History
evolvingthoughts | September 12, 2008
Here is a roundup of links and stuff that I don't have time to blog on right now.
A. C. Grayling replies in a piece of beautiful snark to Steve Fuller's response to his review of Dissent over Descent. Thony is not permitted to point out any further historical inaccuracies...
Leiter reports that a philosopher who blogs, from Yeshiva, James Otteson, may have been removed because he said things on the blog that are sexist, or at least interpreted to be, according to Inside Higher Education.
Will Thomas at Ether Wave Propaganda has the first of a series on the historian Simon Schaeffer, on…
evolvingthoughts | September 11, 2008
I'm supposed to be marking essays, but the reaction to Thony's recent guest articles has triggered in me a conditioned reflex: the uses and abuses of history by scientists.
Historians have a certain way to pursue their profession - it involves massive use of documentary evidence, a care taken to avoid naming heroes and villains, and in general a strong devotion to the minutae and detail of history, instead of the now-old-fashioned grand sweeps of a Toynbee or Marx. Sure, they disagree how to interpret things, including mindsets of agents in another time, but overall when a historian gives…
oracknows | September 11, 2008There are some days when I just don't feel like posting the usual stuff, and September 11 is just one of those days. So today there'll be no woo-bashing, no evisceration of postmodernist nonsense, no sarcastic assaults on antivaccinationists. In a more serious vein, there won't be any analyses of scientific papers, clinical studies, or the usual prolonged discourses on medicine, surgery, or science. There won't even be any discussions of Holocaust denial, although a Holocaust denier is mentioned in the post that is to follow.
Instead, I'll do what I've taken to doing every year or two and…
oracknows | September 11, 2008This video was shot by Bob and Bri, who in 2001 lived in a high rise a mere 500 yards from the North Tower. On this seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I think it's important to post this again. It is the most prolonged and continuous video of the attack that I have seen, and, as such, It is difficult to watch.
That's why it's so important to watch.
Very likely I will continue to post this every year on September 11 while I'm still blogging, so long as I feel the need to do it.
evolvingthoughts | September 10, 2008Another guest post by Thony Christie
John recently provided a link to a review of Steve Fuller’s newest book by Anthony Grayling. On the whole I find Professor Grayling’s comments excellent and applaud his put-down of Fuller but then in the last section of his review he goes and spoils it all, at least for me, by seriously abusing the history of science. As I recently took Rodney Stark to task for his misuse of the history of science in the cause of Christianity I feel obliged in the interest of fairness to do the same to Grayling. Just because I think he is on the right side does not give…
aardvarchaeology | September 8, 2008
The 1640 coin I found the other day came to light at an opportune moment. For some time, my wife and I had planned a trip to Falun for the weekend just passed, and that's where the coin is from.
The great copper mine of Falun was an important part of Sweden's economic backbone during the country's century as a major player on the European scene 1611-1718. The mine's origins are lost in prehistory, but paleobotany suggests that some small-scale ore extraction took place already in the 8th century, and the written record starts in the 13th century. Falun boomed in the 16th and 17th century,…
evolvingthoughts | September 6, 2008
Thony Christie, a regular commenter on this blog, is also a historian of science, and he sent the following guest post that I thought well worth publishing.
Commentator “Adam” asked John’s opinion on a book he is reading, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark, saying that he himself was not knowledgeable enough to judge this work. He then produced three short quotes from the book as representative of Stark’s thesis. John dismissed the quotes in his usual pithy style; From what you quote, it is about 100% wrong.
Actually…
clock | September 1, 2008I asked if anyone knows any art history blogs? I am aware of many history blogs, and some art blogs, but no art history blogs.
Neil responded with the discovery of this post - why have there been no great art history bloggers?
And then found two: Your Daily Art and The Art History Blog.
Anyone know any others?
clock | September 1, 2008A century ago, yet nothing has changed: William James, March 1903:
..............Human nature is once for all so childish that every reality becomes a sham somewhere, and in the minds of Presidents and Trustees the Ph.D. degree is in point of fact already looked upon as a mere advertising resource, a manner of throwing dust in the Public's eyes. "No instructor who is not a Doctor" has become a maxim in the smaller institutions which represent demand; and in each of the larger ones which represent supply, the same belief in decorated scholarship expresses itself in two antagonistic passions,…
evolvingthoughts | August 30, 2008
One of the major events in the history of science was the foundation of a number of published communications, so that the results of observation and research could be relatively quickly shared amongst scholars, and one of the first of these was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, which institution was founded in part by my illustrious namesake, Bp John Wilkins.
