China's Scientists Have Always Been Great

This BBC Radio 4 programme, which I managed to catch today was pretty interesting. China was the world power in scientific innovation until the 1700s or so. Apparently, there was a back lash against western science, which prevented an uptake of western science to allow China to further improve once European scientists began to make their own breakthrough, which lead to western science becoming the most advanced. During the backlash, there was propaganda disseminated about why not to trust western science; babies' eyes were supposedly required to construct mirrors and for every railway sleeper laid a dead baby must be laid too. These meant people mistrusted western science and so advancement wasn't made through it's adoption.

You can listen to the show here for the next 7 days. This link is not yet available as of 09:15 GMT because the show has only just finished, but this link and the link on the BBC website will be valid today.