10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
The Volumetric Approach to History
You will be thinking that we are coming to the end of this book: we’ve dealt with eight centuries, so there are only two to go. You may be surprised to learn, therefore, that in historical terms we are not even halfway. The reason for this discrepancy is that history is not time, and time is not history. History is not the study of the past per se; it is about people in the past. Time, separated from humanity, is purely a matter for scientists and star-gazers. If a previously unknown uninha... 1 
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notes24 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
We Must Study the Hard Things So Our Children Can Enjoy t...
I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.Folksonomies: knowledge generations
Folksonomies: knowledge generations
1 notes
notesAn eloquent quote from John Adams in a letter to his wife.
24 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Sexual Selection to Explain Human Intelligence
Even if the survivalist theory could take us from the world of
natural history to our capacities for invention, commerce, and knowledge, it cannot account for the more ornamental and enjoyable aspects of human culture: art, music, sports, drama, comedy, and political ideals. At this point the survivalist theories usually point out that along the transverse lies the Central Park Learning Center. Perhaps the ornamental frosting on culture's cake arose through a general human ability to learn ne...Folksonomies: sexual selection mating
Folksonomies: sexual selection mating
1 notes
notesHuman intelligence goes too far and is too artistically-bent, rather than scientifically-bent, to have evolved for survival alone. We should entertain the possibility that our big brains evolved for the same reasons peacocks have ornate tails.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Science, Religion, and the Motion of the Earth
We may distinguish the progress of each science as it is in itself, which has no other limit than the number of truths it includes within its sphere, and the progress of a nation in each science, a progress which is regulated first by the number of men who are acquainted with its leading and most important truths, and next by the number and nature of the truths so known.
In fine, we are now come to that point of civilization, at which the people derive a profit from intellectual knowledge, n... 1 notes
notesScience worked from reality, Religion condescended to allow for the motion of the Earth.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Progress of Science in the Eighth Epoch
The march of the sciences is rapid and brilliant. The Algebraic language becomes generalized, simplified and perfected, or rather it is now only that it was truly formed. The first foundations of the general theory of equations are laid, the nature of the solutions which they give is ascertained, and those of the third and fourth degree are resolved.
The ingenious invention of logarithms, as abridging the operations of arithmetic, facilitates the application of calculation to the various obj... 1 notes
notesAfter the invention of the printing press, the sciences flourish in many fields.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
How Humans Resemble Rats
...[T]he natural history of the rat is tragically similar to that of man ... some of the more obvious qualities in which rats resemble men — ferocity, omnivorousness, and adaptability to all climates ... the irresponsible fecundity with which both species breed at all seasons of the year with a heedlessness of consequences, which subjects them to wholesale disaster on the inevitable, occasional failure of the food supply.... [G]radually, these two have spread across the earth, keeping pace ... 1 notes
notesDown to our racial oppression of one another.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Learning Natural History
To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning around. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any other source of them. 1 notes
notesWithout it, walking along a beach is like walking through an art gallery with half the artwork turned to the wall.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Growth and Stages of Scientific Knowledge
In its earliest development knowledge is self-sown. Impressions force themselves upon men’s senses whether they will or not, and often against their will. The amount of interest in which these impressions awaken is determined by the coarser pains and pleasures which they carry in their train or by mere curiosity; and reason deals with the materials supplied to it as far as that interest carries it, and no further. Such common knowledge is rather brought than sought; and such ratiocination i... 1 notes
notesInto aesthetic pleasure to recognizing the continuous series of causes in nature.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Humphry Davy Proves Diamonds are Made of Carbon
In Florence, while the guest of the Grand Duke, Davy performed an impressive carbon-based experiment which proved that the most apparently precious of objects — the diamond — could also be the product of nature’s simplest processes. With the Duke’s permission, he commandeered the huge solar magnifying lens at the Florentine Cabinet of Natural History, and subjected an uncut diamond to intense and continuous heat. The diamond eventually burst into flame, leaving a fine crust of black c... 1 notes
notesBy setting one on fire.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
William Lawrence Withdrawls "Natural History of Man"
William Lawrence’s experiment ended in an altogether different way. At the end of 1819 he withdrew his Natural History of Man, yielding to pressure from the Royal College of Surgeons and a number of medical institutions. But he continued to speak out in favour of scientific freedom. ‘I take the opportunity of protesting, in the strongest possible terms … against the attempt to stifle impartial enquiry by an outcry of pernicious tendency; and against perverting science and literature, wh... 1 notes
notesbut continues to argue that science must be free to work independently and without fear of retribution.
