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TwoUglyFeet t1_iwm365l wrote

Did various countries around the world have the same understanding of various scientific discoveries? For example, the Soviet Union and the US seemed to keep pace with each other on atomic, nuclear and space. Did countries like China, Japan or other counties did their own concurrent advancements in understanding scientific principles or just waited around till other counties figured it out?

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physicswizard t1_iwmcubu wrote

The advancement of science is very much an international effort nowadays. People from all over the world collaborate on scientific projects together if they have the knowledge and desire to do so. However, some countries can't contribute as much resources to certain efforts due to many reasons including funding (small, poor countries don't have the budget), lack of expertise (one country monopolizes a single field because all the experts congregate there, or there is a brain drain from less developed countries), politics (some USSR/USA scientists/engineers were forbidden to collaborate during the cold war for national security reasons).

So everyone contributes what they can typically, just some are limited in what they can do alone.

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TwoUglyFeet t1_iwmecq2 wrote

It is now, but I was wondering if other countries had their own scientific research that say, made the discovery of the atom or dna or formulated predictions of things that were discovered by European, American or Russian science agencies?

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mfb- t1_iwnzk3x wrote

There are cases where things were discovered in multiple places, but that's usually the result of multiple groups having success at around the same time - and the groups know about each other. One group discovering X and then several years another group discovering X independently is very rare as that would mean they didn't talk to each other for years or the second group doesn't know what's happening in their field. That does occur for nuclear weapons and other sensitive technology, but it's very unusual otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries

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chazwomaq t1_iwmromi wrote

Here's an interesting recent historical example of where a major superpower had a very different scientific (mis)understanding.

The Soviet Union's leadership rejected the scientific ideas of Darwin and Mendel, that genes were selected through evolution. Instead, they favoured the Lamarckian view that acquired characteristics could be inherited.

Geneticists were fired, imprisoned, and even executed, and Lysenko (the chief scientist) tried to increase crop yields using this technique, which of course failed. As a result crop yields fell and there were food shortages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

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noiamholmstar t1_iwqb1fb wrote

Technically, epigenetic inheritance is a thing, so they weren't entirely wrong.

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atomfullerene t1_iwqmid5 wrote

Epigenetics isn't really the inheritance of acquired characteristics, though. It's more the ability to alter what traits your offspring express in response to your environment. There's no requirement that those traits be the same as the ones you have. For example, you could imagine a situation where high food availability causes parents to lay down epigenetic markers that cause their offspring to also have a high tendency to gain weight. Or you could imagine a situation where high food availability causes parents to lay down epigenetic markers that cause their offspring to avoid gaining weight. Or a situation where high food availability cause parents to lay down epigenetic markers to suppress melanin production and produce lighter fur (although I have no idea why such a system would ever evolve). The point is, there's no necessary connection between the parent trait and the offspring trait. There can be a similarity, but there doesn't have to be. It just depends on what sort of adaptations the organism has.

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chazwomaq t1_iwqq18i wrote

Lysenkoism and Lamarckism are not the same as epigenetic inheritance and are entirely wrong.

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humanspeech t1_iwpr4nx wrote

Depends. More recently we tend to cooperate, but one of the reasons why Europe had such a rapid industrialization era is because they borrowed the basics from neighboring countries.

When countries are at war, they usually give their Ally their scientific discoveries to keep up the pace. Like you said the US & USSR are great examples of these.

But then you have stuff like library of Alexandria, or really a lot of the colleges/schools built in the old world which shows for the most part we probably were exchanging knowledge for a very long time.

Knowledge is highly prized in the Middle East so it makes sense that’s where a lot of the exchanges uses to happen.

Calculus is a good example of people discovering things on their own. Newton & Leibinz technically found out about it at the same time, Leibinz just popularized it.

Results might have different methods that lead up to their discovery due to different ethical guidelines and that’s when you can argue two people discovered things at different times. It’s truly one of the reasons we have to file patents and why patent law is soooo lucrative.

Idk if this helps 😶‍🌫️

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