What do you make of Tim O'Neil's "History for Atheists"?

[skepticalbip]

It's real simple for me. If you know beyond any doubt whatsoever that you will be tortured and burned alive for misspeaking, that puts a bit of a damper on things generally, wouldn't you agree?

Agree. Just as any dedicated muslim historian who uncovered indisputable proof that Muhammad was a drunkard bi-sexual would never mention the fact to anyone in the leadership of ISIS. Self censorship out of fear is the most insidious deterrent to revealing truths. They may, however, mention that they discovered that Muhammad enjoyed parties.... stated with sufficient innocence implied.

 

[Tim ONeill]

It's real simple for me. If you know beyond any doubt whatsoever that you will be tortured and burned alive for misspeaking, that puts a bit of a damper on things generally, wouldn't you agree?

Agree. Just as any dedicated muslim historian who uncovered indisputable proof that Muhammad was a drunkard bi-sexual would never mention the fact to anyone in the leadership of ISIS. Self censorship out of fear is the most insidious deterrent to revealing truths. They may, however, mention that they discovered that Muhammad enjoyed parties.... stated with sufficient innocence implied.

Which continues to ignore the fact that, on matters of science, it was virtually impossible to "misspeak" and get yourself burned at the stake. Which explains why the grand total number of people who were burned at the stake by the Church for anything to do with science is ... zero. So ... ?

 

[Tharmas]

Tim I don"t think anyone has said "welcome to the forum" yet, so welcome! It's good to hear from the author himself.
I myself have some comments/questions about your Medieval flat earth article which I would like to discuss but it will be tomorrow before I have time to get my ideas down. I hope we're not pestering you too much!

 

[Tim ONeill]

Tim I don"t think anyone has said "welcome to the forum" yet, so welcome! It's good to hear from the author himself.
I myself have some comments/questions about your Medieval flat earth article which I would like to discuss but it will be tomorrow before I have time to get my ideas down. I hope we're not pestering you too much!

Thanks. And no problem.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's real simple for me. If you know beyond any doubt whatsoever that you will be tortured and burned alive for misspeaking, that puts a bit of a damper on things generally, wouldn't you agree?

Agree. Just as any dedicated muslim historian who uncovered indisputable proof that Muhammad was a drunkard bi-sexual would never mention the fact to anyone in the leadership of ISIS. Self censorship out of fear is the most insidious deterrent to revealing truths. They may, however, mention that they discovered that Muhammad enjoyed parties.... stated with sufficient innocence implied.

It is impossible for us today, particularly those of us who live in free societies, to not wrongly project our biases and experiences into other times and cultures. It is impossible. We can only talk about other times and places while simultaneously acknowledging our biases. Thankfully, we have accumulated sufficient knowledge so that at least for some of us we are not totally overcome by emotional, superstitious nonsense. We've literally escaped an existence that is Lord of the Flies. We have freedoms. We vote and participate in government. There really are a few adults around on the island. There are books, not only those books approved by our overlords. We can speak freely and associate freely. Every aspect of our free-society lives is totally unlike what Galileo experienced. It can certainly be better, but there is not a totalitarian, terroristic regime lording over every aspect of our lives.

It is impossible to say we were free this way but not that way, to claim we were totally free to talk about the sky so long as we didn't connect that experience to other aspects of our lives. To make such claims is the best example of Tim ONeill's mentioned presentism I can imagine.

I can remember having similar discussions with loyalists who would claim that the Roman Church never tortured or hurt or intimidated or executed anyone, that it was all done by the secular state. In a very real way, Tim ONeill approaches that position but does not go there entirely. He wants to apologize and carve out some loving aspect of our former enslavement and abuse. Not me, we've killed enough of each other and we don't need to slaughter needless millions more.

Okay, I'm off my pedestal.

