Ferguson compared and contrasted how the West's "killer apps" allowed the West to triumph over "the Rest" citing examples. Ferguson argued the rowdy and savage competition between European merchants created far more wealth than did the static and ordered society of Qing China. Tolerance extended to thinkers like Sir Isaac Newton in Stuart England had no counterpart in the Ottoman Empire, where Takiyuddin's "blasphemous" observatory was demolished for contradicting the teachings of Islam. This ensured that Western civilization was capable of making scientific advances that Islamic civilization never could. Respect for private property was far stronger in British America than it ever was in Spanish America, which led to the United States and Canada becoming prosperous societies while Latin America was and remains mired in poverty.