pre-modern Christians (Euro ones at least, Byzantines took empiricism seriously) were obviously an obstacle to progress in many important ways, like the 1000 year gap between Galen's anatomy studies and early Italian enlightenment scholars who started doing dissections again. But that's not only because of the superstructure of their ideology. It was the material conditions of slavery/early feudalism having little need for the training and development of a professional expert scientist class who might argue against authority to cast light on the material world.
Scientists were unable to critique their ancient Greek/Latin medical textbooks because they were practically considered the "word of god" by their financially supporting royalty and church leadership. Like the modern PMC, these priests scoffed at the idea of conflicting with The Experts whose intellectual traditions were passed down or were imported from other countries. It's ironic that these woke twitter radlibs are soyfacing over Christians parroting Arabic science, since medieval priest-scientists were trained to credulously believe any well-written books they read, even if they're from scholars who rarely did empirical research like dissecting actual humans and not a rabbit
this is my favorite reply:
I did a full master's thesis on eye surgeries in 6th century France and trust me. It was very much not a dark time for Europe
...to be honest I focused more on the religious and cultural implications of ocular diseases, eye surgery and medicine than on the actual lived practice of practitioners and patients
"nooo the dark age isn't real!!!" - PMC dork who did not cast light on dorks who were also not casting light
Yeah I never like the "no see these euro peasants are barbarians" it comes right up to justifying the Slavic slave trade, or at least repeating its logic. It doesn't matter if you think you are dunking on the chuds, you end up just spouting some form of environmental determinism. Instead of trying to go the other way from noble savages, how about we just DONT treat civilizations and culture as a sid meyers tech tree?
Listen moldy, I know it was you who shit my pants today. I was walking along working at T-Mobile scam call center, when all of a sudden a massive stinky load dropped out of my asshole. I know it was you. PMC Karen's had just crossed my mind and all of a sudden the dumpy to end all dumpies fell out of my rectum. I know it was you.
Stop. I have DOMS because I did sit ups for the first time in years and laughing hurts so bad right now.
That chart is some 2005-ass Atheism+ shit. It's been around forever. I love people who cite random charts they find online as the foundation for their beliefs.
Didn't the Dark Ages come with many advances in metallurgy as well as masonry and architecture?
Also, the plague doctor outfit was really good at protecting from the plague. Even if the reasons they thought it protected from the plague were wrong.
While the other two things are true, the plague doctor outfit did not actually protect against the plague because it made one crucial mistake. It left the ankles open, where the rats would bite and spread their fleas. If not for that, it would have been very effective.
However, scientific progress was incredibly limited to military matters. Which they got really good at, but at the expense of everything else.
However, scientific progress was incredibly limited to military matters. Which they got really good at, but at the expense of everything else.
God, can you imagine?
The proliferation of "PMC"-discourse and its consequences have been a disaster for the contemporary left.
The "Dark Ages" is just europeans refusing to admit that Baghdad exists.
story of my life. "sssorry sir, i did a a theoriteical hommobobby on the science of pubic hairs in 7th century gondor"
like man shut the fuck up. i am a literal peasant and i know what im talking about.