 

[Tharmas]

re: The Mdieval Flat Earth

I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

I would like to discuss the notion that the majority of people living in Europe in the Middle Ages had no working knowledge of a spherical earth. I will discuss two aspects of this idea: 1) the general level of literacy in the Middle Ages, and 2) Mandeville’s Travels.

Levels of Literacy

Tim, you concede that “this is not to say that there were not some or perhaps even many among the unlearned in the period who had no conception of the earth as a sphere.” I would agree with that statement, and add that the unlearned (and illiterate) were the vast majority of the population.

First, I will admit that levels of literacy rose dramatically from the early Middle Ages (say, the time of Charlemagne, who was himself supposedly illiterate) to the later Middle Ages. However those with a higher education and exposure to a detailed study of geography and natural philosophy remained a small minority. I’ve read that even the lower levels of the priesthood were often illiterate.

Second, literacy meant two different things in the Medieval period. There was what we today would call literacy, that is the ability to read and write in the vernacular with at least some degree of proficiency, but there was also a second meaning, and that is the ability to read and write Latin. It is this second type of literacy that gave access to learned texts, and that still remained the expertise of the few.

Mandeville

I first read The Travels of Sir John Mandeville about twenty years ago, and found it delightful. It is among other things part travelogue and part compendium of fabulous tales. I now understand that it may have been in part a pastiche of previous writings, but in any case after its appearance in the fourteenth century it became enormously popular, and remained so for many decades (it’s said to have inspired Columbus).

Now you quote the story Mandeville relates of a man who apparently circumnavigated the globe without realizing it, and you conclude “The author doesn’t bother to explain how this would work and assumes his popular audience understood the earth to be a sphere.” I disagree with that conclusion, for Mandeville is writing a book of wonders and fabulous tales, such as visiting a country where the people are headless and have their eyes located in their shoulders. Why would he include the story of this inadvertent circumnavigation if it were not to astonish his readers?

Furthermore, Mandeville certainly does explain how a circumnavigation would work. He spends nearly a thousand words explaining his proof that the world is a globe (using calculations by Astrolabe among other things) before he recounts the anecdote; it is introduced as a final example. His basic proof involves the fact that the so-called Lode Star (North Star) sinks into the horizon as one travels south and becomes unseen, whereupon (he says) there appears a South Star, which he names the Antarctic, suitable for navigation in the “lower” climes. Mandeville claims:

For which cause men may well perceive, that the land and the sea be of round shape and form, for the part of the firmament sheweth in one country that sheweth not in another country. And men may well prove by experience and subtle compassment of wit, that if a man found passages by ships that would go to search the world, men might go by ship all about the world and above and beneath.

Mandeville recognizes that learned men know this. He says that “old wise astronomers” calculate the circumference as 20,425 miles, but that he himself thinks it’s greater than that.

Clearly, Mandeville thinks his audience will be amazed by his recounting. And who might that audience be? In his prologue he writes that his original composition was in Latin, but he translated it into English so that “every man of my nation may understand it,” including “lords and knights and other noble and worthy men that con Latin but little…”

Conclusion

I believe it is fair to say that the concept of the spherical earth was not widely known in the Middle Ages, but existed only n the understandings of the highly educated few, if for no other reason than that, as a concept, it affected the daily lives of the great majority of (unlearned) people very little.

 

[atrib]

The Galileo Affair is not some typical response by the Church to a scientific finding - it was a remarkable exception. And it happened because Galileo decided to start reinterpreting the Bible. And the Church did care about that. If he hadn't done that the Church would have continued to not care about his ideas at all.

So as long as the findings of people like Galileo did not interfere with or contradict the Church's current dogmas, it was acceptable. When it did, well, you ended up tied to a stake on a wooden platform that would be lit on fire. Perhaps with your tongue stapled to the top of your mouth so you couldn't complain.

There was no science at the time of Galileo, and no real distinction between theology and what we today call the scientific method. There were individuals who had an interest in nature who pursued their curiosities and reported on their findings, sometimes with financial assistance from well-heeled benefactors. And then there was the Church, who believed in the inerrant word of their god, and woe befall anybody who was unfortunate enough to start dabbling in "theology", God's description of how the natural world worked.

