Let's Give The Muslims A Day Off

[Pyrrho]

The answer to your question is not fully known, nor is what is known universally agreed upon.  However, here is an attempt at answering it; I will give the Wikipedia article first to give you the rough idea, but you might want to watch the show or read the book if you are very interested in the question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Thanks, that is a good book I read it a long time ago, but I should read it again. I read one of that author's more recent books about environmental disasters that was also good ("Collapse").

Your question reminds me of the question of why the ancient Greeks advanced civilization so much.  It, too, is a matter that is debated and is not fully understood.  Here is an introduction to the idea:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-31981.html

That's true. The ideas of the Greeks are even more surprising. Maybe it is simply that Greek ideas were better preserved due to the dominance of Hellenism later. I guess I should read the thread.  

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These kinds of questions are very complex and troublesome, not the kinds of things that give easy answers, at least not easy answers that are reasonable.  Certainly, the ancient Greeks had a lot to do with the Enlightenment, as their ancient texts were "rediscovered" and valued by European intellectuals.

The simple, racist ideas are obvious nonsense.  The Greeks have not done anything as influential in the past 1000 years as the ancient Greeks did, and at the time of the ancient Greeks and the even earlier civilizations, the white people in Europe were wearing animal skins and scratching themselves.  The white people of those times were primitive and backward.  The earliest civilizations were in Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, India, and China.  Or in other words, people who are not "white."  It is not that one "race" was ahead all the time.  In the case of the earliest civilizations, they all flourished near a major river(s) that was an essential ingredient, but that is only one piece of the puzzle.  Simple, complete, and accurate answers to these kinds of questions are not possible.  It is the stupid BS answers that are simple.

My guess is, if you spend the rest of your life on this question, you will never get a complete answer, even if you are particularly clever.  But you will probably get some good ideas about the matter.