terms of technological advantage.
(and in general, if you want to use some historical process or event as example based on conventional wisdom about it, conventional wisdom usually overstates things)
"Against more modern Islamic powers, Late Medieval/Early Modern European track record was more or less even"
Agreed- that's precisely what I said. Except for the Americas (where they had a huge disease advantage), the Europeans did not have overwhelming military power until science and Traditional Rationality were well-developed.