 

[skepticalbip]

The Galileo Affair is not some typical response by the Church to a scientific finding - it was a remarkable exception. And it happened because Galileo decided to start reinterpreting the Bible. And the Church did care about that. If he hadn't done that the Church would have continued to not care about his ideas at all.

So as long as the findings of people like Galileo did not interfere with or contradict the Church's current dogmas, it was acceptable. When it did, well, you ended up tied to a stake on a wooden platform that would be lit on fire. Perhaps with your tongue stapled to the top of your mouth so you couldn't complain.

It didn't generally come to that because people knew enough to self censure. They generally studied areas that wouldn't bring them into conflict with the Church's 'truths'. The Copernicus model was allowed to be discussed because it was examined as an interesting mathematical technique that eliminated the mathematically complicated epicycles necessary to model the Church's geocentric 'truth' rather than as physical reality. Galileo's sin was claiming that it was a reality... this was seen by the Church as a heresy.

E pur si muove

 

[atrib]

The Galileo Affair is not some typical response by the Church to a scientific finding - it was a remarkable exception. And it happened because Galileo decided to start reinterpreting the Bible. And the Church did care about that. If he hadn't done that the Church would have continued to not care about his ideas at all.

So as long as the findings of people like Galileo did not interfere with or contradict the Church's current dogmas, it was acceptable. When it did, well, you ended up tied to a stake on a wooden platform that would be lit on fire. Perhaps with your tongue stapled to the top of your mouth so you couldn't complain.

It didn't generally come to that because people knew enough to self censure. They generally studied areas that wouldn't bring them into conflict with the Church's 'truths'. The Copernicus model was allowed to be discussed because it was examined as an interesting mathematical problem that eliminated the mathematically complicated epicycles of the Church's geocentric 'truth' rather than as physical reality. Galileo's sin was claiming that it was a reality... this was seen by the Church as a heresy.

E pur si muove

Indeed. If you were a naturalist who happened to notice that the long beak of a particular species of hummingbird was perfectly adapted to reach the nectar at the bottom of an equally long flower that no other bird or insect could get to, you would be wise to sum it up by saying: "Isn't God magnificent? He designed this flower just so this beautiful little bird, and this bird alone, could get to the nectar. God must love this beautiful little bird". Self preservation above all else.

Yes, I know. The modern day Roman Church does indeed acknowledge the process of evolution. They can't burn people at the stake, or break their bodies on the rack anymore, and perhaps there are still a few among the Church leadership who wish things could go back to the way they were in the good old days. Whenever, in a moment of weakness, we might be tempted to see the Roman Church in a softer, more forgiving light, remember what they did when they had the power of life and death over their subjects. And the misery and harm they continue to inflict on the world today, with what power and influence they still retain.

 

[Tim ONeill]

I can remember having similar discussions with loyalists who would claim that the Roman Church never tortured or hurt or intimidated or executed anyone, that it was all done by the secular state. In a very real way, Tim ONeill approaches that position but does not go there entirely.

Pardon? Where have I said anything remotely like that? What absolute nonsense.

He wants to apologize and carve out some loving aspect of our former enslavement and abuse.

Utter garbage. I am doing nothing of the sort. This is totally absurd and completely irrational.

 

[Tim ONeill]

I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

I would like to discuss the notion that the majority of people living in Europe in the Middle Ages had no working knowledge of a spherical earth. I will discuss two aspects of this idea: 1) the general level of literacy in the Middle Ages, and 2) Mandeville’s Travels.

Levels of Literacy

Tim, you concede that “this is not to say that there were not some or perhaps even many among the unlearned in the period who had no conception of the earth as a sphere.” I would agree with that statement, and add that the unlearned (and illiterate) were the vast majority of the population.

