Science of Discworld 4

[Dotsie]

His field is reproductive biology, not evolutionary biology, so he can spout bunkum all he likes, it just an opinion! I'm teaching a generation of scientists myself, doesn't make me right all the time (I am right all the time, but that's just not the reason ).

Fred Hoyle actually came up with a lot of useful stuff, so it's a shame he's widely remembered for the rubbish (evolution of noses, flu from Mars, scoffing at the Big Bang etc).

 

[Tonyblack]

Scientific ideas change as more proof or evidence is found. That's the amazing thing about science - it does change. It doesn't stick to strict dogma that must not be questioned.

I recently watched the box set of DVDs of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' that was made in the 80s. In several cases, Sagan had added a bit to an episode in the form of a scientific update ten years after the series aired. In these he pointed out that new evidence has since been found that, in some cases, made a bit of a nonsense to the ideas in the original show. I dare say, if he was still alive today, he'd be able to make a lot more corrections and updates to the show.

That's Science - very few things are constant. The scientist's default setting should be: I don't know.

Look at some of the ideas that were put forward about such planets as Venus and Mars that we now know are laughably wrong. But those ideas were pretty much accepted as fact in their day.

 

[Dotsie]

I found a very old astronomy textbook in a secondhand shop that talked about canals on Mars, volcanoes on the moon, and the distinct possibility of lush vegetation on Venus.

ETA scientific method doesn't change though, so ignoring it is always bad science.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I just finished the section in SOD #2 where he repeats the most astonishingly idiotic claims about ritual torture being a key driver of human evolution and throws out some totally unsupported (and, frankly, borderline anti-semitic) assumptions about Jewish genetics and culture.

Having shared a taxi to the Irish DWcon with Jack he's kind of on the backswing of atheism now in that he has good friends in clerical or general 'spiritual' circles and enjoys ritual, although he's still highly critical of some Jewish cultural traditions, but then he's more than 'lapsed' in that respect so he would be I suppose?

As a lapsed Catholic I'd certainly agree that the ritual torture thing when taken purely within clerical circles (not the Spanish or even Omnian Inquisition ) does hold some water. Self-flagellation and fasting, taken to improper extremes, make for interesting hallucinatory experiences/insights, especially when you consider that most medieval Abbeys and Friaries very often operated as breweries, or vineyards, or even dispensaries with an 'on the fly' approach to medications and some very dodgy pharmacopeia even by Borgia standards...? :shifty:

 

[raisindot]

His field is reproductive biology, not evolutionary biology, so he can spout bunkum all he likes, it just an opinion! I'm teaching a generation of scientists myself, doesn't make me right all the time (I am right all the time, but that's just not the reason ).

*Soapbox on*

I know, I know, context is everything. The problem is that people who read these books might take his bunkum seriously. If I wasn't reasonably well-read as a completely unscientific person on different theories of evolution, physics and cosmology, I might accept this bunkum verbatim, since, after all he is a Well Known Scientist (at least in Britain), and what he's writing is posing as science education, even if it is 'science entertainment.' The problem is that "This is so because I so say so" attitude is scary in many aspects.

I worry, for example, that non-Jews will conclude from his bunkum that Jews 'evolved' to become more intellectual because hundreds of years ago Jewish women only married Jews who had done well at Bar Mitzvahs (when, in fact, the Bar Mitzvah didn't exist until a couple hundred years ago and that, historically, the vast majority of Jews were uneducated, illiterate, and poor) or with this assertion that circumcision is a form or ritual torture (it isn't; the purpose of torture is to cause pain; that isn't the purpose of circumcision, any more than the piercing of ears or a tattoo), or that the genetic makeup of Cohenim are due to their women having sex with both their 'rich' Cohenim husbands and their servants (not true either, since the "Cohenim" priestly class became completely meaningless after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 69 CE and they quickly became absorbed into the general population and were neither significantly wealthier or poorer than any other Jews.

Cohen, like Dawkins, seems to want to upset the apple cart for the sake of upsetting the apple cart. The God Delusion aside, at least in Dawkin's popular science books he goes out of his way to try to prove his claims about the selfish gene and the falsehood of intelligence design by using logic and evidence. Cohen, on the other hand, at least in this book, writes with the authority and integrity of a conspiracy theorist.

*Soapbox off*

Anyway, Dr. Dotsie, I would be FAR more likely to believe anything YOU taught in your class.

 

[Dotsie]

That's cos it's all true!

 

[KnightOfFewWords]

Fantastic news - I had no idea there was going to be a 4th until I saw this thread.They serve the dual purpose of feeding my discworld addition and helping top-up my quota of popular science reading. I found the idea of "narrative pre-dating language" to be a particularly interesting one: story as a mental tool for comprehending and anticipating the world of processes and entities.

I look forward to seeing what the 4th instalment has in store.

 

[The Mad Collector]

[I worry, for example, that non-Jews will conclude from his bunkum that Jews 'evolved' to become more intellectual because hundreds of years ago Jewish women only married Jews who had done well at Bar Mitzvahs (when, in fact, the Bar Mitzvah didn't exist until a couple hundred years ago and that, historically, the vast majority of Jews were uneducated, illiterate, and poor) or with this assertion that circumcision is a form or ritual torture (it isn't; the purpose of torture is to cause pain; that isn't the purpose of circumcision, any more than the piercing of ears or a tattoo), or that the genetic makeup of Cohenim are due to their women having sex with both their 'rich' Cohenim husbands and their servants (not true either, since the "Cohenim" priestly class became completely meaningless after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 69 CE and they quickly became absorbed into the general population and were neither significantly wealthier or poorer than any other Jews.

I don't rcognise any of this crap from Jacks writing if you are going to libel someone I suggest you include quotations to back up your assumptions or shut up