A friend wrote me an email a few days ago asking for a sci-fi sanity check. He had been reading a series of sci-fi books where some interesting physics was used to destroy a hostile alien race. He was wondering if the the methods used were credible and could actually be used in a hypothetical space battle. Below are his questions followed by my responses.
Question 1:
"First, they had a fleet of ships fire nuclear weapons while travelling close to the speed of light towards the battle. The idea was that the wavelength of the energy from the blast would experience an intense doppler effect, and hit the enemies at an incredibly high frequency. This gave the weapons far more devastating effects than would have otherwise been possible."
Response 1:
This question is one that I looked at and said, "Oh, there is an easy answer to that." But the more I thought about it the more complex it became. So I went and asked a real nuclear physicist in my department and we both thought about it for a while and concluded that the issue is irrelevant anyway, though there are some interesting physics questions underneath that made us scratch our heads, but none of which would make a better weapon.
The first problem is a misconception of where most of the energy in a nuclear blast goes. When an atom bomb goes boom it does release a significant amount of gamma radiation. That is just something that happens. When the uranium or plutonium fissions it will release a gamma ray, which is very energetic as far as electromagnetic radiation goes, and very dangerous, but the vast majority of the energy actually is carried away by the fission products. That is, the daughter isotopes of the nuclear reaction carry most of the energy in the form of kinetic energy. The gamma radiation will fry you, but the thing that actually creates the blast is the huge number of particles with huge kinetic energies that will rip you apart. The gamma radiation will ionize the atoms in your body, but the thing that will literally blast you to smithereens is the fissioned material with huge amounts of kinetic energy.
The gamma radiation will only carry away like 10% of the total energy from a nuclear blast, the rest is in the kinetic energy of the atoms after they split apart.
So if you accelerated it to high speeds the only part of the blast that would be doppler shifted would be the radiation. The particles that make up the most dangerous part of the nuclear weapon would not be doppler shifted. So the radiation (gamma rays) from a nuclear weapon that has been accelerated to the near the speed of light would get columnated, doppler shifted, and would be more energetic in the direction of motion, but you would have to be going at like 99.9998 % the speed of light before the doppler shift would make the radiation that much more dangerous than it already was. For example if the bomb was traveling at 90% the speed of light then it would only raise the energy of the gamma radiation by a factor of 4. To make a significant difference you would literally need to be going 99.9998% the speed of light. At that speed that energy of the photons would be shifted by a factor of 1000, but only on an extremely narrow beam directly directly in front of the blast. A deviation by as little as 0.5 degrees would decrease the doppler shift by a factor of 10 (an overall increase of only a factor of 100). So aiming would have to be extremely precise, which means the detonation would have have to occur right on target or any doppler advantage would be lost.
But the main issue with this scenario, and the thing that makes everything I discussed above pointless, is that at relativistic speeds the kinetic energy far exceeds any possible yield from the atom bomb. For every kilogram of plutonium there is a theoretical total yield of about 20 kilotons of TNT, which comes to about 8x10^13 joules of energy. A kilogram of lead moving at 10% the speed of light has kinetic energy of about 5x10^14 joules, or almost 10 times as much energy as you would get from an atom bomb.
If you take that up to 90% the speed of light, 1 kg of lead would have kinetic energy of about 1x10^17 joules, or about 20 megatons of TNT, which is about the yield of the largest hydrogen bomb the US ever tested. At relativistic speeds the kinetic energy of the case that holds the bomb would have orders of magnitude more energy than anything the atom bomb could produce. So accelerating an atom bomb to relativistic speeds in order to take advantage of the doppler effect is kind of like strapping a stick of dynamite to the front of a semi truck traveling at 100 mph. It's not the dynamite that will kill you.
The key is that at relativistic speeds everything has such high kinetic energy that normal stuff like atom bombs are tiny in comparison. Just getting a hunk of metal up to relativistic speeds would make it much more dangerous than any atom bomb.
Question 2:
"The second thing they did was accelerate a barren planet to a significant fraction of light speed (I recognize there are issues with that too, but they never tried to give a scientific explanation for doing that) and send it through the star where their adversaries lived. The result of the high speed mass applying high pressure and force as it passed through was to cause an increase of fusion (because of the mass pushing stellar material together really hard) which released a tremendous burst of additional energy, causing it to become a supernova."
...Yes? It is conceivable. The star would have to be pretty big to begin with, but in order to get a planet to do that it would need to be going really, really, really, really fast. Like 99.9998% the speed of light. In order to get the level of pressure needed to make that happen you would either need a really big planet (basically another star) or an earth sized planet traveling at 99.9998% the speed of light.
But then we run into the same problem as before. At that speed the planet would have a HUGE amount of kinetic energy. We are talking about 10^44 joules of kinetic energy. To put that in perspective, that is the same amount of energy as a type Ia supernova. So yes, crashing a planet into a star at 99.9998% the speed of light would probably cause the star to undergo a massive amount of fusion setting off a supernova. But in order to do that the planet would need to have kinetic energy equivalent to a supernova to begin with. It's kind of like dropping an atom bomb on an atom bomb in the hope of getting the second atom bomb to go off. If you got the planet going that fast, hitting a star with it would be pointless since just about anything you hit with it would release enough energy that it would create a supernova sized explosion.
If your goal is to obliterate an enemy planet with a supernova sized blast, and if you could get an earth sized planet up to 99.9998% you wouldn't have to aim it at the star in the hope of setting off a chain reaction that would fuse all the hydrogen in the star. Just have it hit anything, a planet or a star, within a relatively short distance, say 3-4 light years, and that will release enough energy to make a supernova equivalent explosion and cook the alien planet. If your goal is to kill your enemy with an atom bomb, and you have an atom bomb, then just drop your bomb. Don't go for Pinky and the Brain level of complexity and drop it on another bomb hoping to set it off.
