My man Tesla wanted to give the world free energy and relinquished his patent for AC so Westinghouse could start building appropriate infrastructure. Too bad he didn't relocate to Soviet Russia.
I think I read a story once that Sagan invited one of the Apollo astronauts to dinner at his house with several students, and then spent the whole time dunking on him about being military personnel during the then ongoing Vietnam War. Truly based shit.
Let's not trash the big brain nerds with such a broad brush. Scientists rock.
ugh they're so hard to unionize:(
edit: how do I get them *hard * to unionize?
Call it forming a guild.
I'm not kidding, it's a good way to get your foot in the door.
And bring Wizzard cloaks for them to wear when you meet. Maybe some butter beer too
Do we start turning them on to better fantasy lit before or after the union is formed?
That's a gradual process that will culminate in a JKR book burning and a conversion to Le Guin and formation of a militant trade union
I am.
Most scientists I know don't read fiction. In my workplace, we're like 3/10 for people who read fiction.
Into HP or Douglas Adams? It's anecdotal but pretty much all scientists (mostly physicists and mathematicians) I got to know closely loved (and occasionally quoted from) the Hitchhiker's Guide. But could just be self-selection of who you want to hang out with 🤷♂️
because we are talking about science I immediately read that as unionize. Damn electrons going around willy nilly.
Varies a lot depending on the field. Not fair to equate actual scientists with software engineers. Yeah, they're mostly libs or apolitical, but so is the general public.
That's all true, although they're still affected by the externalities of capitalism and usually aren't particularly wealthy. The decline of the American empire and climate change will hurt them, too. Plus, there are anticapitalist arguments to be made against how funding is allocated, the privatized nature of most publishing, and the way medical research is so often used for the sole purpose of securing profits for corporations and is kept inaccessible to the vast majority of the population (this is why a part of me wants to see if it would be possible to go to grad school in Cuba and just, like... stay).
And I also feel like it would be pretty easy to radicalize climate scientists and ecologists.
Oh, and perpetual adjuncts.
Yes, that's true. They're not generally proletarian and it's harder for them to have solidarity with each other.
Yeah. The ones who get the media attention are libs like Dawkins or NGT, but they get the attention because the media likes what they're saying.
as much as i talk a lot more about politics and marxism today, and i've read a lot of other people since then, sagan still has the largest impact in shaping the way i think
love this fucking guy and i think it's bizarre that some actually believe NDT deserves to be his "heir" (which is a weird concept by itself but whatever)
Carl Sagan and Mr. Rogers both greatly influenced my formative years and the way I thought.
Don't forget J. B. S. Haldane, Stalin-loving Marxist, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, science popularizer, and all-around chad.
Actually, Haldane generally liked Lysenko. He said in 1964,
In my opinion, Lysenko is a very fine biologist and some of his ideas are right.
It's been a while since I really looked into it, but I think Lysenko is actually pretty misrepresented in the West. He wasn't, like, totally opposed to Mendelian genetics or Darwinian evolution. He believed that some acquired traits were heritable, and while he was wrong about what traits, exactly, could be inherited, he was broadly correct. Hence, you know, epigenetics. This is especially true of plants, which can pass on acquired traits to multiple successive generations (not so much in animals). He did good work as a plant physiologist before he got into genetics, being the first to describe vernalization. Then things got out of control, mostly because of a lack of formal scientific education among the government and general public, and also Lysenko lacking a rigorous scientific background himself (coming from a poor peasant background):
To sum up briefly: Lysenko's vernalization was received by the agricultural specialists as a very interesting and promising method that deserved intensive investigations. He had made a fruitful impact on research in plant physiology though his experiments were sloppy, his theoretical explanations were disputed, and the real usefulness of his practical proposals was still unproved. But the general public, including political leaders, did not see the crucial difference between an idea being accepted as a fruitful working hypothesis and its being taken to be an established scientific fact. The methodological revolution that was believed to have taken place paralysed traditional means of scientific criticism.
If Lysenko's tests for vernalization were so poor, why was the method not criticized and rejected by agricultural experts? There can be no doubt that they saw the inadequacy of Lysenko's evidence. As Joravsky has pointed out this was a time when many wild methods were tried in Soviet agriculture. 33 Furthermore, there had been the cultural revolution. Bourgeois specialists had learned to be careful about what they said, and they were aware that traditional scientific arguments were not necessarily listened to by officials and the public. They were biding their time, trusting that new experiments would sort the wheat from the chaff in Lysenko's ideas. It was widely felt that vernalization was a promising method, and possibly Lysenko was on the right track with his hasty applications. Under the circumstances it was best not to risk one's neck with precipitous criticism.
