How the west got healthy and prosperous (Paul Driessen - CFACT)

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Link: http://www.cfact.org/2016/06/04/how-the-west-got-healthy-and-prosperous/ See the original article at the link above.

How the West got healthy and prosperous How can it be that – after countless millennia of malnutrition, disease, wretched poverty and early death – so many mostly western nations became healthy and prosperous in just 200 years? Matt Ridley says “ideas started having sex.” Deidre McCloskey opines that equality of social dignity and before the law emboldened people to invest, invent and take risks. Both are absolutely true. However, as I discuss in this week’s article, a number of other essential factors also played key roles: foremost among them the scientific method and abundant, reliable, affordable energy, primarily from fossil fuels. The results were astounding – so much so that today the big question is, How have so many governments succeeded in preventing prosperity from happening? Thank you for posting my informative and entertaining article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues. Best regards, Paul Driessen June 4, 2016 NOTE: For posting on efn-usa.org website all hot links have been removed. Information has been provided on how to find the most important ones.

How the West got healthy and prosperous Vital ingredients included the scientific method and fossil fuels – truths we forget at our peril Several years ago, physician, statistician, sword swallower and vibrant lecturer Hans Rosling produced a fascinating 4-minute video that presented 120,000 data points and showcased how mostly western nations became healthy and prosperous in just 200 years – after countless millennia of malnutrition, disease, wretched poverty and early death. See this video on efn-usa.org. Search for keyword "Rosling". More recently, professor of history and economics Deidre McCloskey provided some clues as to why and how this happened. In a Wall Street Journal article outlining “how the West (and the rest) got rich,” she notes that it wasn’t just Karl Marx’s “exploited page 1


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