East Side West Side

Didn't the Chinese have science before the Europeans? I suppose it depends on what you call "science". I understand the Chinese were doing some pretty fancy navigation long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, which is impressive when you consider that their ships were all junks. Then there was Aristotle the Greek, way back in the B.C. years. Plato was all pie in the sky, but Aristotle pioneered the concept that you could learn more by observation than by speculation. Maybe it would be more correct to call those guys "proto-scientists" because, although they were ahead of their time, they weren't in a class with Newton and Galileo.

Interesting concept that monotheism paved the way for science, but couldn't it also have been the other way around? Maybe cultures that were more logical were naturally disposed to consider the possibility of what we now call "intelligent design". The old polytheist myths were kind of chaotic, with their gods always fighting among themselves. To be sure, some of that bled over into Judeo-Christian mythology with its angels and demons but, with them, at least there were good guys and bad guys. With the poly guys it was all about might makes right, with a little treachery thrown in for variety.

I think that the Eastern religions are more logical than we give them credit for. Those guys like to shroud their teachings in ritual and mysticism, but I think that's mostly for entertainment. People the world over have always been impressed by light and magic shows. I think that underneath all that hoopla is a logical foundation, but its difficult to see from the surface. It may be structured that way by design, not wanting to make it too easy for the newbies. People do tend to value more highly the things that are difficult to obtain. The Buda had to sit under a tree and starve himself for 40 days and 40 nights before he could come up with the precept, "Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired." I don't think it would have taken me that long, but we Americans are always in a hurry.

The more I think about it,  I've only been making bread from scratch for about eight years. Before that I used to buy those frozen ready to bake loaves that you stick in a pan, let them thaw and rise, and then pop them into the oven. Before that I used to buy homemade bread from this guy in the school bus garage. When they fired me, the only thing I asked was that I be allowed to come to the bus garage once a week to get bread. They said that was fine as long as I didn't cause a disturbance, which I had no intention of doing anyway. Sometimes I got there too late and the bread guy was all sold out, so I eventually started making my own. My hypothetical wife taught me the basics. She used to make bread occasionally, but then she got arthritis or something in her hands and couldn't knead the dough anymore. Maybe that's why different people's bread comes out differently even though they use the same recipe. The skill of dough kneading is hard to put into words, you just have to do it until it feels right to you and, what feels right to you might not feel right to somebody else.