First, I will admit that levels of literacy rose dramatically from the early Middle Ages (say, the time of Charlemagne, who was himself supposedly illiterate) to the later Middle Ages. However those with a higher education and exposure to a detailed study of geography and natural philosophy remained a small minority. I’ve read that even the lower levels of the priesthood were often illiterate.

Second, literacy meant two different things in the Medieval period. There was what we today would call literacy, that is the ability to read and write in the vernacular with at least some degree of proficiency, but there was also a second meaning, and that is the ability to read and write Latin. It is this second type of literacy that gave access to learned texts, and that still remained the expertise of the few.

Mandeville

I first read The Travels of Sir John Mandeville about twenty years ago, and found it delightful. It is among other things part travelogue and part compendium of fabulous tales. I now understand that it may have been in part a pastiche of previous writings, but in any case after its appearance in the fourteenth century it became enormously popular, and remained so for many decades (it’s said to have inspired Columbus).

Now you quote the story Mandeville relates of a man who apparently circumnavigated the globe without realizing it, and you conclude “The author doesn’t bother to explain how this would work and assumes his popular audience understood the earth to be a sphere.” I disagree with that conclusion, for Mandeville is writing a book of wonders and fabulous tales, such as visiting a country where the people are headless and have their eyes located in their shoulders. Why would he include the story of this inadvertent circumnavigation if it were not to astonish his readers?

Furthermore, Mandeville certainly does explain how a circumnavigation would work. He spends nearly a thousand words explaining his proof that the world is a globe (using calculations by Astrolabe among other things) before he recounts the anecdote; it is introduced as a final example. His basic proof involves the fact that the so-called Lode Star (North Star) sinks into the horizon as one travels south and becomes unseen, whereupon (he says) there appears a South Star, which he names the Antarctic, suitable for navigation in the “lower” climes. Mandeville claims:

For which cause men may well perceive, that the land and the sea be of round shape and form, for the part of the firmament sheweth in one country that sheweth not in another country. And men may well prove by experience and subtle compassment of wit, that if a man found passages by ships that would go to search the world, men might go by ship all about the world and above and beneath.

Mandeville recognizes that learned men know this. He says that “old wise astronomers” calculate the circumference as 20,425 miles, but that he himself thinks it’s greater than that.

Clearly, Mandeville thinks his audience will be amazed by his recounting. And who might that audience be? In his prologue he writes that his original composition was in Latin, but he translated it into English so that “every man of my nation may understand it,” including “lords and knights and other noble and worthy men that con Latin but little…”

Conclusion

I believe it is fair to say that the concept of the spherical earth was not widely known in the Middle Ages, but existed only n the understandings of the highly educated few, if for no other reason than that, as a concept, it affected the daily lives of the great majority of (unlearned) people very little.

It's strange that you decided to only focus on the literary evidence that the sphericity of the earth was widely understood and chose to carefully ignore all the other non-literary material. Of course written works only give us clear indication that those who could read were aware of the shape of the earth. But given that by the fourteenth century that included a whole 20% of the population, this does not mean this information was only the preserve of some tiny elite. We also have to take into account the fact that works like the Travels reached an even wider audience, since reading books aloud was a common entertainment. A literate man would therefore share works of entertainment - which is what Mandeville's book largely was - with his whole household. This is why the book's prologue says he wrote it in English so that "every man of my nation may understand it", not just those who understood Latin. This was a book for a wide audience and not just a literate one.

But literary evidence aside, you chose to completely ignore the wider indications that the knowledge of the shape of the earth was commonplace. Even a totally illiterate peasant who had no oral exposure to books at all could see the king holding an orb on his pennies or a depiction of Christ standing on the globe in a wall painting in his parish church and understand what these things meant. That's why we have both English and French sayings about the earth being "as round as a ball" or "round like an apple".

Of course, there may have been people who still had a naive conception of the earth as flat, but all the evidence indicates the knowledge that it was round was commonplace and was not the preserve of a tiny elite of intellectuals. And the claim that the Church taught it was flat is a total myth.