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Science Problems in the Kolob Theorem
A number of people have asked me to expound upon my first and second reviews of the book The Kolob Theorem (KT). I am hesitant to do this because there are many things in the KT that are obviously incorrect to me, but for those who do not spend a good portion of their time studying and learning astronomy then these errors are not so obvious. Thus it may take a bit of explaining, but if you are interested then read on.
[Again a strong note: I will not speak about the theological implications of the Kolob Theorem. This is only to point out that the book uses some very shaky science to establish its claims. I will again point out that this book was not written by an astronomer. There is a reason why no LDS astronomer has written a book like this, and that is because we recognize that we do not know enough about God, or the universe for a book like this to be written.]
The main text of the KT starts on page 24 (at least in the version that I have access to, linked above). There are a few pages of introductory material before, with some pictures and I will get to those, but my analysis starts on page 25.
I will start near the bottom with the quote by Fred Hoyle. First off, Fred Hoyle was a well known astronomer in his day (he is credited with inventing the phrase "the big bang") but between the publication of his book, Frontiers of Astronomy, in 1955 and the publication of the KT in 2005, our understanding of astronomy has changed more in those 50 years than in the previous 200 years. Yes it really has changed that much. So to rely on an astronomy text book published in 1955 to establish a speculative theory in 2005 automatically places the KT on shaky ground.
Quoting Fred Hoyle Dr. Hilton states:
As can be seen from the above images there is star formation (and A LOT of it) that happens in the center of the galaxy. Despite what Fred Hoyle states, young stars are not only found in the spiral arms of galaxies. There are plenty of young stars there, but there are even more young stars in the center of galaxies, it's just that they are packed closer together and are mixed with more older stars. As a matter of fact the oldest stars that we can track are found in Globular Clusters (such as M 80), which are most definitely not in the galactic center.
Now on to page 26! (Yes, I have only covered one page.)
Dr. Hilton quotes astronomer Joseph Ashbrook to make the case that there is a dense cluster of old stars in the center of the Milky Way. He sates:
So what is the difference between a high amount of stellar mass and a high number of massive stars. Let me explain it like this. Consider two groups of people, groups A and B. In group A the total mass of the group is 20,000 lbs. In group B the total mass is 15,000 lbs. Which group is "bigger". Depends on what you mean by "bigger". It turns out that group A is a group of 300 elementary school students, group B is a NFL football team. Which group is "bigger" now that you know that? Overall the school kids are "more massive" than the football players, but taken individually the football players are 2-8 times more massive than the children. So just because there is a lot of mass in a group of people doesn't mean that the individual people are massive. It means that there could be a lot of them.
The same thing with stars. Just because there is a lot of stellar mass (Dr. Hilton quotes the figure of 10% of the total mass of the galaxy) in the center of the Milky Way, doesn't mean that the individual stars are "huge". As a matter of fact, having "huge" stars would actually be detrimental to his theory, because it turns out that the youngest, most recently formed stars are the most massive, while the oldest, slowest burning stars are the smallest. It seems counterintuitive, but this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. So the "ancient" stars cannot be "huge". In fact the oldest stars would probably be about the same size as our sun, just a lot older.
Next Dr. Hilton moves into a black hole and never makes it out. He gives a definition of a black hole as:
When it comes to black holes there are two types. Stellar black holes that have a mass approximately equal to that of the sun, and super massive black holes that have a mass ranging from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 times the mass of the sun (1e6-1e10 Msun). Stellar mass black holes are all over the place, while super massive black holes are slightly more rare. It is assumed that at the heart of every galaxy, dwarf galaxy, galaxy remnant, compact dwarf galaxy, and ultra compact dwarf galaxy is a super massive black hole. Dr. Hilton later wonders if it is possible that there is a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Well he doesn't have to wonder since we have already found it! In fact we found it in 1974! (For someone who uses out of date materials he sure missed this one.)
Here is a plot of the orbits of the stars surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole (know as Sagittarius A*):
So continuing on, Dr. Hilton tries to tie in the motion of the stars around the central black hole to "rotation" (a key word from the Book of Abraham, he is trying so hard to make the connection, but this isn't going to do it despite his best efforts). He states:
[Again a strong note: I will not speak about the theological implications of the Kolob Theorem. This is only to point out that the book uses some very shaky science to establish its claims. I will again point out that this book was not written by an astronomer. There is a reason why no LDS astronomer has written a book like this, and that is because we recognize that we do not know enough about God, or the universe for a book like this to be written.]
The main text of the KT starts on page 24 (at least in the version that I have access to, linked above). There are a few pages of introductory material before, with some pictures and I will get to those, but my analysis starts on page 25.
I will start near the bottom with the quote by Fred Hoyle. First off, Fred Hoyle was a well known astronomer in his day (he is credited with inventing the phrase "the big bang") but between the publication of his book, Frontiers of Astronomy, in 1955 and the publication of the KT in 2005, our understanding of astronomy has changed more in those 50 years than in the previous 200 years. Yes it really has changed that much. So to rely on an astronomy text book published in 1955 to establish a speculative theory in 2005 automatically places the KT on shaky ground.
Quoting Fred Hoyle Dr. Hilton states:
"The stars in the elliptical galaxies and the stars in the nuclei of the spirals are old stars like the stars in the globular clusters. In contrast, the highly luminous blue giants and super giants are young stars. Young stars are found only in the arms of the spirals."
Our theory would require such a distinction, for the stars in the nucleus must be of a celestial type created first and those of the outer regions of a terrestrial or telestial type and created later.So the structure that Dr. Hilton sets up for his first corollary, that is central to his entire theory, requires older stars created first to be in the center of galaxy with progressively younger stars as you move out from the center. While it is true that there are many old stars in the center of the galaxy, there are also many old (and in some cases older) stars out in the disk of the galaxy away from the center. The question of where stars form, and how many and how fast they form is still a major area of research. But to illustrate the point here are two pictures of galaxies that are actively forming stars in their center regions.
 |
| NGC 3079: The center of the galaxy is an active star forming region. The star formation is actually so strong that it is pushing gas from the center out of the disk of the galaxy. Image credit: NASA and G. Cecil (UNC, Chapel Hill). |
 |
| M 82: This is actually a composite of images taken from three different telescopes. The green-yellow is from the visible light, the blue is X-rays, the red is infrared. The plane of the galaxy goes from bottom left to top right, but the bright red and blue that is perpendicular to it is hot gas that has been blown out of the galaxy from recent star formation in the center. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/UofA/ESA/AURA/JHU. |
Now on to page 26! (Yes, I have only covered one page.)
