The west's ascendancy, he argues, is based on six attributes that he labels its "killer apps": competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic.
Mr. Ferguson, a Harvard professor, posits that six attributes other cultures didn't have or couldn't master have allowed the West to dominate in recent centuries: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic.
Those "apps" were competition, science, property rights, medicine, "the consumer society" ("without which the Industrial Revolution would have been unsustainable") and "the work ethic" (which Mr. Ferguson, drawing upon Max Weber, associates with Protestant Christianity).
8 P.M. (13, 49) CIVILIZATION: THE WEST AND THE REST WITH NIALL FERGUSON Professor Ferguson, below, who teaches history at Harvard, concludes his exploration of the West's economic ascendancy based on his six principles of prosperity -- competition, science, modern medicine, democracy, consumerism and work ethic -- and explains why Eastern civilizations may now be taking the lead.
Mishra wrote a negative review in the LRB of Ferguson's Civilisation: The West and the Rest, a book that argues that the 500-year era of western ascendency is coming to a close and attempts to explain its rise in the first place with reference to six "functional complexes": property rights, competition, science, medicine, the consumer society and work ethic.
So last year, NSF reopened the competition (Science, 21 July 2006, p. 285).
The competition for science places is even tougher.
Some argue that intense competition strengthens science by allowing only the fittest to survive.
How far has the United States risen above the gathering storm of global competition in science?
While there is a lot of competition in science, there's a lot of cooperation in the C. elegans community".
There's no way that we can punish the other countries for producing competition in science and technology.
