youtube for the day/James Burke's Connections episode 4; faith in numbers

Maybe some word about all these videos.  I find that some people have covered different aspects and time periods of humanities development from ignorance to knowledge; i like to watch them in some order.  Around this time period . . . the transition from the Roman times to the so called dark ages . . . is a bit messy.  It gets hard to put these videos in historical order.  But, I'll try my best.
- As I've described in my "origin and nature of mathematical knowledge", I've noticed some common connections that reminds me of what Jacob Bronowski says in his "Origin of Knowledge and Imagination."  I've always noticed that the pattern of mathematical development matches the pattern of the history of, well at least, western civilization. I'd further argue that understanding the real nature of mathematics gives an understanding of the human mind. It can also give an account of social and psychological problems; people over/under generalize and don't question assumptions(axiomatics).
-I think posting James Burke's "Connections" and "The Day the Universe Changed" is doubly appropriate here because this period from roman times through at least 1000A.D. when an initial Renaissance happened; it was kind of short circuited by a Plague . . . well, my point is that there wasn't much mathematics done in this period.
-There was some mathematics done during this middle ages.  It was done by the Indians in India and then the Arabs in Toledo and Corboda Spain.  Well, let's just say that the Arabians did mathematics more than anybody else during the medieval period. If you look at the historical periods from as far back in time to now on this website http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/index.html , you should see quite clearly that the names of the mathematicians before the dark ages were Greek, and then during the middle ages, Arabian names.  And, around Renaissance times, European names.  It's quite clear the case that mathematics is done by cultures that approve it.  What's further remarkable about all this is how different cultures take to different mathematics. The Greeks prefered to geometrize everything even their algebra.  And because they couldn't think past the third dimension, they didn't consider equations past the third degree! The Arabs took to the Indians zero and place value system.  This little mathematical development alone relegated Greek mathematics to the dustbin of history!
People will say the Arabs didn't do any mathematics beyond commentary and translating algebra to the India place value system. The fact is that without this symbolic system, algebra could not be seen apart from the geometric.  The arabs created 'algebra.' 
Part of what I've tried to say but could not till I got to this point is that people to often do great things in a particular way.  They have certain advantages but also disadvantages.  It usually takes a dark ages to break the social bounds.  I'm trying to argue that mathematics is the general point of view - viewed the right way.  This is different from societies not doing the rational thing because they're mixed up with the irrational; this is another social problem.