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Critical acclaim
Needham's Science and Civilisation in China did not receive criticism from scholars in other fields of study.

Groff Conklin of Galaxy Science Fiction in 1955 said that Vol. 1 "presents a richly patterned tapestry of the development of civilization in the Far East", and that "it is for everyone who is intrigued by the unknown, whether future (science fiction) or past (scientific history)".

Jonathan Spence wrote in a 1982 New York Times article "this work is the most ambitious undertaking in Chinese studies during this century".

The New York Times obituary for Needham stated that those educated in China hail Dr. Needham's encyclopedia and compare him to Charles Darwin in terms of importance regarding scientific knowledge.

According to Dr. Arun Bala, the author of The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science, Needham postulates that scientific knowledge may evolve to more closely resemble Chinese philosophical views of nature; signifying his belief in Chinese inherent wisdom.

In 1999 Derk Bodde published Beyond Science and Civilization: A Post-Needham Critique giving more analysis of Needham's work about how sciences of the West and China differed in practice to make for different historical attributes.