Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
60 years ago South Korea was a backwards, impoverished, agrarian country that had been occupied and fought over by great powers for centuries, and lay wrecked by war. 25 years later it was one of the most technologically advanced and prosperous countries in the world.
The most telling figure to explain the failure of modernity to take hold in much of the Islamic world is the number of patents filed.
Number of patents filed from 2002 to 2007:
Israel (7.5 million people): 7,082
North Africa and the rest of the Middle East (409 million people): 680 patents
Or, if that seems unfair because of GDP differences -
Israel (7.5 million people): 1,416 patents per year
Saudi Arabia (28 million people): 37 patents per year
Much of the Islamic world is oppressed by the dead hand of a backwards looking religious credo that started with the Ottoman sultan shutting down the country's observatories back when it was the most scientifically advanced state in the world, and continued with the banning of the printing press in many parts of the Islamic world, through to today when girls aren't allowed to attend school in may countries.
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Don't forget that Israel filed for all of those patents since the Holocaust. All the excuses people keep trying to make simply perpetuate the problems.
When is enough enough?