"And some are in the dark and others are in the light. And you only see those in the light, you don't see those in the dark." This can be heard or read in Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, and what was meant in the theater as a reference to social grievances and the unfair distribution of wealth can also be applied to the history of science, as the British historian James Poskett has worked out in his book on "the global history of science", which he has given the title "Horizons".
Nobody disputes that "the birth of modern science is to be found in Europe", as scholars have written - at the beginning of the 17th century - and anyone interested will know that Copernicus was Polish, Newton English, Kepler German, Descartes French, Huygens Dutch and Galileo Italian, to name but a few. But this does not tell the whole story of science, as has become increasingly clear in recent decades as historical research has tracked down many heroes in the darkness of developments. The Europeans did not travel alone. On the contrary, they benefited greatly from non-European progress and insights.
For example, when Copernicus presented his famous Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies in book form in 1543 and placed the sun at the center of the then known world instead of the earth, he quoted five Muslim scholars to support his arguments. Among others, Copernicus drew on the work of the Syrian mathematician Thabit ibn Qurra and the Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, from whom Copernicus even borrowed a diagram. When Newton developed his ideas on gravity in the late 17th century, he drew on observations made in Asia, Africa and America.
There are many researchers in the darkness of global history - Mexican geneticists, Indian chemists, biologists from Ghana - and perhaps every effort should be made to make the heroes in the background better known in order to arouse more interest in science worldwide and encourage everyone to contribute to it. After all, they've been doing it all along. For a future worth living in, the world's population needs all the science that can be generated. Its light must also reach those who have so far remained in the dark. That's the way to see better.