Dr. Hilton quotes astronomer Joseph Ashbrook to make the case that there is a dense cluster of old stars in the center of the Milky Way. He sates:
"The core of the Milky Way Galaxy would also possess a tightly packed system of ancient, huge stars in the very heart of the galaxy".Two things here, he quotes Ashbrook, who may have been a great astronomer (and I can detect nothing wrong with anything Dr. Ashbrook says), but the referenced paper comes from 1968, and the title of the paper refers to Andromeda as a "nebula", not a galaxy. I will get to that in a moment. But the main problem here is that Dr. Hilton is confusing the fact that there is a high amount of stellar mass in the center of the galaxy with there being very massive ("huge") stars in the center of the galaxy. At about this point I probably lost about 98% of my readers and your eyes are glazing over. Stay with me.
So what is the difference between a high amount of stellar mass and a high number of massive stars. Let me explain it like this. Consider two groups of people, groups A and B. In group A the total mass of the group is 20,000 lbs. In group B the total mass is 15,000 lbs. Which group is "bigger". Depends on what you mean by "bigger". It turns out that group A is a group of 300 elementary school students, group B is a NFL football team. Which group is "bigger" now that you know that? Overall the school kids are "more massive" than the football players, but taken individually the football players are 2-8 times more massive than the children. So just because there is a lot of mass in a group of people doesn't mean that the individual people are massive. It means that there could be a lot of them.
The same thing with stars. Just because there is a lot of stellar mass (Dr. Hilton quotes the figure of 10% of the total mass of the galaxy) in the center of the Milky Way, doesn't mean that the individual stars are "huge". As a matter of fact, having "huge" stars would actually be detrimental to his theory, because it turns out that the youngest, most recently formed stars are the most massive, while the oldest, slowest burning stars are the smallest. It seems counterintuitive, but this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. So the "ancient" stars cannot be "huge". In fact the oldest stars would probably be about the same size as our sun, just a lot older.
Next Dr. Hilton moves into a black hole and never makes it out. He gives a definition of a black hole as:
"A black hole is defined as a compact energy source of enormous strength of the order of a billion solar masses".How can I explain how this definition sounds to a professional astronomer. Assume you had had just finished reading an article about an election in England and read that a new prime minister had been appointed. You turn to me and ask, "What does that mean, 'to be appointed prime minister'?" And I respond, "That is when the Pope comes and crowns the prime minster and puts him on the throne of England." There happens to be a British citizen who over hears this who promptly goes into convulsions and runs screaming from the room, yelling something about "Ignorant Americans". As ridiculous as my statement that a prime minister is "appointed" by being crowned by the Pope is, Dr. Hilton's definition of a black hole is just as ridiculous. It's the kind of thing that keeps astronomy professors up at night fearing that their students may go out into the world and give definitions like that. If you want to know what a black hole is try Wikipedia.
When it comes to black holes there are two types. Stellar black holes that have a mass approximately equal to that of the sun, and super massive black holes that have a mass ranging from 1,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 times the mass of the sun (1e6-1e10 Msun). Stellar mass black holes are all over the place, while super massive black holes are slightly more rare. It is assumed that at the heart of every galaxy, dwarf galaxy, galaxy remnant, compact dwarf galaxy, and ultra compact dwarf galaxy is a super massive black hole. Dr. Hilton later wonders if it is possible that there is a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Well he doesn't have to wonder since we have already found it! In fact we found it in 1974! (For someone who uses out of date materials he sure missed this one.)
Here is a plot of the orbits of the stars surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole (know as Sagittarius A*):
 |
| Source: Wikipedia. |
"One measurement of the radial velocities near the nucleus of Galaxy M 84, in the area of Virgo, shows a speed of rotation of 400 kilometers per second at a distance of only 25 light years from the center."Wow! 400 km/s that sounds fast! For comparison the sun is doing a positively leisurely 220 km/s in its gentle stroll around the Milky Way. But just a second, where did this 400 km/s number come from. These velocities were measured in M84 (also known as NGC 4374) which is about 60 million light years away, i.e. too far to resolve individual stars. So this velocity is more likely a velocity dispersion, that is a difference in velocities averaged over many thousands of stars, this is not the actual velocity of the stars. The max velocity of an individual star is about half of that, so about 200 km/s, which is about how fast the sun is moving. He tries to make something of this much later (chapter 5), but the motions of stars gets very complex, and I'm not going to get into that. Let's just say that you have to distinguish between the motion of individual stars and the motion of the overall galaxy, and sometimes that can be a very tricky thing. Think of the difference between the motion of individual water molecules and the motion of ocean waves. They are not necessarily the same thing.
On page 26 he mentions "Galaxy 87" I assume he means M87, or Messier 87. Messier was the name of an astronomer who spent his time looking at the stars and made a catalog off all the interesting things he saw in his telescope that weren't stars or planets. He made a list 110 "Messier objects" in 1771 that kept interfering with his hunt for comments. Little did he know that he made one of the most important astronomical object catalogs that would define observational astronomy for the next 200 years.
Wow, we are only 3 pages into the text and I already want to quit. I'll mention one more thing.
