Horizon

Give people the choice between the truth and a good story and the truth eats dust every time.

Are we more gullible than before? Are you kidding? Have you tried reading any medieval chronicles lately (excepting maybe stuffy old Bede and maybe William of Newburgh too)? Where do you think all these stories came from, anyway?

I don't think relying on experts changes matters much either way. In the Middle Ages a person's authority depended largely upon how long he'd been dead. That's not much better or worse than authority based on the letters that follow one's name, in my opinion.

Are we more gullible than before? Are you kidding? Have you tried reading any medieval chronicles lately (excepting maybe stuffy old Bede and maybe William of Newburgh too)? Where do you think all these stories came from, anyway?

Sure, but you could argue that in a world with immeasurably less understanding of natural forces than we have, it was not nearly so gullible for them to believe such things. We have far less excuse.

I don't think many people in the world today have a significantly greater understanding of natural forces than most people in the 13th century did. And as for the most important natural forces of all, statistics, I would say it's about exactly the same...that is, nil.

I guess that's your point. The difference is that, had medieval society had access to the same knowledge, they would have made much less use of it than even we do, and fewer people would have been exposed to it.

Pointless thing to argue about, anyway.

I don't think many people in the world today have a significantly greater understanding of natural forces than most people in the 13th century did. And as for the most important natural forces of all, statistics, I would say it's about exactly the same...that is, nil.

I don't think that's right, Alan. I mean, people today may have no detailed understanding of, say, rainbows or comets, but they take for granted that they are natural phenomena that someone can explain in non-supernatural terms. Medieval people took it for granted that events outside of their immediate core of experience had a religious or mystical explanation; today we make exactly the opposite assumption.

I guess that's your point. The difference is that, had medieval society had access to the same knowledge, they would have made much less use of it than even we do, and fewer people would have been exposed to it.

Well sure, but a scientific worldview is a lot more than just a data-dump of facts (which, as you rightly say, would have been of little use to the medieval world). What we have, and they lacked, was several centuries of thinking about problems in secular, scientific terms.

people today may have no detailed understanding of, say, rainbows or comets, but they take for granted that they are natural phenomena that someone can explain in non-supernatural terms.

Right, all they have is an appeal to authority, which has not changed, but which authority you listen to can easily change. Cf. school districts in Pennsylvania, Georgia, etc.

In other words, what matters is the authority, not whether the explanation is scientific. Does this mean we are more gullible? I guess you can see it that way if you want to take a sort of moralistic view of it, but in my view little has changed about how most people go about making sense of their world. That's a rather vague judgement which you are welcome to disagree with, of course; I will not be producing any statistics or graphs.

What we have, and they lacked, was several centuries of thinking about problems in secular, scientific terms.

Society as a whole, perhaps, but the majority of people in the world are not well educated in any kind of science, let alone the scientific method. It's these people I really have in mind. There really is a difference between believing whatever the man in the lab coat says and having at least a basic understanding of scientific method, statistics, and so on.

This is why I enjoy the 1945 Encyclopedia Brittanica. It doesn't assume any upper limit on readers' ambitions. It explains how to do everything. Look up "Cotton," for example, and it will advise you on managing a plantation, buying raw materials, or operating a spinning mill. The Larousse Gastronomique is another one of those -- it doesn't just tell you where to find Chartreuse liqueur, it tells you how to make the stuff yourself. I think if I had to be Twain's "Connecticut Yankee" -- a visitor unable to count on modern technology in a new place -- I'd want to bring along the '45 edition of the Brittanica, not any present-day encyclopedia.

My first experience homebrewing came from an old Brittanica. Our high school English class was skimming through Beowulf, and I got interested in mead. Nothing much interesting in the 1969 version, but the 200th anniversary replicas of the 1769 edition were nothing more than a brief definition followed by a recipie!

I still remember the specific gravity definition (O.G.) -- until an egg doth float above the water the breadth of a groat -- and trying to guess at what a groat was and how broad it might be.

Why is it, even when I understand the science, that I am puzzled by it still being dark at seven in the morning?

Because the science isn't really that relevant? Which is why most people don't bother with it?