Peter Watson argues the great intellectual forces of the 20thC were science, free-market economics and mass media. He writes:
That is not say; of course, that science or free-market economics, or the mass media were entirely twentieth century phenomena; they were not. But there were important aspects of the twentieth century which meant that each of these forces took on a new potency, which only emerged for all to see in the 1920s.With science the different disciplines started to come together and combine into new descriptions which cumulatively left new technologies in its wake; physics joined with chemistry as the electron was explored and physics met chemistry and biology as the DNA molecule was theorized. Mathematics, geology, cosmology, biology, genetics, linguistics, anthropology, economics and sociology all bled into each other adding new authority to science as it provided increasingly accurate and resilient descriptions of the world, past, present and evolutionary. Social organization counts in progress; and currently the scientific method, liberal democracy and free markets are the most efficient forms of organization for progress and democratization of wealth and knowledge. The advantages this gives has left much of the non-western world rushing to catch up to the inherent advantages these forms of organization give. Watson writes:
Finally in considering this evolution of knowledge forms, think back to the link between science, free-markets and liberal democracy ... The relevance and importance of that link is brought home in this book by the dearth of non-Western thinkers.This will change as more and more nations adopt the very successful forms of knowledge, political and market organization that the West has been using. The issue of course is that the three major forms of organization the West has been using are eminently modifiable at their core. It may be like Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Everytime Achilles reached where the Tortoise had been when he set out, the tortoise had moved again.