On page 27 he mentions a star 3000 times the size of the sun. He uses the word size, but fails to understand the fine distinctions he just ran rough shod over. The "3000 times the size of the sun" here obviously refers to physical size, meaning radius, and not mass. There are no stars out there with a mass 3000 times the mass of the sun. Some astrophysicists think that you can get up to 70 or 80 times the mass of the sun, but generally upper cut off value is 40 times the mass of the sun, and those stars are very few and far between. So to have a star that is "3000 times the size of the sun" must refer to physical size, or radius. With stars, it is very tricky to match physical size with mass. They don't always correlate the way you would think. This is another case as I mentioned previously where this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. You see, black holes are the smallest things out there. The vast majority of them are smaller than the earth, and are even smaller than Pluto. It's just that they have a lot of mass in a very small space.
OK to finish off I'll just leave my remaining notes in their raw format. I only got to page 33 (starting on 24) before I gave up and decided that if I went on this post would be way too long.
p. 28 J Ruben Clark quote (concept of galaxy has changed since then, other galaxies were known as extragalactic nebula, other galaxies were still known as extragalactic nebulae until the mid 1950's, and there are even a few references to them in the 1960's. concept of galaxy not pinned down until 1960's.)
p. 29 A galaxy is self gravitating. It's a concept that has it's finer issues.
p. 33 Fred Hoyle again, yes there is dust in the center! Star formation! Lot's of it. Need dust to form stars. No dust, no new stars, it's that simple. Where ever there is dust there are stars forming. Where ever stars are forming there is dust. Dust in the galaxy is a very complex issue. It is no where near as simple as he makes it out to be. There are entire books written on dust in the Interstellar Medium.
Andromeda--How the picture was made--mention false coloring
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040718.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Page.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Pagegrey.html
Link to false coloring of images.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/
In the end the science issues are so dense and numerous that it is impossible to extract them from the book and from his theory. The only thing to do is to scrap the whole thing and do something else.
References
Joseph Ashbrook, The Nucleus of the Andromeda Nebula, Sky and Telescope, February 1968
Bok and Bok, The Milky Way 5th Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981
Fred Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy, New York, Harpers, 1955
Wow, we are only 3 pages into the text and I already want to quit. I'll mention one more thing.
On page 27 he mentions a star 3000 times the size of the sun. He uses the word size, but fails to understand the fine distinctions he just ran rough shod over. The "3000 times the size of the sun" here obviously refers to physical size, meaning radius, and not mass. There are no stars out there with a mass 3000 times the mass of the sun. Some astrophysicists think that you can get up to 70 or 80 times the mass of the sun, but generally upper cut off value is 40 times the mass of the sun, and those stars are very few and far between. So to have a star that is "3000 times the size of the sun" must refer to physical size, or radius. With stars, it is very tricky to match physical size with mass. They don't always correlate the way you would think. This is another case as I mentioned previously where this is precisely the type of mistake that Dr. Hilton makes again and again that undermines his theory. You see, black holes are the smallest things out there. The vast majority of them are smaller than the earth, and are even smaller than Pluto. It's just that they have a lot of mass in a very small space.
OK to finish off I'll just leave my remaining notes in their raw format. I only got to page 33 (starting on 24) before I gave up and decided that if I went on this post would be way too long.
p. 28 J Ruben Clark quote (concept of galaxy has changed since then, other galaxies were known as extragalactic nebula, other galaxies were still known as extragalactic nebulae until the mid 1950's, and there are even a few references to them in the 1960's. concept of galaxy not pinned down until 1960's.)
p. 29 A galaxy is self gravitating. It's a concept that has it's finer issues.
p. 33 Fred Hoyle again, yes there is dust in the center! Star formation! Lot's of it. Need dust to form stars. No dust, no new stars, it's that simple. Where ever there is dust there are stars forming. Where ever stars are forming there is dust. Dust in the galaxy is a very complex issue. It is no where near as simple as he makes it out to be. There are entire books written on dust in the Interstellar Medium.
Andromeda--How the picture was made--mention false coloring
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040718.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Page.html
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Pagegrey.html
Link to false coloring of images.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/
In the end the science issues are so dense and numerous that it is impossible to extract them from the book and from his theory. The only thing to do is to scrap the whole thing and do something else.
References
Joseph Ashbrook, The Nucleus of the Andromeda Nebula, Sky and Telescope, February 1968
Bok and Bok, The Milky Way 5th Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981
Fred Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy, New York, Harpers, 1955
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Book Review: Four Cultures of the West by John W. O'Malley
When I first heard about this book I thought it sounded interesting. The basic premise is that there are four separate and distinct cultures that cooperate and compete with each other in Western Civilization. He likens these four cultures to four streams (like the Gulf Stream or a jet stream) that are embedded in our larger culture. They twist and wind their way through our history and shape the way we view and interact with the world. I admit that I approached the book with a slightly critical attitude, intending to give it a thorough consideration. So when reading the book I had a perpetual thought of, "Is this right, or is he just trying to squeeze history into his own private interpretation?"
Because I had this attitude for much of the book when I finally got to the Epilogue I had a rather interesting realization. I realized that he was right, and because of how he had written the book, and how he approached the subject matter he could not be proven wrong, because any attempt to prove him wrong would by its very nature prove him right. I will explain this a little more after I give a summary of the four cultures that he is talking about.
The four cultures are: 1. The Prophetic 2. The Academic 3. The Rhetorical 4. The Artistic.
These are not the names that he necessarily assigns to them, though in the case of cultures one and two he does refer to them frequently as "the prophetic" and "the academic". The other two cultures are never given succinct names. I did take exception to his use of the term "prophetic" for culture one. A better term I think would be "The Proclamatory" but that term doesn't have the same zing to it as "The Prophetic" though I think "proclamatory" is closer to what he intends to encapsulate culture one. But there is no need to get hung up on definitions since he does spend several hundred pages explaining the four cultures. I will now give a brief breakdown of how he describes the four cultures.
1. The Prophetic: (The culture of proclamation and reform.) This culture deals with right and wrong, not with proof and argument. That is key to understanding this culture. The reason why he calls it prophetic is due to the nature of the prophecies in the Old Testament where the prophets proclaimed the wrongs and the sins of the people and told them to repent. There was no argument or persuasion. There was simple statement of impending judgement. The modern archetype of this culture can be found in Martin Luther. It should be noted that O'Malley does not place any one person in a single culture and stresses that someone as complex as Martin Luther cannot be subsumed under a single culture. But the most distinct elements of Martin Luther's work can be thought of as typical of culture one.