But criticism did eventually come--and it was effective. In 1936, the plant breeders P. N. Konstantinov and I. P. Lisitsyn led the attack. In numerous articles and lectures they argued that the method of vernalizing seed grain had not yet been worked out in sufficent detail or properly tested. The results in a particular region depended very much on choosing the right procedures and the right varieties. With the crude guidelines so far given the outcome would sometimes be positive and sometimes negative. The defects of Lysenko's method of evaluating the results of vernalization were clearly pointed out. 34' 35 Lysenko tried to disarm Konstantinov by labelling him a bourgeois specialist, but in the end he reluctantly admitted that the method was not properly developed and tested for all circumstances. 36 After this the vernalization of spring grain was apparently quietly dropped. 37 But Lysenko's public reputation had already been made through the propaganda for his method in the mass media. The criticism does not seem to have had much impact outside the narrow circle of agricultural specialists. Even Soviet biologists continued to take Lysenko's practical achievements in vernalization for granted, at least in public discussions.
It should also go without saying that the idea that he was personally responsible for starving tens of millions of people in the USSR and China is also complete bullshit.
Here's a whole thing that puts him in the proper context:
spoiler
We read with great interest the recent article ‘Some pioneers of European human genetics’ by Peter Harper.1 This comprehensive review is very informative and highly appreciated. But a somewhat misleading statement needs to be reconsidered. Harper regarded Lysenko as a fraudulent agronomist. We disagree with him on this fundamental point. We are thinking that he was greatly misled by Medvedev’s book, The Rise and Fall of TD Lysenko,2 which he cited in his article. It should be noted that there are many misleading statements in this book. For example, in chapter 8, Medvedev argued against the validity of Lysenko’s work on plant graft hybridization, and pointed out that ‘serious and precise experiments by many scientists have failed to prove the possibility of transfer of hereditary stable properties from stock to scion’,2 thus regarding graft hybridization as Lysenko’s fraud. To our knowledge, it is Darwin who put forward the concept of graft hybridization. He described many cases of graft hybrids, and considered it to be special importance for understanding the mechanism of inheritance and variation. Later, Michurin invented the so-called ‘mentor-grafting’ method, which greatly enhanced the induction of graft hybrids. Lysenko not only recognized the existence of graft hybrids, but also applied the method of graft hybridization to the practice of plant breeding. Over the past several decades, extensive experiments on graft hybridization have been carried out and numbers of new crops and varieties were developed by grafting, indicating that graft-induced variant characteristics were stable and inheritable.3 Now it has been proposed that graft hybridization may serve as a mechanism of horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer. Thus, it is not proper to continue to regard Lysenko as a fraudulent agronomist.
Harper considered the inheritance of acquired characteristics as the defining feature of Lysenkoism, and referred to it as false science.1 Actually, the inheritance of acquired characters has been the subject of passionate debate and heated controversy since the days of Lamarck. Even Darwin accepted the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics as an established fact, and had assumed that it was of importance in evolution.4 He considered natural selection, the inheritance of acquired characteristics and mutation as three factors influencing evolution. It is true that Lysenko was a keen supporter of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He claimed that the environmentally induced changes were transmitted to the progeny by demonstration of the conversion of spring wheat into winter wheat and vice versa. In recent years, there has been a substantial body of reliable experimental evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics.4, 5 Lysenko’s work on the conversion of spring wheat into winter wheat can be explained by transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.6 Now it seems that Lysenko was not wrong in believing the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Harper also mentioned Lysenko’s errors and crimes, as well as the death of numerous researchers in genetics.1 The impression which one gets from reading this paragraph is that Lysenko was responsible for the death of these geneticists. We fear that this view is too one-sided and not supported by historical evidence. It is true that Lysenko disputed with Vavilov and many other geneticists on some genetic viewpoints. But we must know that Lysenko was a leading Soviet scientist in agriculture and genetics. He was not the NKVD chief, thus he had no power to arrest geneticists. Lysenko himself repeatedly maintained that he was not personally responsible for Vavilov’s arrest and death. He recalled that the investigator of Vavilov had come to see him and asked: ‘What can you say in general about the wrecking (spying, counterrevolutionary) activities of Vavilov?’ Lysenko replied: ‘There were and are some differences of opinion on scientific matters between myself and Vavilov, but I have no knowledge of any wrecking activities of Vavilov’.7 In addition, Haldane, one of the towering figures of twentieth century biology, also denied that Lysenko had been responsible for Vavilov’s arrest and death.8
It is not our intention to minimize Lysenko’s mistakes and to exalt his contributions, but we must try to see things in their right proportion. Actually, some of Lysenko’s work had a certain scientific merit, which was recognized internationally. For example, it was Lysenko who coined the term vernalization, which is now still an extant scientific term and frequently appears in Nature, Science, Cell and many prestigious journals. In addition, some of Lysenko’s work was highly praised by world-famous scientists. For example, in early 1930s, Vavilov repeatedly place a high value on Lysenko’s contributions to science and agricultural production. As he said, ‘Lysenko is a careful and highly talented researcher. His experiments are irreproachable’.9 In 1964, Haldane made an objective comment: ‘In my opinion, Lysenko is a very fine biologist and some of his ideas are right’.10 Of course, we also recognize that some of Lysenko’s ideas were wrong and badly wrong. His biggest mistake was mixing science and politics. He regarded Mendelian genetics as ‘bourgeois science’ and forced Soviet geneticists to accept Michurinism, for which he got a bad reputation.
