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Viliam_Bur comments on Expecting Short Inferential Distances - Less Wrong
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Now I think of it, this reminds of something Richard Dawkins used to say at some talks: that we (the modern audience) could give Aristotle a tutorial. Being a fantasist myself, I've sometimes wondered how that could be possible. Leaving aside the complications of building a time machine (I leave that to other people), I wondered how would it be to actually meet Aristotle and explain to him some of the things we now know about life, the universe & everything.
First of all, I'd have to learn ancient greek, of course, or no communication would be possible. That would be the easy (and the only easy) part. More complicated would be that, to teach anything modern to Aristotle, one would have to teach an incredible amount of previous stuff. That is, one would have to step quite a large number of inferential steps. If I wanted to explain, for example, the theory of evolution, that would require a lot of anatomy, geography, zoology, botany, and even mathematics and philosophy. One would have to be a true polymath to achieve the feat. It's not that we don't know more about the universe than Aristotle, it is that to cross the inferential 'gap' between Aristotle and us would require an inordinate amount of knowledge.
Maybe a good metaphor is based on Dennett's crane idea: we develop ideas that help us reach higher levels of understanding, but as soon as we reach those upper levels we discard them to build new ones for higher levels. To help someone on the floor, one has to 'rebuild' these old cranes no longer in use.
Actually, evolution might be the easiest one. It's inevitable if you have variation and selection. It's a really pretty theory.
I don't know how hard it would be to convey that observation and experimentation will take you farther than just theorizing.
If I brought back some tech far advanced over Aristotle's period (and I wonder what would be most convincing), it might add weight to my arguments.
And personally, even if I had a time machine and the knowledge of ancient Greek, I don't know what hard it would be to get him to listen to a woman.
You're right - evolution might be easier than, say, how and iPhone works (not that an iPhone would work very well in Ancient Greece, or for much long, anyway). Having some high tech to show to good old Aristotle maybe would convince him you come from a very strange land, and maybe he would want to hear more of what you have to say instead of just dismissing you as a lunatic.
But imagine how much you would have to explain to make him even dimly aware of the way an iPhone works! Electronics, electricity, computation, satellites and astronomy (goodbye lunar sphere), calculus, chemistry, physics... I can barely think of all the relevant topics!
Of course, as you point out, mysoginy would be a great obstacle too. One more of the 'steps' that separate ancient peoples from modern societies.
What you want to teach depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I don't think there's much point in trying to give Aristotle an overview of modern scientific conclusions.
Assuming we want to accelerate technological progress, I'd rather teach him scientific method, decimal notation, evolution, and maybe what Feynman said (iirc) was the most important conclusion-- that matter is made of tiny bits of elements. I don't know what other specific subjects might be a good idea. Bayes? Calculus?
I don't know what would be convincing experiments for atoms.
One more I'd want to teach him that you can learn a lot by doing careful measurement and thinking about the results.
I don't know what Aristotle would come up with, given all that-- he was very smart.
Assuming you convinced him of the epistemological primacy of experiment, I see two obvious paths:
The kinetic theory of gases, particularly the ideal gas law;
Stoichiometry in chemistry - for example, electrolysis of water.
I would add Brownian motion to that list.
From a practical point of view teaching the germ theory of disease would probably have the most immediate benefit.
Using water droplets as rudimentary microscopes.
How big a jump would it be to give them lens-making tech?
You could probably explain geometrical optics without too much trouble.