2. The Academic: (The culture of proof, logic, argument, professions (legal, technical etc.) and academia.) This culture deals with proof through argument and the proliferation of technical definitions and fields of study. It is the driving force behind both modern science and law. Since the end of World War II this culture has become the dominate culture in Western Civilization. It dominates in our schools, our jobs, our economy and our politics. This culture contains the idea that right and wrong can be argued and proven through presentation of evidence. It is the dry boring culture of academia where it is more important to be technically precise than it is to be interesting.
3. The Rhetorical: (The culture of poetry, persuasion, and the common good.) If culture two is the culture of proof and argument, then culture three is the culture of persuasion and cooperation. In culture three the members do not strive so much to prove a point, as in culture two, or to declare someone in the wrong, as in culture one, but to persuade all involved to come to a consensus. This is properly the culture of the consummate politician, well versed, well spoken, well mannered, well bred and well read. Those who partake of culture three are more interested in packing an overabundance of meaning into a poetic statement than giving a technical definition. If culture two tries to fine tune the meaning of terms then culture three prefers to proliferate meanings in a single term. The ideal education of culture three is the "Classical" education where the students learn to read the classics of Greek and Latin literature (and later the classics of more modern literature). The education of culture three involves rhetoric, grammar and a grounding in literature and philosophy. Up until the beginning of the 20th century to have an education meant to have a classical education in the style of culture three.
4. The Artistic: (The culture of art, museums, pageantry and show.) This culture is inherently non-verbal, but still very important. It is the culture of music, dance, sculpture, art, pageantry and processions. If there is a set pageantry that requires the motion of those involved to be a certain way then that is a demonstration of this culture. Major examples of this culture can be found in the show and pageantry that can be found in major weddings, coronation ceremonies, parades and catholic mass. The mere fact that art museums exist demonstrate the existence and distinct nature of culture four. Up until a few hundred years ago the concept of having a designated building to hold art, where people went to view art, was unheard of. Art was usually found in churches, in schools, in the houses of rich people or in public places. The concept of collecting, preserving and displaying art in its own "artistic" space is a result of the growth of culture four. The fact that you do not find the concept of an art museum unusual indicates that you at least accept the existence of culture four, even if you were not aware of the existence of culture four.
These four cultures do not work in a vacuum and neither does O'Malley imply that they are the only elements of our society, but rather they are like the Gulf Stream, a major movement embedded in the larger ocean of our society. There are other currents and cross currents but these four cultures constitute a major part of our society. They sometimes work together and sometimes against each other. At times they move without interaction and at other times they are in direct competition.
If culture one strives to make people holy, culture two strives to make well tuned professionals, culture three strives to make well rounded individuals who can work well with others, and culture four strives to make people emotive and expressive.
When I finally got to the Epilogue I was still a little unconvinced, not because O'Malley did not make his case properly, but because the subject matter is very complex and I was still keeping a skeptical attitude. But when I read his Epilogue I had a sudden epiphany. O'Malley was right, and could not be proven wrong. The reason for this is because, as he begins his Epilogue,
So why should you care about this? This all seems rather academic you may say, but if we understand these different cultures then we can begin to understand the society we live in. I will give a couple examples of how these different cultures manifest themselves in a very real way in our society today.
A few months ago the governor of the state where I live went onto a live radio show to talk about his plan for the state. One of the things he mentioned was the inefficiencies in the education system in the state. Specifically he said that there were some majors or fields of studies that were basically worthless since they would not help anyone get a job and pay off their student debt. Specifically he took issue with certain liberal arts (emphasis on the liberal) and suggested that if people wanted to study those things then they should do so at a private university, not at a public university, where those types of things are a waste of time. The backlash was rather harsh from some segments, most without argument (culture one on display) and motivated by political considerations. There were some people who wrote letters to the editor of various newspapers who insisted quite strenuously that the purpose of a liberal arts education was not so that they could get a job, but rather so that they could be a more well rounded and "educated" individual. They were not looking for job training in their degree but rather to gain an "education", something that cannot be quantified by a paycheck.
What we had here was a clash of cultures. The governor, taking the position from culture two, insisted that education had its purpose in training individuals to do a specific task so that they could get a job and achieve that which is most valuable to culture two, the quantification of human life, in this case in the quantification of a large(r) paycheck. But this clashed with culture three which holds that education is not for specific training but to enlarge a person so that they have a greater more well rounded understanding, even if none of it is quantifiably practical. Thus there were two cultures divided by a common language and they fundamentally failed to communicate. Ultimately both sides concluded that the other daft and had taken all leave of reason because obviously they have no idea what the word "education" means.
So where else do we see these four cultures? Here is a list of a few possibilities:
Because I had this attitude for much of the book when I finally got to the Epilogue I had a rather interesting realization. I realized that he was right, and because of how he had written the book, and how he approached the subject matter he could not be proven wrong, because any attempt to prove him wrong would by its very nature prove him right. I will explain this a little more after I give a summary of the four cultures that he is talking about.
The four cultures are: 1. The Prophetic 2. The Academic 3. The Rhetorical 4. The Artistic.
These are not the names that he necessarily assigns to them, though in the case of cultures one and two he does refer to them frequently as "the prophetic" and "the academic". The other two cultures are never given succinct names. I did take exception to his use of the term "prophetic" for culture one. A better term I think would be "The Proclamatory" but that term doesn't have the same zing to it as "The Prophetic" though I think "proclamatory" is closer to what he intends to encapsulate culture one. But there is no need to get hung up on definitions since he does spend several hundred pages explaining the four cultures. I will now give a brief breakdown of how he describes the four cultures.
