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Tiiba comments on Rationality Quotes: November 2010 - Less Wrong
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Comments (354)
I want to upvote this twice.
This comment being upvoted +21 doesn't fit my model of LessWrong voting, because it personifies the natural world with a God-concept, even if it is advocating for science and evolution. Am I missing something?
So should every every metaphor be voted down? Or just personifying metaphors? Or just metaphors mentioning deities?
I downvoted it because it perpetuated the myth that Galileo was tortured. Plus, God knows, the poetry was pretty awful.
I figure this particular one strikes some as a bit iffy since the metaphor is so close to the salient metaphor the actual creationists are using and treating as a non-metaphor. Metaphors, like "God wrote life", closely associated with unsympathetic real-world groups tend to carry a bit extra baggage. The matter is of course confused further by the original context where this was written as a response to creationists.
"Plus, God knows, the poetry was pretty awful."
I could agree with you more. But I won't.
What details have you got about Galileo? I'd heard that he was shown the instruments of torture, and recanted at that point.
Well, there is some dispute whether he was "shown the instruments". A historian named Gingerich apparently argues that the showing never took place. But, in any case, threat of torture is not torture - or at least it is not what comes to mind when the myth of torture is repeated. The myth is a falsehood, which, if repeated by someone who knows better, is usually referred to as a "lie".
Sounds like mock executions - they're not actually being executed...
I suspect it may be something similar to what NihilCredo said; rationalist quotes from theist sources are just so much fun.
It's good art advocating for science.
It beautifully promotes Joy in the Merely Real, and strongly encourages the pursuit of knowledge.