why do people living today disagree on whether Roman engineering progressed or regressed from Greek engineering?
Because our information about the engineering of those times is very incomplete. We can look at surviving artifacts, but the available engineering texts from that era are a very small random sample of their knowledge.
about whether the Renaissance was a period of scientific progress or regress?
I was not aware that this is a contested issue. Links?
they may well disagree about the future
The question of whether the science has stalled is a question about the present (and immediate past). If you want a prediction of whether science will stall in the future, that’s an entirely different thing.
I already gave you an example of Renaissance regress. Here is a longer essay. Added: Here is someone even more negative about the Renaissance, although I’m not sure where he expressed that opinion except in his book (one book; two titles).
The example of Giotto is an anecdote of art technique, not regression of engineering.
And I don’t think the essay claims actual regression (unless I missed it), it basically says that if you define Renaissance narrowly (1453-1564) then the intellectual achievements during that century are curiously lacking. As the author puts it, “everything came to a stop”, though he spends a lot of time looking at literature, art, and philosophy. The Black Death is mentioned as a likely contributing cause.
But so what? Technological progress is not a smooth process, it moves in fits and jerks. Besides, it’s multifaceted—some chunks of technology develop faster, some slower, some are stuck for a while in the same place, etc. Even if you are having problem figuring out whether a particular century deserves a “Progress” or a “Regress” label, why does it matter?
P.S. The little note saying (emphasis mine) “For an account of the history of ideas free of anti-medieval prejudice, see my...” at the bottom of the essay is not a good sign.
Sure, if numbers are close to zero, it can be hard to tell if they are positive or negative. But I claim that there is substantial disagreement. If metrics live in a high dimensional space, the judgement can be sensitive to choice of projection, but neither is that responsible for the disagreements.
P.S. The little note saying (emphasis mine) “For an account of the history of ideas free of anti-medieval prejudice, see my...” at the bottom of the essay is not a good sign.
You asked me to document a controversy. That quote is a good sign for your purpose. I happen to believe that the Franklin is correct and the conventional wisdom is incorrect, but that is another matter. I added a link to Hannan, who has an even more extreme view that I do not endorse.
True, I accept that. The reason I said that is not a good sign is because it indicates he has an axe to grind and might be more interested in proving his point than in figuring out what actually happened.
On the basis of a brief look at your links, it seems to me that the controversy is really about, ahem, status of different historical periods. The people you quote think that Renaissance is overvalued, overexposed, overestimated, etc. while the late Medieval period is ignored and vilified. That might well be so, I have no opinion on the topic, but it’s rather peripheral to your main topic of technological stagnation.
But I claim that there is substantial disagreement.
I suspect that a large part of that disagreement concerns what people are looking at. Once you give hard-edged definitions to the metrics you’re interested in, much of it will go away. But if everyone is handwaving and implicitly or explicitly defining things in the way most advantageous to them, there could be much ado about nothing.
Because our information about the engineering of those times is very incomplete. We can look at surviving artifacts, but the available engineering texts from that era are a very small random sample of their knowledge.
I was not aware that this is a contested issue. Links?
The question of whether the science has stalled is a question about the present (and immediate past). If you want a prediction of whether science will stall in the future, that’s an entirely different thing.
I already gave you an example of Renaissance regress. Here is a longer essay.
Added: Here is someone even more negative about the Renaissance, although I’m not sure where he expressed that opinion except in his book (one book; two titles).
The example of Giotto is an anecdote of art technique, not regression of engineering.
And I don’t think the essay claims actual regression (unless I missed it), it basically says that if you define Renaissance narrowly (1453-1564) then the intellectual achievements during that century are curiously lacking. As the author puts it, “everything came to a stop”, though he spends a lot of time looking at literature, art, and philosophy. The Black Death is mentioned as a likely contributing cause.
But so what? Technological progress is not a smooth process, it moves in fits and jerks. Besides, it’s multifaceted—some chunks of technology develop faster, some slower, some are stuck for a while in the same place, etc. Even if you are having problem figuring out whether a particular century deserves a “Progress” or a “Regress” label, why does it matter?
P.S. The little note saying (emphasis mine) “For an account of the history of ideas free of anti-medieval prejudice, see my...” at the bottom of the essay is not a good sign.
Sure, if numbers are close to zero, it can be hard to tell if they are positive or negative. But I claim that there is substantial disagreement. If metrics live in a high dimensional space, the judgement can be sensitive to choice of projection, but neither is that responsible for the disagreements.
You asked me to document a controversy. That quote is a good sign for your purpose. I happen to believe that the Franklin is correct and the conventional wisdom is incorrect, but that is another matter. I added a link to Hannan, who has an even more extreme view that I do not endorse.
True, I accept that. The reason I said that is not a good sign is because it indicates he has an axe to grind and might be more interested in proving his point than in figuring out what actually happened.
On the basis of a brief look at your links, it seems to me that the controversy is really about, ahem, status of different historical periods. The people you quote think that Renaissance is overvalued, overexposed, overestimated, etc. while the late Medieval period is ignored and vilified. That might well be so, I have no opinion on the topic, but it’s rather peripheral to your main topic of technological stagnation.
I suspect that a large part of that disagreement concerns what people are looking at. Once you give hard-edged definitions to the metrics you’re interested in, much of it will go away. But if everyone is handwaving and implicitly or explicitly defining things in the way most advantageous to them, there could be much ado about nothing.