I can't completely blame Lysenko for the horrible fate that befell Vavilov because times were hard, results were needed quickly and Vavilov promised the sky but ultimately couldn't deliver because the tech was still in its infancy, so he did himself something of a disservice with his overabundant optimism. That said the sycophancy, conformity, the fear of standing out etc. were very real and very much fostered and made use of politically by both Stalin and his toadies, as well as regular citizens and lower officials to settle personal scores and clearly shows the dangers of subordinating science to political dogma. This shows the clear limitations and disadvantages of not setting up the new society and organisation thereof based on holonic principles.
Pretty hardcore socialist until he died
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
Plus, he was a proponent of the idea that intelligence was an evolutionary spandrel, an accidental abberation not a deterministic end point for species (which Peter Watts also likes to use to great effect in his works)
sometimes I get sick of peter watts. "bluh bluh, existence is meaningless, consciousness is a mistake, we're not in control of our lives"
like, yes. obviously. come take a hit
(he has cool squid though so I can forgive the melodrama)
That's completely fair, hence why I find his short stories and a select set of his novels to be ones that I will (re)read and enjoy.
Sometimes he gets a bit too eager to say how nihilist/edgy his characters are (looking at your Rifters book 2), rather than telling an interesting story with about them
The Island and Other Stories is fun because you never dwell on any single existential fuckup for too long to get tiring, Blindsight is always worth rereading (in the same way Desert is always worth rereading), and I enjoyed Rifters 1
But it's definitely not something for everyday consumption, definitely requires the right headspace to get into
yeah, makes sense. Blindsight really is an astonishingly creative book.
Dunking on evolutionary psychologists to this day. Name me a scientific field with more reactionaries.
was he an actual trot? i thought he was like a succdem with socialist sympathies or something
i don’t see how that could make someone a Trot but just learning history
@VolcelVanguard, we need the volcel space corps to get up there and take out plaques 11 and 17:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_plaque
Nixon's ruining the moon.
Robert Oppenheimer was a leftist as well and wasn't his brother even a card carrying CPUSA member? Stephen Hawking was a socialist, as were J. D. Bernal and David Bohm.
The Soviets didn't contest it, it happened. Like ignoring all the physical evidence, the fact that they went to the moon multiple times, and all the rest. The Soviets saw it, said "yup", and had nothing to say. If that shit was faked no way in hell they wouldn't have spotted it and trumpeted it to the world.
It’s good to ask questions. Like Carl said, “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
They left a mirror behind so that other space orgs could shoot a laser at the moon and see it get reflected back, so they have independent verification.
Not to mention the ton of spaceships that orbited the moon since then from other nations (such as China or India) that took photos of the Apollo landing sites.
"Moon landing didn't happen" is such a lame conspiracy.
I much prefer this one:
The US government wanted to fake the moon landing. They hired a studio in Hollywood and made a soundstage to represent the moon, set up cameras... But then to make the thing look good they hired acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick to manage the production of the stunt.
However, Kubrick was such a perfectionist that he demanded they film on location, and the rest is history.
I have been going with the moon landing was fake. the USSR beat us to space on every front. We beat them to landing on the moon? no friggin' way. Our borrowed Natzi scientist could put a satellite up without seeing the Russians do it first.
