I’m reading a great book, Einstein’s Mistakes (google version), by Hans Ohanian. Extremely intelligent physicist and fun writer–very opinionated and spins great narratives of Galileo and Newton as a prelude to discussing Einstein. The book is about all the mistakes Einstein made in his discoveries and papers, how he made his great insights sometimes despite the mistakes, and even sometimes because of them.
Ohanian acknowledges Isaac Newton as “the greatest physicist of all times” and “the greatest genius the world has ever known”, albeit a “mad scientist” and “the most awesome and the most aful physicist of all times.” I was struck by this fascinating account of Newton’s views on credit for scientific discoveries (pp. 62-63):
Newton held the odd notion that whenever he discovered some new result in physics or mathematics, it became his personal property, which he was entitled to keep as a secret for as long as he chose, without any need to publish it to establish his priority. If another scientists later made the same discovery independently and published it first, Newton regarded this as trespass and as theft, and he would indignantly refuse to allow such a scientist any share of the credit. … In Newton’s days, the criterion for credit for a discovery was not yet rigidly established. Claims for unpublished discoveries were sometimes accepted, especially if the scientist had the vociferous support of influential friends and patrons–sometimes the early bird got the worm, and sometimes the squeaky wheel got the grease.
Newton’s secretiveness about his discoveries led him into many silly but savage disputes with other scientists about what they knew and when they knew it. Driven by his intense paranoia about his scientific accomplishments, he accused Robert Hooke, Gottfried Leibniz, and other scientists and mathematicians of stealing ideas from him. In his treatment of these scientists he was vicious and vindictive. Hooke was a talented scientist, best known for his investigations with microscopes, but he was a dwarfish man, with a stooped back. When Hooke asked for an acknowledgment that he had anticipated some of Newton’s investigations of the colors in sunlight, Newton wrote a sarcastic refusal, in which he made an oblique reference to Hooke’s diminutive size: “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
The German mathematician and philosopher Leibniz discovered the calculus independently, and, in contrast to Newton, he published his discoveries–by the modern criterion, Leibniz would have had full credit for the calculus and Newton none. But when Leibniz asked a committee of the Royal Society to prepare an impartial report judging his share in the invention of the calculus, Newton not only packed the committee with his cronies, but he also wrote the report himself, and then wrote a favorable anonymous review of the report. In his private journal he gleefully recorded that he had bested Leibniz and “broke his heart.”
As can be seen from these remarks, Ohanian is delightfully opinionated. For other examples, see his snarky coments on Aristotle (pp. 39-40), where he says that Aristotle was popular because middle ages scholars confused quantity with quality–he ridicules Aristotle’s misconceptions about the animal kingdom, and his assertions about the speed of falling bodies being proportional to their weight, without ever simply dropping two different weight objects from his hands to test out this theory. On p. xii, he acerbically criticizes botched translations of Einstein’s German writings; on p. xi, he refers to the mistakes “misguided souls imagine they perceive in [Einstein's] theories of special and general relativity”; on p. 9 and elsewhere he skewers Creationists as adherents of “delusional pseudoscientific theories”; and on p. 59 he refers offhandedly to “the usual eccentricities of Englishmen.”
And I love this comment about Galileo: according to Ohanian, “Galileo had a talent for making enemies–as Koestler said, he provoked ‘the cold, unrelenting hostility which genius plus arrogance minus humility creates among mediocrities.’” (p. 40)
{ 18 comments }
Anyone notice that Kinsella is the human equivalent of “Read Only Memory” (ROM)? Whatever comments you make on his stuff will never attract even the slightest response.
Save yo’ breath!
Kinsella: “… Ohanian is delightfully opinionated. For other examples, see his snarky coments …
I would think that “snarky” comments would be strongly discouraged in civil discussions and intellectual literature rather than praised as “delightful.” Hubris, especially of the intellectual sort, is still considered a vice or serious character flaw in most circles.
Serves those IP socialists right.
/sarcasm
Whatever comments you make on [Stephan Kinsella's] stuff will never attract even the slightest response.
From whom, him? Did he make a pledge to reply to any inane comment that anybody cares to post regarding his blogs? Because I have not seen such a pledge, not yet anyway; and expecting him to reply to any comment made here is foolish.
As a Marxist, I am inviting you to go to http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/about/
and try to refute our theories if you can.
