It's Monday, it's cold and overcast, and I'm grading papers. As it turns out, these are perfect conditions to make me grumpy.
Rather than wallow in it, though, I've decided to be proactive about trying to head off future grumpiness. My philosophy of science classes are about to embark on some exercises about scientific theory choice, for which they will be considering Ptolemaic and Copernican accounts of planetary motions. Having done these kind of exercises for many semesters, I know that there's a good chance I'll end up with stacks of papers that may make me howl in despair if I don't read the riot act now. We're not just talking the essay opener, "Since the dawn of time man has pondered X," nor the conclusion, "In the end, how can we ever know?" We're talking hard-core Bugs Bunny history.
I like Bugs Bunny as well as the next academic, but I prefer that historical claims in essays that I must grade not be outrageously false. So, here's my attempt to innoculate my students:
Although this isn't a course on the history of science, we do occasionally dip into the history of science to examine science in action.
In these instances, I'll give you the important details of the cases (i.e., the details you need to work out the philosophical point). I don't think you need to do a lot of extra reading or independent research on these cases.
That said, there are numerous offhanded remarks you might make about particular cases that are so historically inaccurate that they will make me cry. I know it's not your fault; the "common knowledge" about certain historical moments is pretty crummy. But rather than perpetuate the horrors of "Bugs Bunny History", let me straighten you out on a few details surrounding the Ptolemy-Copernicus debate.
1. Ptolemy and Copernicus didn't know each other. (Claudius Ptolemy lived around 150 A.D., while Nicholas Copernicus lived 1473 - 1543.)
2. Copernicus wasn't the first astronomer to propose a heliocentric system. (Aristarchus of Samos, who lived ca. 310-230 B.C., proposed one. People just didn't use it once Ptolemy's superior model was available.)
3. Copernicus wasn't in trouble with the Church for proposing a heliocentric model. He really wasn't!! Indeed, the Church had commisioned him to develop an improved model of planetary motion. (Why would the Church pay for this? They wanted to fix the calendars. You want to get the Feast Days right so you have all the faithful praying together on the appropriate days.)
Now, it probably helped that Copernicus sold his account as a model that you wouldn't need to take literally in order to use for better astronomical calculations. (In other words, you could use Copernicus' system to make the computations while still believing that the Earth was really at the center of the universe.) Also, since his theory was published the year he died, there wasn't a great deal of time for the Church to hassle Copernicus about possible theological consequences of this astronomical theory.
It was Galileo who got in trouble with the Church (in 1633) for being a vocal advocate of the Copernican system. Galileo might not even have gotten in this trouble if his Dialogue of the Two Chief Systems of the World (an imagined debate between advocates of geocentric and heliocentric systems) hadn't made the pious advocate of the geocentric system look like a bumbling fool. It also didn't help Galileo that the last high profile advocate of a heliocentric universe, Giordano Bruno, was using heliocentrism to push fairly heretical religious views. (He was burned at the stake in 1600.) By the time Galileo was advocating heliocentrism, the Church was a little touchy about the whole thing.
4. Neither Copernicus nor Galileo got in any kind of trouble for claiming the Earth was round. It was widely accepted that the Earth was round. The ancients had figured out that the world was round! Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) even reported an estimate of the Earth's circumference. That whole "Columbus showed the Earth wasn't flat" story is the perfect example of Bugs Bunny history. (Please, stick to Bugs Bunny opera!)
5. The Church was not, as a matter of policy, the sworn enemy of science. Indeed, there would have been very little academic science in Europe at all through the medieval period and the early Renaissance, since the Church founded and funded all those European universities. The Church thought science was important and useful. It was usually only on occasions where scientists seemed to be interested in picking a theological fight (see #3 above) that the Church got down on scientists.
I feel for you.
So, what's up Doc?
Of course the REAL question re: Bugs Bunny History, boils down to who prsented the greater threat to Bugs - Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd?
I consider myself a strong Fuddite, due to Fudd's myopic life outlook, similar to that of a Bill Dembski, and just as wrong as Dembski's. Fudd's tunnelvision also often lead to a plethora of Pb(lead) generated in all directions, potentially harmful to both Bugs and others in the immediate area.
ps: I am sure you get a much better response from your students, and thanks for the Brighten-My-Day post!
Finally, a fitting analog to cartoon physics.
Ah, to kill the wabbit.
I just finished reading Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel and The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich. Both were really interesting reads. (but I might be a bit biased as I am a bit of a science history geek)
The first is the story of Galileo's life told in part using the letters written to him by one of his daughters (who happened to be a nun). And in the other, Owen Gingerich tells the story of his quest to track down and catalogue all of the first and second edition copies of Copernicus' d De revolutionibus (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
Oh, and my sympaties on the marking. I've had lab reports that start out "The objective of this experiment was a block of wood" and so can imagine some of your pain.
Was it Aristotle who made the estimate of the earth's circumference? I had thought it was someone in (probably Helenistic) Egypt, or at the very least, someone who wasn't Aristotle.
I think it was Eratosthenes who actually came up with the estimate using (if my memory serves) the lengths of shadows at two different latitudes.... hmm, looking at Wikipedia, that seems vaguely right.
The ancients made all sorts of measurements of sizes and distances of the planet and the Solar System that would surprise many who believe the myth of "Columbus discovered the world is round".
-Rob
Jenn: I've had lab reports that start out "The objective of this experiment was a block of wood" ...
Funny, all the responses I can think of for this involve repurposing the "block of wood", mostly in relation to the experimenter's head. ;-)
Yes, Eratosthenes came up with the circumference estimate; Aristotle reported it as well. (He reported a lot of stuff, not all of it original with him.)
My goal here was to show the non-flatness of the Earth was widely accepted by linking this knowledge with a famous ancient dude whose name my students had a reasonable chance of recognizing -- not to cheat Eratosthenes out of the credit he's due here!
Don't know what it's like these days, but at one time at least it was hard to make it through high school math class without being exposed to the Sieve of Eratosthenes for finding prime numbers. At least twice in my meagre high school education I was handed a sheet of numbers and told to cross off every second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. On the other hand, I don't think Aristotle was ever mentioned in any of my classes before I got to college.
As a HS Science teacher I really enjoyed your "Bugs Bunny History" lesson. This spring I will be teaching a "History of Science" course for the first time. No course materials have been provided and I've been surfing the web for ideas. After reading your article I'm now afraid that Bugs and I will be serving up the same carrots in class. Any suggestions on reading materials or sources that would help present a more accurate historical account of Science. Remember we are talking HS level.
Thanks
Dave