1. The Prophetic: (The culture of proclamation and reform.) This culture deals with right and wrong, not with proof and argument. That is key to understanding this culture. The reason why he calls it prophetic is due to the nature of the prophecies in the Old Testament where the prophets proclaimed the wrongs and the sins of the people and told them to repent. There was no argument or persuasion. There was simple statement of impending judgement. The modern archetype of this culture can be found in Martin Luther. It should be noted that O'Malley does not place any one person in a single culture and stresses that someone as complex as Martin Luther cannot be subsumed under a single culture. But the most distinct elements of Martin Luther's work can be thought of as typical of culture one.
2. The Academic: (The culture of proof, logic, argument, professions (legal, technical etc.) and academia.) This culture deals with proof through argument and the proliferation of technical definitions and fields of study. It is the driving force behind both modern science and law. Since the end of World War II this culture has become the dominate culture in Western Civilization. It dominates in our schools, our jobs, our economy and our politics. This culture contains the idea that right and wrong can be argued and proven through presentation of evidence. It is the dry boring culture of academia where it is more important to be technically precise than it is to be interesting.
3. The Rhetorical: (The culture of poetry, persuasion, and the common good.) If culture two is the culture of proof and argument, then culture three is the culture of persuasion and cooperation. In culture three the members do not strive so much to prove a point, as in culture two, or to declare someone in the wrong, as in culture one, but to persuade all involved to come to a consensus. This is properly the culture of the consummate politician, well versed, well spoken, well mannered, well bred and well read. Those who partake of culture three are more interested in packing an overabundance of meaning into a poetic statement than giving a technical definition. If culture two tries to fine tune the meaning of terms then culture three prefers to proliferate meanings in a single term. The ideal education of culture three is the "Classical" education where the students learn to read the classics of Greek and Latin literature (and later the classics of more modern literature). The education of culture three involves rhetoric, grammar and a grounding in literature and philosophy. Up until the beginning of the 20th century to have an education meant to have a classical education in the style of culture three.
4. The Artistic: (The culture of art, museums, pageantry and show.) This culture is inherently non-verbal, but still very important. It is the culture of music, dance, sculpture, art, pageantry and processions. If there is a set pageantry that requires the motion of those involved to be a certain way then that is a demonstration of this culture. Major examples of this culture can be found in the show and pageantry that can be found in major weddings, coronation ceremonies, parades and catholic mass. The mere fact that art museums exist demonstrate the existence and distinct nature of culture four. Up until a few hundred years ago the concept of having a designated building to hold art, where people went to view art, was unheard of. Art was usually found in churches, in schools, in the houses of rich people or in public places. The concept of collecting, preserving and displaying art in its own "artistic" space is a result of the growth of culture four. The fact that you do not find the concept of an art museum unusual indicates that you at least accept the existence of culture four, even if you were not aware of the existence of culture four.
These four cultures do not work in a vacuum and neither does O'Malley imply that they are the only elements of our society, but rather they are like the Gulf Stream, a major movement embedded in the larger ocean of our society. There are other currents and cross currents but these four cultures constitute a major part of our society. They sometimes work together and sometimes against each other. At times they move without interaction and at other times they are in direct competition.
If culture one strives to make people holy, culture two strives to make well tuned professionals, culture three strives to make well rounded individuals who can work well with others, and culture four strives to make people emotive and expressive.
When I finally got to the Epilogue I was still a little unconvinced, not because O'Malley did not make his case properly, but because the subject matter is very complex and I was still keeping a skeptical attitude. But when I read his Epilogue I had a sudden epiphany. O'Malley was right, and could not be proven wrong. The reason for this is because, as he begins his Epilogue,
"The genre in which I have tried to write this book is the epideictic genre of culture three. The genre has as it purpose the heightening of appreciation. With that end in view I have held up for you the accomplishments of my four cultures." (p. 235)It was at this point that I realized that he was never trying to "prove" anything, because that was a symptom of culture two, which he was astutely avoiding when writing his book. And furthermore if anyone took it upon themselves to prove him wrong then by the very attempt they would prove him right, because by so doing they are exhibiting the characteristics of culture two. If someone proclaims him wrong with no argument then they are exhibiting the characteristics of culture one. Thus any attempt to prove him wrong automatically proves him right. And this is because he was not proving anything other than making a simple statement and observation for us to see no different than saying that the Mississippi River flows south, and the Gulf Stream flows northeast. So the entire time I was taking a skeptical attitude but by so doing I was proving him right.
So why should you care about this? This all seems rather academic you may say, but if we understand these different cultures then we can begin to understand the society we live in. I will give a couple examples of how these different cultures manifest themselves in a very real way in our society today.
A few months ago the governor of the state where I live went onto a live radio show to talk about his plan for the state. One of the things he mentioned was the inefficiencies in the education system in the state. Specifically he said that there were some majors or fields of studies that were basically worthless since they would not help anyone get a job and pay off their student debt. Specifically he took issue with certain liberal arts (emphasis on the liberal) and suggested that if people wanted to study those things then they should do so at a private university, not at a public university, where those types of things are a waste of time. The backlash was rather harsh from some segments, most without argument (culture one on display) and motivated by political considerations. There were some people who wrote letters to the editor of various newspapers who insisted quite strenuously that the purpose of a liberal arts education was not so that they could get a job, but rather so that they could be a more well rounded and "educated" individual. They were not looking for job training in their degree but rather to gain an "education", something that cannot be quantified by a paycheck.
What we had here was a clash of cultures. The governor, taking the position from culture two, insisted that education had its purpose in training individuals to do a specific task so that they could get a job and achieve that which is most valuable to culture two, the quantification of human life, in this case in the quantification of a large(r) paycheck. But this clashed with culture three which holds that education is not for specific training but to enlarge a person so that they have a greater more well rounded understanding, even if none of it is quantifiably practical. Thus there were two cultures divided by a common language and they fundamentally failed to communicate. Ultimately both sides concluded that the other daft and had taken all leave of reason because obviously they have no idea what the word "education" means.