 

[Tim ONeill]

So as long as the findings of people like Galileo did not interfere with or contradict the Church's current dogmas, it was acceptable. When it did, well, you ended up tied to a stake on a wooden platform that would be lit on fire. Perhaps with your tongue stapled to the top of your mouth so you couldn't complain.

So why then is the number of people who were burned at the stake for anything to do with science ... zero?

There was no science at the time of Galileo, and no real distinction between theology and what we today call the scientific method.

Sorry, but actual historians of science disagree with you. Galileo and others before him represent the beginning of the application of the true scientific method and the establishment of actual science as we know it today.

There were individuals who had an interest in nature who pursued their curiosities and reported on their findings, sometimes with financial assistance from well-heeled benefactors. And then there was the Church, who believed in the inerrant word of their god, and woe befall anybody who was unfortunate enough to start dabbling in "theology", God's description of how the natural world worked.

That is a silly caricature that bears no relationship to actual history. I'm afraid repeating this silly cartoonish nonsense doesn't make it true.

 

[Tim ONeill]

It didn't generally come to that because people knew enough to self censure. They generally studied areas that wouldn't bring them into conflict with the Church's 'truths'. The Copernicus model was allowed to be discussed because it was examined as an interesting mathematical technique that eliminated the mathematically complicated epicycles necessary to model the Church's geocentric 'truth' rather than as physical reality. Galileo's sin was claiming that it was a reality... this was seen by the Church as a heresy.

Do I need to remind you again that plenty of people openly accepted it as a physical reality without the Church batting an eyelid? Copernicus himself, for example. Or Kepler - a Protestant working openly as a heliocentrist at Catholic ruler's court. Or Galileo himself, who everyone knew was a heliocentrist and whose book advocating this idea was happily published with the approval of the Inquisition in 1613. You guys keep ignoring this to repeat this fantasy that the Church had some automatic kneejerk condemnation of this idea - one that had been around for a century before Galileo got into trouble with the Inquisition ... for dabbling in Biblical interpretation. But I suppose these historical facts don't quite fit with the silly pseudo historical caricature you keep reinforcing with each other out of irrational bias.

E pur si muove

As Galileo didn't say. That's another myth.

 

[Elixir]

So why then is the number of people who were burned at the stake for anything to do with science ... zero?

Bruno?
Bruno said the universe has no center, and stars are suns, surrounded by planets and moons. He was burned at the stake... or so the story goes.

 

[Tim ONeill]

They can't burn people at the stake, or break their bodies on the rack anymore

Please list all the people who were burned at the stake or broken on the rack because of science. Let's see how long this list is.

 

[Tim ONeill]

So why then is the number of people who were burned at the stake for anything to do with science ... zero?

Bruno?
Bruno said the universe has no center, and stars are suns, surrounded by planets and moons. He was burned at the stake... or so the story goes.

Yes, an idea that Bruno got from Nicholas of Cusa - a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. An idea that was expanded on, with speculation about alien inhabitants of these many worlds, by William of Vorilong, a French theologian. Strangely, neither the Cardinal nor the Bishop were burned as heretics.

Bruno was not a scientist and rejected the empirical science of his day as the musings of mere "geometers". He was a mystic, a magician and a kook who cherry-picked others ideas to create a mystical cosmology based on his (erroneous) conception of ancient Egyptian religion. Some of those ideas turned out to be true (heliocentrism, many worlds) others didn't. That's because he used his "intuition" and mystical "insight" to pick and choose what ideas he liked - not science. See here for details: "The Great Myths 3: Giordano Bruno was a Martyr for Science".

 

[skepticalbip]

E pur si muove

As Galileo didn't say. That's another myth.

Now that is a great example of the problem I have your 'analysis' of the times. Much of what happened is disputed but you choose one interpretation and defend it as though it is 'gods undeniable truth'. Anyone who disagrees and thinks other interpretations are more reasonable you dismiss as idiots.