” he skewers Creationists as adherents of ‘delusional pseudoscientific theories’ ”
he’s wrong on this one…Most evolutionists who are as arrogant as this one haven’t even seriously looked at all the research. As an ex-ultra evolutionist it shocks me that the prevailing zeitgeist is fanatically anti-intellectual in tolerating the hard facts that debunk it in all the relevant fields
Haldane’s Dilemma is one such proof
http://creationwiki.org/Haldane%27s_Dilemma
and that Wiki has all the replies to the “Talk Origins” website
to marxist,
this may come as a shock to you, but it’s been done – mises in his 1920 work – “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”.
here’s the downloadable version, if you’re open-minded -
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
most people on this site are well-versed in marxism. “media” has stacks of mp3′s dedicated to marxism; key in “marx” in the media search window, and knock yourself out! maybe “the marx nobody knows” as a starter…
Or you could quote the ultra-liberal arrogant wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_dilemma, where they have already cleared up the “dilemma.”
This time, without a comma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_dilemma
Wasn’t Newton also a fanatic about gold? He was a true radical!
intelligence didn’t save him from getting into the mania of the south sea co bubble. he’s reputed to have lost 20,000 pounds (after earlier making 7,000), though it’s not clear whether that was a net loss, or just opportunity profits gone.
It’s a good thing Leibniz published his work. Otherwise Newton may never have published his at all! In the end, who between the two gets the credit seems like a minor quibble to me. What probably would have had a much bigger influence is if Archimedes had discovered calculus 2000 years earlier, as recent findings suggest.
As a Marxist, I am inviting you to go to http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/about/
and try to refute our theories if you can.
Are you inviting people to discuss “your” theories as a way to learn new insights and broaden your knowledge of economics, or is it because nobody is actually visiting you at all, and simply want to trap a few fools with too much time in their hands?
I wrote:
Whatever comments you make on Kinsella’s stuff will never attract even the slightest response.
Torres replies:
From whom, him? Did he make a pledge to reply to any inane comment that anybody cares to post regarding his blogs? Because I have not seen such a pledge, not yet anyway; and expecting him to reply to any comment made here is foolish.
My reply:
You’re being foolishly literal in dismissing my comment on Kinsella’s communication style on the grounds that no explicit “pledge” was given.
The situation is that people post to this blog and comments to the posts are explicity solicited. Some of the posters, as you might expect, do indeed read and respond to the comments. Of course, because the whole arrangement is that of a conversational two-way street, a dialog. Why else solicit comments? If it looks like a two way street, and it walks like a two way street, and mostly quacks like a two way street, then it is hardly foolish to regard it as a f*ing two way street.
And it is hardly foolish to notice that Kinsella’s Foghorn Leghorn communication style departs from that model.
The situation is that people post to this blog and comments to the posts are explicit[l]y solicited.
Granted – but that is not in itself a guarantee that comments not worth the time spent on them will receive a reply from the blogger. Your sense of outrage over the lack of reply to your posts as if the deserved a reply seems misplaced. I have read many replies from Mr. Kinsella and they look like they require quite a long time to write, and with time being a scarce commodity, I do not feel compelled to think the man would have some kind of personal thing against me if he has not the time to reply to one of my comments, especially if those comments were, a) redundant; b)blockheaded; or c) mere pontification or rant.
I am sure that if you present a compelling point, he will take time to reply to you and either offer a counterargument or indicate the error in yours. But if you write something just to say that he’s nuts or some sort of communist (like some pro-IP advocates have done), then don’t wait for a reply standing up.
“I am sure that if you present a compelling point..”
Torres, you’re long on flatulent rhetoric and short on substance.
In the IP discussion, I made the substantive point that contractual agreements, specifically “terms of sale” create IP between the parties concerned. Thus does IP exist without any government involvment. I was not refuted on this by anyone (pooh-poohed yes but not refuted) let alone the posters who claim that IP is an invention of the state.
heuristic, you are wrong:
“In the IP discussion, I made the substantive point that contractual agreements, specifically “terms of sale” create IP between the parties concerned.”
That which is created is not property but a simple contract. Property is not created by a contract.
Why should anyone else who is not involved as a contractor care about the claimed IP?
“Thus does IP exist without any government involvment. I was not refuted on this by anyone (pooh-poohed yes but not refuted) let alone the posters who claim that IP is an invention of the state.”
Only by illegitimate aggression can IP be enforced because it is itself a monopoly.
The state itself is often used as a synonym for a system of illegitimate aggression.
“This time, without a comma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_dilemma”
LOL! Are you kidding me? Just look at the discussion page of that whitewashed article…Wikipedia is full of censorship, and they’re pathetic!
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