As in the Roman empire age, the theoretical concepts, taken out of the theories assigning their meaning and considered instead real objects, whose existence can be apparent only to the initiated people, are used to amaze the public. In physics courses the student (now unaware of the experimental basis of heliocentrism or of atomic theory, accepted on the sole basis of the authority principle) gets addicted to a complex and mysterious mythology, with orbitals undergoing hybridization, elusive quarks, voracious and disquieting black holes and a creating Big Bang: objects introduced, all of them, in theories totally unknown to him and having no understandable relation with any phenomenon he may have access to.
Some people will always have to take most of natural science on authority. Sure you can make that sound bad, but to me it sounds like “children take 9*9=81 on authority! spoooooky.”
I enjoyed the book a lot. It’s true that the author reads Hellenic scientists in the most favorable possible light while reading Renaissance scientists in the least favorable possible light. But he gives extensive quotations from the available sources, so that you can judge for yourself whether his interpretations are stretched.
Lucio Russo, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn
Some people will always have to take most of natural science on authority. Sure you can make that sound bad, but to me it sounds like “children take 9*9=81 on authority! spoooooky.”
Ye gots to wiggle yer fingers when ye say it.
A “preview” electronic version of this book is available through the translator’s website here: http://www.msri.org/~levy/files/russo/
I enjoyed the book a lot. It’s true that the author reads Hellenic scientists in the most favorable possible light while reading Renaissance scientists in the least favorable possible light. But he gives extensive quotations from the available sources, so that you can judge for yourself whether his interpretations are stretched.