it also pattern-matches very strongly to the “scientific racism” of the 19th and early 20th century.
Part of the issue is that as far as I know said “scientific racism” was never scientifically discredited (the underlying facts may even be true). It was simply socially discredited in a “this leads to genocide and other horrible things” kind of way and a memetic immune system was set up to fight these memes. However, as mentioned in the linked article said immune system is no match for rational thought.
When it appears that an intellectual edifice has been constructed to portray as necessary a particular status-quo — in the case of scientific racism, that of slavery and subjugation by race — we may reasonably suspect that the overturning of those social conditions is all the disproof that is needed to overthrow the entire edifice of rationalization, too.
Imagine that there exists a complicated, deeply explained theory to explain why no green-eyed, black-haired person has ever been, or ever will be, elected president. And then one is. The theory is not merely socially discredited; it is empirically disproven.
Scientific racism was concocted to explain curious observations such as that black people liked to run away from slavery and sometimes did not work as hard as they could for a slave-master.
I feel I should point out that these two examples are pretty lame examples: they were proposed by the same guy, before Francis Galton (generally considered the father or grandfather of any genuinely scientific racism), have never been used by any except anti-racists, and indeed, were widely mocked at the time.
To claim that they are an example of a motivating problem in scientific racism is roughly like someone in 2170 saying TimeCube was a motivating problem in the development of a since-discredited stringy theory.
I think the Time Cube example is almost certainly an exaggeration, although I admit you probably know more on the subject than me. Do you have a more … typical … example?
Speaking from my 2170th perspective, I must point out that Time Cube was perfectly standard 20th century physics: it was distributed on their premier form of scholarly communication the Internet, was carefully documented in the very first versions of Wikipedia (indicating the regard it was held in by contemporaries), it dealt with standard topics of 20th century American discourse, conspiracy theories (which thankfully we have moved beyond), it was widely cited and discussed as recent citation analyses have proven, and finally, the author lectured and taught at the only surviving center of American learning, MIT.
The historical case is simply open and shut! This isn’t a random layman myth like Nixon mentoring Obama and running dirty tricks in his first election (as every informed historian knows, Nixon was of the Greens while Obama bin Laden, of course, was a Blue).
Except Time Cube is incomprehensible gibberish, not just wrong. But I’m not saying that it was actually mainstream, you understand.
Also, that’s a really good “2170th perspective”. I can’t argue with that. Unless, of course, you’re saying our understanding of recent history is quite as bad as the closing paragraph there.
Except Time Cube is incomprehensible gibberish, not just wrong. But I’m not saying that it was actually mainstream, you understand.
I’m not sure we could say anything better of Isaac Newton’s alchemy.
Unless, of course, you’re saying our understanding of recent history is quite as bad as the closing paragraph there.
Popular understanding can be pretty bad. The more I read in history, the more I realized I didn’t understand the past anywhere near as well as I thought I did; revelations ranging from spherical earths to gay presidents to the Founding Fathers being conspiracy theorists etc. I don’t put much stock on understanding well the context of the racist who was originally being discussed, although enough information survives that I can point out discrediting parts.
I’m not sure we could say anything better of Isaac Newton’s alchemy.
Which, while of some minor historical significance, is not considered mainstream science AFAIK.
Popular understanding can be pretty bad. The more I read in history, the more I realized I didn’t understand the past anywhere near as well as I thought I did; revelations ranging from spherical earths to gay presidents to the Founding Fathers being conspiracy theorists etc. I don’t put much stock on understanding well the context of the racist who was originally being discussed, although enough information survives that I can point out discrediting parts.
Fair enough.
Wait, spherical earths I assume refers to the notion that Columbus was a visionary who somehow deduced the Earth was round before even sailors did, and while I couldn’t name names statistically a few presidents must have been in the closet at least. But I have to admit I’m not sure what you mean by “the Founding Fathers being conspiracy theorists”.
Actually the spherical earth was described by the 2nd century (AD or CE) Greek, Ptolemy (who unfortunately is best remembered for describing the phenomena of the sky in terms of concentric spheres around the earth, which led to planetary orbits having the infamous epicycles). Ptolemy not only stated but fairly well demonstrated the earth’s circularity and gave a reasonable (for the time) estimate of its size. The educated classes in Columbus’ time hence from my readings, were well aware that the earth was sperical.
What Columbus did, was to read Marco Polo, and from Polo’s estimates of the various legs of his journey, and whatever else he had to go on, miscalculated that Japan was around 3000 miles west of Europe, and so, proposed the daring idea of sailing farther than one could hope to return from (if it turned out you were still in the middle of the ocean) because he believed he’d reach Japan and and be able to repair the ships and take on new food, water, and supplies, for the return journey. I guess he hoped for a reasonably friendly reception.
While Japan wasn’t about 3000 miles west of Europe, lucky for Columbus, something was there—of the 2 oceans one would have to cross to reach Japan (plus one continent), he only had to cross the more narrow one, and such human society as he found were not a threat to a well armed group of 15c Europeans (to say the least).