So where else do we see these four cultures? Here is a list of a few possibilities:
- Street protests (culture one)
- Art museums (culture four)
- Promotion of Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) research and education (culture two)
- Home schooling parents who want to give their children a "good" and "classical" education (one and three respectively)
- Anti-GMO, anti-government, anti-global warming, pro-GMO, pro-government, pro-global warming fights, disputes, internet comments and Facebook posts (culture one)
- Expressing dismay that children don't read good literature, and read trash like Twilight (mixture of one and three)
- People saying that whenever there is a political dispute we just "need to sit down and talk about it rationally and 'have a dialogue'" (culture three)
- The people who think the people from the previous list item are crazy and willing to compromise with the devil (culture one)
The thing to remember is that each of the four cultures have a different set of values and things that they consider to be "the good" (though "the good" is more indicative of culture three). Because each culture measures value differently there are disagreements over the things that our society should place emphasis on and what should be encouraged and what should not. It should be emphasized that not all aspects of our society fall into these four cultures, just as not all parts of the ocean are in a current, but they are major players in our society and determine how many of our current political and social conflicts and triumphs work and come about. As a final note I should point out that while these cultures may determine the form and function of disputes and cooperative efforts alike in our society, they do not determine the content. These cultures are about form not content.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Revisiting the Kolob Theorem
Almost two years ago I wrote a review of the book The Kolob Theorem by Dr. Lynn Hilton. At the time there were very few reviews of the book online, and I could only find one review written by someone with any level of expertise in astronomy. Two years ago most of the sites I visited that had a discussion about the book were most decidedly anti-Mormon and were exceptionally critical of the book (though their criticism was more an expression of a general hatred of all things Mormon and of religion in general, and not really a rational criticism of the book). There was only one review that discussed the actual scientific merits of the book when I wrote my review.
Originally I had no intention of writing a review of the book, but after coming across a few references to it, and having at least one person ask me about it I wrote a rather harsh and not very charitable review of the book. After a few comments from readers I returned and wrote a revised review of the book, which is at the moment the most popular post on my blog. It regularly gets about four times as many hits as any other post that I have written (which let's face it, isn't saying much, but still it does bring a number of people to my blog). When I wrote the review I had no idea that it would end up being my most popular post, and that even now, if you do a Google search for "Kolob Theorem" my review is generally the first or second link that comes up.
Now, two years after my initial review I felt that I should return and write something about the most common responses to the book and my review of it.
Here I will give my response to a few common comments about The Kolob Theorem. I will also respond to a few specific comments that were left on my blog and also comments made on other sites that I feel need to be addressed.
1. "Fascinating theory. Made me think." or "Interesting and thought-provoking."
Response: Yes it is interesting. There is a reason why The Kolob Theorem is such a draw. It talks about things that most people have never thought about before. Even for lifelong members of the Church Dr. Hilton talks about aspects of our theology that are never touch on in Sunday School, Sacrament Meeting or in Priesthood and Relief Society (though maybe occasionally in some random seminary or Elder's quorum meeting). In these cases the book is something refreshing and different and it makes them think about what is only mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and in The Pearl of Great Price.
There are some real implications to those passages in the scriptures that Dr. Hilton uses as the basis of The Kolob Theorem and I think that those passages of scripture are wonderful to think about. We would all benefit by understanding those passages to a greater degree (such as Abraham 3:2-3). They are definitely a major aspect of my faith and also why I chose the profession that I did.
But before we all run off and say what a wonderful thing The Kolob Theorem is, here is your obligatory grain of salt:
I am only slightly exaggerating with that picture. I am not opposed to speculative books that "make people think" and are "thought-provoking". I am very much in favor of books like that. The only problem with The Kolob Theorem is that there are some fundamental flaws to the science side of the argument (Note: I am only talking about flaws in the science he uses, I have not, and will not critique any of his theology). These fundamental flaws are not the kind where you can say, "Oh well, it's obvious that he would get some things wrong."
These flaws are so pronounced that they really undermine his entire book. Some people may respond and say that "at least it gets the conversation started." The only problem is that it starts the conversation off on such a bad footing that it is better to just chuck the book and start over. It would take more time and effort to correct all the mistakes than to write a new book.
The thing is all this could have been prevented if Dr. Hilton had just run the book past a real astronomer before sending it off to the publisher. The only people listed as having reviewed the book before being published are a couple of medical doctors, business people and a secretary to a general authority. No one with any expertise in astronomy apparently reviewed it and offered their opinion. This does not automatically invalidate what is written in the book, but due to its obvious (obvious to people who study astronomy for a living) short comings the book and most of its ideas would have been shot down before publication if an astronomer had been asked to read it and give their honest opinion of the science behind the theorem.
So if you fall in the "Hey this book really made me think" crowd I say "GOOD!" now forget most of what you read and go figure out what is really going on, because the reality of what is taught in the D&C and The Pearl of Great Price is better than what is portrayed in The Kolob Theorem.
This is such an important point that let me say it again. The truth is much more amazing than what has been written. Go learn the truth. You will be amazed.
2. The book is "a cohesive collection of ideas about Mormon cosmology."
Response: Read Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul. He's a real astronomer. That is the book that The Kolob Theorem should have been. Read Dr. Paul's book. That's all.
3. Don't be so harsh, after all it is just a "theory".
Response: There is a strange phenomena in America where people think that by labeling something a "theory" that it somehow makes it less forceful or something that can safely be ignored. In the words of that immortal swordsman "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh but when people use the word "theory" in this context it is just a lazy cop out that accomplishes nothing but end the conversation. Nothing is actually said when we say "Oh, it's just a theory."
That's a phrase that doesn't mean anything except "I'm slightly uncomfortable with where this conversation is heading because it challenges some of my fundamental assumptions on life and so I will make a quick dash for the exit by calling it all a theory. By doing that I somehow cast doubt on everything without having to actually do any work and show anything." Saying something is "just a theory" is the conversational equivalent of telling your history teacher "and then some other stuff happened." and expecting to get an "A" on that term paper.
