[extropy-chat] The History and the Pseudo-History of Science

[Robin Hanson]

At 08:59 AM 1/25/2005, Technotranscendence wrote:
>http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan144.html

which says:
>Many science textbooks contain similar one-or-two-paragraph histories of 
>how modern science miraculously emerged from the dark swamp of ignorance 
>we call the Middle Ages. The main problem with such stories is that they 
>are almost entirely false.

Yup.  The main thing I learned from studying history of science is that the 
histories told by non-historians are almost all fairy tales.  Until you 
actually go study in some detail what people actually said and did, don't 
assume you know much about what happened.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323