Most obviously, ascribing it to Ptolemy seems like a pretty serious error given Eratosthenes’s famed and remarkably accurate calculation of the diameter of the earth centuries before.
Right, but deism then had roughly the same social / religious status as modern atheism does. He was certainly attacked as an infidel during the elections, and as the story goes, the pious buried their Bibles at news of his election, for fear that the new administration would take them away.
Given how many Founding Father types were deists, I suspect that they didn’t have ‘roughly’ the same status. Were there contemporary presidents saying of deists that “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be” (to quote Bush)?
I think that the number and public perception of atheists have both significantly improved since the H.W. Bush years.
I think someone running for president today who listed their religious affiliation as “deist” or said things like “I think Jesus’s morality is a good one, but he wasn’t divine and miracles don’t happen” would be considered basically an atheist by the people who would react negatively because of that.
I think the modern analogues of the Founding Fathers as a group are not presidents but public intellectuals, and atheists are very overrepresented among public intellectuals (perhaps even the majority). That public intellectuals then were mostly areligious shouldn’t be that odd when comparing with now.
I think that the number and public perception of atheists have both significantly improved since the H.W. Bush years.
I wasn’t really around for Bush, but I haven’t noticed any improvement. What makes you think that?
would be considered basically an atheist by the people who would react negatively because of that.
Romney did fine, despite believe pretty darn weird things by Christian standards.
I think the modern analogues of the Founding Fathers as a group are not presidents but public intellectuals, and atheists are very overrepresented among public intellectuals (perhaps even the majority).
I’ll believe that as soon as the next 4 presidents or so are public intellectuals, and a bunch of public intellectuals draft a new Constitution and get the states to approve it etc.
Stuff like this, though I’m having trouble getting access to the historical poll data.
I’ll believe that as soon as the next 4 presidents or so are public intellectuals, and a bunch of public intellectuals draft a new Constitution and get the states to approve it etc.
My model was that the sort of person who would become a memorable Founding Father in the 1700s is the sort of person who would become a public intellectual in the 2000s, and that atheism is more strongly linked by personal temperament than public position. I think the early American presidents were very different from the ones we have now, and so it’s not clear which comparisons carve reality at the joints.
(It’s not clear to me what point you would concede if an atheist president was identified.)
Alchemy in general, yes. But Newton was less than generous with his science at the best of times; with the already secretive alchemy, he wasn’t exactly publishing peer-reviewed articles.
Part of the issue is that as far as I know said “scientific racism” was never scientifically discredited (the underlying facts may even be true). It was simply socially discredited in a “this leads to genocide and other horrible things” kind of way and a memetic immune system was set up to fight these memes. However, as mentioned in the linked article said immune system is no match for rational thought.
When it appears that an intellectual edifice has been constructed to portray as necessary a particular status-quo — in the case of scientific racism, that of slavery and subjugation by race — we may reasonably suspect that the overturning of those social conditions is all the disproof that is needed to overthrow the entire edifice of rationalization, too.
Imagine that there exists a complicated, deeply explained theory to explain why no green-eyed, black-haired person has ever been, or ever will be, elected president. And then one is. The theory is not merely socially discredited; it is empirically disproven.
Scientific racism was concocted to explain curious observations such as that black people liked to run away from slavery and sometimes did not work as hard as they could for a slave-master. These curiosities are better explained by modern evolutionary psychology, with its notion of the psychological unity of mankind, than by the convoluted rationalizations created to justify past systems of social relations.
I feel I should point out that these two examples are pretty lame examples: they were proposed by the same guy, before Francis Galton (generally considered the father or grandfather of any genuinely scientific racism), have never been used by any except anti-racists, and indeed, were widely mocked at the time.
To claim that they are an example of a motivating problem in scientific racism is roughly like someone in 2170 saying TimeCube was a motivating problem in the development of a since-discredited stringy theory.
I think the Time Cube example is almost certainly an exaggeration, although I admit you probably know more on the subject than me. Do you have a more … typical … example?
I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration.
Speaking from my 2170th perspective, I must point out that Time Cube was perfectly standard 20th century physics: it was distributed on their premier form of scholarly communication the Internet, was carefully documented in the very first versions of Wikipedia (indicating the regard it was held in by contemporaries), it dealt with standard topics of 20th century American discourse, conspiracy theories (which thankfully we have moved beyond), it was widely cited and discussed as recent citation analyses have proven, and finally, the author lectured and taught at the only surviving center of American learning, MIT.
The historical case is simply open and shut! This isn’t a random layman myth like Nixon mentoring Obama and running dirty tricks in his first election (as every informed historian knows, Nixon was of the Greens while Obama bin Laden, of course, was a Blue).
Except Time Cube is incomprehensible gibberish, not just wrong. But I’m not saying that it was actually mainstream, you understand.