Although the actual publications are online only in JStor, to which a subscription is required, the Philosophical Transactions were republished by the Royal Society in the early 1800s, and they are online…
aardvarchaeology | August 30, 2008
Continuing our military theme from the other day, I regret to inform you, Dear Reader, that the Axis won World War II. After Pearl Harbour, the US couldn't decide whether to concentrate its efforts in the Pacific or the Atlantic, and ultimately came to play only a minor role in the war. Britain, meanwhile, defended itself well and harassed the Axis in Northern Africa, but it lost almost all its overseas colonies to the Japanese and never gained a toehold on the Continent. After losing two huge battles against the Germans in the Ukraine, the Russian forces collapsed, and the Axis powers…
clock | August 29, 2008Online maps 'wiping out history':
Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, the president of the British Cartographic Society has said.
Mary Spence said internet maps such as Google and Multimap were good for driving but left out crucial data people need to understand a landscape.
Mrs Spence was speaking at the Institute of British Geographers conference in London.
Google said traditional landmarks were still mapped but must be searched for.
Ms Spence said landmarks such as churches, ancient woodlands and stately homes were in danger of being forgotten…
terrasig | August 28, 2008To coincide with the Nature Science Blogging 2008 conference this weekend in London, we present this guest post from Coracle, the away-from-the-bench scientist who writes the Science and Progress blog. I've long been a fan of Science and Progress and Coracle shares my love of natural products pharmacology and skeptical eye for alternative medicine.
If you're in London and see Coracle at the conference, please buy him a pint and send me the bill.
"Last Friday, April 16th, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon, being affected with a…
aardvarchaeology | August 28, 2008
A few weeks ago, Kai gave me an interesting book on a subject of which I am almost entirely ignorant: recent military history. Auf den Spuren des "Elbe-Kommandos" Rammjäger by Dietrich Alsdorf (2001) deals with an episode toward the end of the Second World War, the so-called "Sonderkommando Elbe".
Things were grim in the Third Reich in the spring of 1945. Germany had effectively lost control of her own airspace, allowing Allied bomber fleets to operate with murderous efficiency far into Eastern Europe. The Germans had ample numbers of fighter planes and pilots, but hardly any aeroplane fuel…
razib | August 27, 2008Tectonic environments of ancient civilizations in the eastern hemisphere:
The map distribution of ancient civilizations shows a remarkable correspondence with tectonic boundaries related to the southern margin of the Eurasian plate. Quantification of this observation shows that the association is indeed significant, and both historical records and archaeoseismological work show that these civilizations commonly suffered earthquake damage. Close association of ancient civilizations with tectonic activity seems to be a pattern of some kind. In the hope that dividing the civilizations into…
evolvingthoughts | August 24, 2008
In addition to Fuller's Science versus Religion, I also received my copy of Phil Dowe's Galileo, Darwin and Hawking last week, and today arrives Roy Davies' The Darwin Conspiracy (thanks, Roy; I will be as even handed as I can be), and Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God. So I am going to be busy over the next few weeks. I'll post a bloggy review here for those that I also have to review for a journal (I have a backlog on this - Bowler's Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons is also due).
I'm about one third through Schaeffer's book already - it's a good read. His father and mother come across as…
evolvingthoughts | August 18, 2008
One of my claims is that religion proper arose along with the settlement in sedentary townships made possible by agriculture. The reason why this is religion, and not, say, the shamanic "religions" of nomadic tribes, in my view, is that in the latter, people are all related closely enough to be sure to whom to offer assistance in hard times with the expectation of mutual support later. The crucial role of religion proper, I think, is to mark out those who one can expect aid from, because they have demonstrated the "costly signaling" religion requires (a view of Richard Sosis and colleagues…
pharyngula | August 17, 2008Since it has been a long time since I contributed any content to Pharyngula…here's something. I was asked to give a brief talk on the ship, so I've tossed my written draft below the fold. With these short talks I like to write the story first, but when I get up on the stage and actually perform it, I don't bring notes or anything like that, so what is actually said follows the structure of what I wrote, and some of the wording comes through, but it tends to be rather different. Probably a lot different —I know I extemporized a fair bit on the last half. This is all you get until I've had a…
aardvarchaeology | August 15, 2008Noreen Malone at Slate explains why Georgia and Georgia are both named Georgia. Basically it's:
George means "ploughman" in ancient Greek
Saint George dies in AD 303
Part of Central Asia (Georgia) becomes associated with the saint for unknown reasons
Crusaders bring the cult of Saint George to Western Europe in the 12th century
Saint George becomes England's patron in the 1340s
King George II grants part of North America (Georgia) a charter in 1732
But what does this all have to do with the Georgics of Virgil, published in 29 BC? Well, the poetry cycle's overt theme is rural life and farming…
evolvingthoughts | August 13, 2008
As I sit here, dying slowly and loudly from a dose of gastro and probably 'flu (Australian male: we don't do sick well), trying to distract myself from the efforts of my lower intestines to escape to Jamaica, I came across a name I recall all too well from my 1970s: Francis Schaeffer. Well, actually his son, also known as Francis (Frank) Schaeffer.
Schaeffer pére was a leading evangelical "intellectual" whose ideas and work in large part helped organise what came to be the religious right in the US, although he lived in Switzerland. He is responsible for getting across to the American…