The three great scientific traditions of Eurasia are basically similar but there are differences between them in character and emphasis. The West Eurasian (which ranges from Old Babylonian through Hellenistic and Islamic to modern European) is characterised by an emphasis on nature and punctuated increases and decreases in theoretical and empirical sophistication. Chinese science is characterised by concreteness, experimentation and a historical and organic outlook; Indian science by abstraction, formal analysis and an emphasis on human theory. Most Eurasian sciences reached similar levels until the sixteenth century, after which the European members of the family spiralled ahead.
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