Also, that’s a really good “2170th perspective”. I can’t argue with that. Unless, of course, you’re saying our understanding of recent history is quite as bad as the closing paragraph there.
I’m not sure we could say anything better of Isaac Newton’s alchemy.
Popular understanding can be pretty bad. The more I read in history, the more I realized I didn’t understand the past anywhere near as well as I thought I did; revelations ranging from spherical earths to gay presidents to the Founding Fathers being conspiracy theorists etc. I don’t put much stock on understanding well the context of the racist who was originally being discussed, although enough information survives that I can point out discrediting parts.
Which, while of some minor historical significance, is not considered mainstream science AFAIK.
Fair enough.
Wait, spherical earths I assume refers to the notion that Columbus was a visionary who somehow deduced the Earth was round before even sailors did, and while I couldn’t name names statistically a few presidents must have been in the closet at least. But I have to admit I’m not sure what you mean by “the Founding Fathers being conspiracy theorists”.
Actually the spherical earth was described by the 2nd century (AD or CE) Greek, Ptolemy (who unfortunately is best remembered for describing the phenomena of the sky in terms of concentric spheres around the earth, which led to planetary orbits having the infamous epicycles). Ptolemy not only stated but fairly well demonstrated the earth’s circularity and gave a reasonable (for the time) estimate of its size. The educated classes in Columbus’ time hence from my readings, were well aware that the earth was sperical.
What Columbus did, was to read Marco Polo, and from Polo’s estimates of the various legs of his journey, and whatever else he had to go on, miscalculated that Japan was around 3000 miles west of Europe, and so, proposed the daring idea of sailing farther than one could hope to return from (if it turned out you were still in the middle of the ocean) because he believed he’d reach Japan and and be able to repair the ships and take on new food, water, and supplies, for the return journey. I guess he hoped for a reasonably friendly reception.
While Japan wasn’t about 3000 miles west of Europe, lucky for Columbus, something was there—of the 2 oceans one would have to cross to reach Japan (plus one continent), he only had to cross the more narrow one, and such human society as he found were not a threat to a well armed group of 15c Europeans (to say the least).
Why is this down voted? I don’t see any obvious inaccuracy. It elaborates nicely on Mugasofer’s point.
Edit: and now it isn’t down voted. I’m still confused why it ever was.
Most obviously, ascribing it to Ptolemy seems like a pretty serious error given Eratosthenes’s famed and remarkably accurate calculation of the diameter of the earth centuries before.
Fair enough. But that’s the type of thing a solitary silent down vote will essentially never communicate.
Indeed. The remark about Ptolemy is even accurate, as far as it goes.
Alchemy was far more mainstream than, say, ‘chemistry’.
The gay president would be Buchanan, and as for conspiracy theorists, well, that’s the shortest summary. See http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution
Buchanan won a three-way election as a compromise candidate, so don’t draw any sweeping conclusions from his single term!
Name an atheist president who won any election at all, and I’ll concede the point.
Jefferson, kind of?
Pfft. He’d be the first to say he was a deist.
Right, but deism then had roughly the same social / religious status as modern atheism does. He was certainly attacked as an infidel during the elections, and as the story goes, the pious buried their Bibles at news of his election, for fear that the new administration would take them away.
Given how many Founding Father types were deists, I suspect that they didn’t have ‘roughly’ the same status. Were there contemporary presidents saying of deists that “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be” (to quote Bush)?
Three points:
I think that the number and public perception of atheists have both significantly improved since the H.W. Bush years.
I think someone running for president today who listed their religious affiliation as “deist” or said things like “I think Jesus’s morality is a good one, but he wasn’t divine and miracles don’t happen” would be considered basically an atheist by the people who would react negatively because of that.
I think the modern analogues of the Founding Fathers as a group are not presidents but public intellectuals, and atheists are very overrepresented among public intellectuals (perhaps even the majority). That public intellectuals then were mostly areligious shouldn’t be that odd when comparing with now.
I wasn’t really around for Bush, but I haven’t noticed any improvement. What makes you think that?
Romney did fine, despite believe pretty darn weird things by Christian standards.
I’ll believe that as soon as the next 4 presidents or so are public intellectuals, and a bunch of public intellectuals draft a new Constitution and get the states to approve it etc.
Stuff like this, though I’m having trouble getting access to the historical poll data.
My model was that the sort of person who would become a memorable Founding Father in the 1700s is the sort of person who would become a public intellectual in the 2000s, and that atheism is more strongly linked by personal temperament than public position. I think the early American presidents were very different from the ones we have now, and so it’s not clear which comparisons carve reality at the joints.
(It’s not clear to me what point you would concede if an atheist president was identified.)
Alchemy in general, yes. But Newton was less than generous with his science at the best of times; with the already secretive alchemy, he wasn’t exactly publishing peer-reviewed articles.
Thanks for the history trivia :)
Well come on, it’s not like Newton’s alchemy was noticeably more nonsensical than regular alchemy!