The American Civil War was nothing like the Chinese civil wars of the 19th and 20th centuries. America industrialized almost directly as a consequence of the war, and in some sense it was an economic war of the industrial north conquering the agrarian south. Really not comparable to the chaotic situation that happened in China, with warlords, foreign interventions, etc.

And scientific thinking is very much a consequence of cultural trends in Europe, many of which were explicitly religious in nature.