Did Galileo actually say that? No one really knows but it is one of the anecdotes that has been passed down from that time. And yet you are 'certain' that it is only a myth. I don't know if he actually said it but is seems appropriate, whether or not he said it, with the descriptions of his personality that has been passed down (which also may be wrong).

You obviously have done a lot of study of the time but the problem is that you present your understanding as undeniable truth, unwilling to consider that you may possibly be wrong about some things.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Bruno was not a scientist and rejected the empirical science of his day as the musings of mere "geometers". He was a mystic, a magician and a kook who cherry-picked others ideas to create a mystical cosmology based on his (erroneous) conception of ancient Egyptian religion. Some of those ideas turned out to be true (heliocentrism, many worlds) others didn't. That's because he used his "intuition" and mystical "insight" to pick and choose what ideas he liked - not science. See here for details: "The Great Myths 3: Giordano Bruno was a Martyr for Science".

Obviously then, he deserved his fate. How convenient.

I think it more noble and defensible to believe that the establishment that tortured and burned him alive was the greater evil. Therefore, you may have, sir, your pyrrhichium victoria
.

 

[Tim ONeill]

E pur si muove

As Galileo didn't say. That's another myth.

Now that is a great example of the problem I have your 'analysis' of the times. Much of what happened is disputed but you choose one interpretation and defend it as though it is 'gods undeniable truth'. Anyone who disagrees and thinks other interpretations are more reasonable you dismiss as idiots.

Have I called anyone here "idiots"? I'm simply noting that many of the things people think they "know" about these topics are wrong. I'm trying to show why going on common understandings of history is fraught with danger, because on most topics the common understanding is riddled with myths. The story he said "But it moves" is another example of this - it's a cute story, but it never happened.

Did Galileo actually say that? No one really knows but it is one of the anecdotes that has been passed down from that time. And yet you are 'certain' that it is only a myth. I don't know if he actually said it but is seems appropriate, whether or not he said it, with the descriptions of his personality that has been passed down (which also may be wrong).

And what historians do is assess the evidence and make an assessment of likelihood. Short of inventing a time machine and going to Rome on April 12 1633 to eavesdrop on the final moments of Galileo's trial, we can't definitively say whether he said it or not. But given that we have no reference to this rather nice detail prior to Baretti's telling of the story in 1757, the consensus is that it's a myth.

You obviously have done a lot of study of the time but the problem is that you present your understanding as undeniable truth, unwilling to consider that you may possibly be wrong about some things.

What gives you the idea that I am "unwilling to consider that I may possibly be wrong about some things"? I used to fully accept the common understanding of the Galileo Affair and was quite startled when I first came across the idea that it was largely incorrect. This didn't sit well with me, because as a young atheist I preferred the version of the story where it was a straight-forward clash between scientific discovery and ignorant religion. But because I WAS open to the possibility that I may be wrong, I researched further, got a much more informed grasp of the subject and ... changed my mind.

 

[Tim ONeill]

Bruno was not a scientist and rejected the empirical science of his day as the musings of mere "geometers". He was a mystic, a magician and a kook who cherry-picked others ideas to create a mystical cosmology based on his (erroneous) conception of ancient Egyptian religion. Some of those ideas turned out to be true (heliocentrism, many worlds) others didn't. That's because he used his "intuition" and mystical "insight" to pick and choose what ideas he liked - not science. See here for details: "The Great Myths 3: Giordano Bruno was a Martyr for Science".

Obviously then, he deserved his fate. How convenient.

"Deserved"? Who said that? Not me.

I think it more noble and defensible to believe that the establishment that tortured and burned him alive was the greater evil. Therefore, you may have, sir, your pyrrhichium victoria
.

I find the idea that anyone was burned for their beliefs horrific. But what has that got to do with me correcting someone on what the beliefs he was executed for were?