Needham’s Grand Question and the History of Chinese Science and Technology
Needham’s Grand Question was proposed by the modern British scholar Joseph Needham in his Science and Civilization in China. The theme of the Needham’s Grand Question is: “Although ancient China made many important contributions to the development of human science and technology, why did the scientific and industrial revolution not occur in modern China?” As a scholar who has deeply studied Chinese history, Joseph Needham proposed this puzzle which accurately summarizes the history of science and technology in China.
As one of the four ancient civilizations, Chinese four major inventions played an important role not only in China itself, but also in the whole world’s development. For example, gunpowder put the world into the hot war era and printing promoted the spread of western religion. In the Song Dynasty, China’s technological level reached the peak in the world at that time. It was at that time that China’s famous comprehensive science and technology book, Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature), was written. In addition, as early as 1405, in the same time as Dias and Columbus, Zheng He, who lived in the Ming Dynasty of China, led the fleet to Sumatra, the Red Sea and other places to spread Chinese culture.
But after the middle of the 17th century, Chinese science and technology stagnated. From the 6th century to the beginning of the 17th century, Chinese major scientific and technological achievements accounted for more than 54% of these in the world, but by the 19th century, it plummeted to 0.4%. According to Joseph Needham, this mostly resulted from three aspects. First, China did not have a natural view that was suitable for scientific growth. Second, Chinese people paid too much attention to practicality, many discoveries were stuck in the experience stage, but people did not go deeper to explore. Third, people were immersed in reading books related to exam in order to pass it and gain fame and fortune. In this way, excellent and knowledgeable people focused on morality and literature, and few people put everything down to study science.
In modern times, China began to pay attention to science and technology. The military industry and steel making gradually progressed. After the end of the World War I, the May Fourth Movement advocated democracy and science, and the idea of science began to spread widely. In this environment, Chinese students studying in the United States organized the China Science Association and founded Science Journal. The first Chinese scientist group was born. Since then, Chinese technology has been no longer isolated from the world. A number of outstanding scientists have emerged in China. Gradually, Chinese technology can compete with the most advanced technology in the world.
Cardinal Scientific Discoveries in China
In recent years, China’s science and technology have developed more rapidly, and there have been many surprising new discoveries. But in fact, decades ago, China had already shocked the world in terms of technology.
Insulin is the only hormone in human’s body that can lower blood sugar, which has a good effect on the treatment of diabetes. In the 1920s, American Lilly Pharmaceuticals began extracting insulin from animals and mass-producing it. However, with the increase of the number of people with diabetes, insulin that was purely animal-derived was no longer sufficient. Therefore, scientists began to study synthetic insulin. In 1963, Panayotis Katsoyannis at the University of Pittsburgh first chemically synthesized bovine insulin; Helmut Zahn at the Aachen University also achieved it. However, although the two scientists succeeded in synthesizing, the products of this composite they made were very inactive and could not be used to treat diabetes. Finally, China first synthesized bovine insulin crystals in 1965. After purification, the artificial insulin bioactivity reached 80% of natural insulin. It was pointed out in the 1966 Science journal that Katsoyannis and Zahn had some difficulties in refactoring two peptide chains insulin in which disulfide bond had been reduced and split, and restoring its bioactivity. It was the Chinese who took the lead in improving the method to solve this problem. Although this achievement did not win the Nobel Prize, it has really helped many patients suffering from diabetes.
China won the Nobel Prize in Science for the first time in 2015 in the field of physical medicine. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to a Chinese woman scientist named Tu Youyou. In the 1960s, it was very difficult for malaria patients to be cured. In 1969, Tu Youyou served as the representative of the malaria research group of the Beijing Institute of Chinese Medicine. Because the official remedies were not effective, they worked to collect prescriptions from the folk remedies that were used to treat this terrible disease, and utilized advanced equipment and techniques to separate and purify the parts that could be used as pharmaceuticals. In the end, they sorted out 808 kinds of Chinese herbal medicines that might be effective.
At first, researchers did not believe that artemisinin could be used for treatment of malaria because its inhibition of plasmodium was extremely unstable. However, they had been inspired by the ancient Chinese medical writing, The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies written by Ge Hong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The book wrote that the ancients would make the plant of Artemisia annua smashed as a medicament. Therefore, Tu Youyou’s team used ether to extract artemisinin from Artemisia annua. The artemisinin produced by this method had a 100% therapeutic effect on Plasmodium berghei and Plasmodium cyomolgi. In order to make this effective drug accessible to the whole world earlier, the team members even volunteered to conduct medical experiments on their own bodies. Today, 40 years later, artemisinin is still the first choice for the treatment of malaria. The discovery of artemisinin has helped thousands of malaria patients, which is a gift of Chinese medicine to the world as a whole.
Yuan Longping: The Father of Hybrid Rice and His Contributions
The old man in the picture is Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, who has helped all Chinese people solve the problem of food.
In 1960, when Yuan Longping was a teacher at an agricultural school, he found a rice plant with different traits in the experimental field of the school. After planting the seeds of this rice plant, he found that it was a natural hybrid rice plant. At that time, people in many regions of China were experiencing severe famine. Yuan Longping understood that he must use agricultural technology to defeat the threat of famine. In the next few years, Yuan Longping had been doing cross-breeding experiments in rice fields.
In 1966, Yuan Longping published his first paper which was highly valued by officials, and also led his research to be supported by the government. However, two years later, more than 700 seedlings he tested in the field died and nobody knew why. Although people around him advised him to give up, he insisted on finding the remaining intact seedlings and continued to conduct research. Finally, in 1974, the first high-yielding hybrid rice variety was bred. Two years later, China began to promote hybrid rice cultivation on a large scale. This kind of rice’s yield was about 20% higher than that of conventional rice.
In the next few years, Yuan Longping became busier. In addition to expanding the plantation area of hybrid rice, he continued to study rice varieties that were more advantageous, such as species having higher yields or species that could grow in seawater. If these species could be really cultivated, China can increase its grain production to 50 billion kilograms a year, and these foods can feed more than 200 million people. Yuan Longping also went to India, Vietnam and other countries to teach the rice technology to help local people solve the problem of starvation. Because of his persistence and dedication, and his outstanding contribution to the country and the world, the government awarded Yuan Longping National Science and Technology Award.
Up to now, China’s hybrid rice has been promoted in more than 30 countries and regions around the world, with an area of 1.5 million hectares, which has contributed greatly to the reduction of hunger in the world. Some people even regard hybrid rice as the fifth largest invention after China’s four major inventions, and call it the “second green revolution.”
