Without claiming any intellectual superiority for the scientists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods over their ancient and medieval European predecessors or over Oriental philosophers, one has to recognize as a simple fact that Ôclassical modern scienceÕ arose only in the western part of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries .... from
this point on, anyone with the necessary talent may help build up science on solidly estab-lished foundations.
Scientists from nations whose own culture did not give birth to anything like modern science have already made valuable contributions to it.
Western people who have lost all contact with the religion of their forefathers continue in their scientific activities the tradition inherited from them. R. Hooykas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, 161