= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
gwern comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (1742)
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.
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.
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!