4. "Your blog is not as significant as I thought" and your review won't make much of an impact.
Response: I keep this blog for anyone who cares to read it (which is mostly my family, thanks Mom!) and I never really intended to "make an impact" with my review. I just wanted to write down my thoughts so that if anyone asked me directly I could tell them to read my review on my blog. In the end my review has gotten a much bigger response than I ever anticipated.
5. I really enjoyed The Kolob Theorem and it has really opened my eyes to somethings. It's like you don't want people to consider these great truths.
Response: On the contrary. These are ideas that we should consider (see #1 above), but I think that The Kolob Theorem is the exact wrong place to start. If the book is some member's only exposure to some of the great truths and ideas found in scripture then they are really missing out on the best stuff. I would suggest some alternative reading. Try the book Science, Religion and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul (mentioned in #2). If you want some general sciencey-LDS theology stuff to read about try LDS FAQ. It is a good resource to start.
6. Dr. Hilton had a "spark of inspiration [that] opened his eyes to far more than a few details of astrophysics."
Response: His "spark" was not unique. I have sat though many conversations on this very topic as an undergrad at BYU. Many such theories were proposed and just as many were shot down for being unworkable. Dr. Hilton's book was not the first place I have heard ideas like his, but most of those theories had a very short lifespan in the Physics and Astronomy Department at BYU. This is stuff that many, many undergrads (and some professors) like to speculate about.
Most of the speculation revolves (ha!) around black holes and neutron stars. About 99.95% of the theories die a very quick death under scrutiny. Some of the best ideas I have ever heard were proposed in a class on general relativity, and those ideas are light years beyond anything Dr. Hilton wrote. There is some pretty remarkable stuff talked about late at night in the physics department, but there is a reason why hardly anyone has written about it. There is too much speculation and the people involved generally realize that there is soooo much that we don't know, and that our scientific understanding changes so rapidly that it is not a good idea to put such extreme speculations into a book.
Just consider this: The thoughts and ideas that Dr. Hilton had were not unique. Many, many students at BYU have proposed just such ideas to their classmates. Some professors have even hinted at similar speculations, yet none of them chose to write The Kolob Theorem, and it is not for lack of ideas, or lack of a desire to speculate. There is plenty of that. In the end Dr. Hilton was in way over his head and didn't realize that he was writing down just about every half baked idea that was ever proposed by intro astronomy students at BYU. There is a reason why those half baked ideas never made it out of the labs and classrooms in the Eyring Science Center.
7. Do you apply the same level of criticism to the Church, its teachings, its leaders and the scriptures?
Response: Yes.
And that is why I believe.
Originally I had no intention of writing a review of the book, but after coming across a few references to it, and having at least one person ask me about it I wrote a rather harsh and not very charitable review of the book. After a few comments from readers I returned and wrote a revised review of the book, which is at the moment the most popular post on my blog. It regularly gets about four times as many hits as any other post that I have written (which let's face it, isn't saying much, but still it does bring a number of people to my blog). When I wrote the review I had no idea that it would end up being my most popular post, and that even now, if you do a Google search for "Kolob Theorem" my review is generally the first or second link that comes up.
Now, two years after my initial review I felt that I should return and write something about the most common responses to the book and my review of it.
Here I will give my response to a few common comments about The Kolob Theorem. I will also respond to a few specific comments that were left on my blog and also comments made on other sites that I feel need to be addressed.
1. "Fascinating theory. Made me think." or "Interesting and thought-provoking."
Response: Yes it is interesting. There is a reason why The Kolob Theorem is such a draw. It talks about things that most people have never thought about before. Even for lifelong members of the Church Dr. Hilton talks about aspects of our theology that are never touch on in Sunday School, Sacrament Meeting or in Priesthood and Relief Society (though maybe occasionally in some random seminary or Elder's quorum meeting). In these cases the book is something refreshing and different and it makes them think about what is only mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and in The Pearl of Great Price.
There are some real implications to those passages in the scriptures that Dr. Hilton uses as the basis of The Kolob Theorem and I think that those passages of scripture are wonderful to think about. We would all benefit by understanding those passages to a greater degree (such as Abraham 3:2-3). They are definitely a major aspect of my faith and also why I chose the profession that I did.
But before we all run off and say what a wonderful thing The Kolob Theorem is, here is your obligatory grain of salt:
 |
| A "grain" of salt. |
These flaws are so pronounced that they really undermine his entire book. Some people may respond and say that "at least it gets the conversation started." The only problem is that it starts the conversation off on such a bad footing that it is better to just chuck the book and start over. It would take more time and effort to correct all the mistakes than to write a new book.
The thing is all this could have been prevented if Dr. Hilton had just run the book past a real astronomer before sending it off to the publisher. The only people listed as having reviewed the book before being published are a couple of medical doctors, business people and a secretary to a general authority. No one with any expertise in astronomy apparently reviewed it and offered their opinion. This does not automatically invalidate what is written in the book, but due to its obvious (obvious to people who study astronomy for a living) short comings the book and most of its ideas would have been shot down before publication if an astronomer had been asked to read it and give their honest opinion of the science behind the theorem.
So if you fall in the "Hey this book really made me think" crowd I say "GOOD!" now forget most of what you read and go figure out what is really going on, because the reality of what is taught in the D&C and The Pearl of Great Price is better than what is portrayed in The Kolob Theorem.
This is such an important point that let me say it again. The truth is much more amazing than what has been written. Go learn the truth. You will be amazed.
2. The book is "a cohesive collection of ideas about Mormon cosmology."
Response: Read Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul. He's a real astronomer. That is the book that The Kolob Theorem should have been. Read Dr. Paul's book. That's all.
3. Don't be so harsh, after all it is just a "theory".
Response: There is a strange phenomena in America where people think that by labeling something a "theory" that it somehow makes it less forceful or something that can safely be ignored. In the words of that immortal swordsman "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh but when people use the word "theory" in this context it is just a lazy cop out that accomplishes nothing but end the conversation. Nothing is actually said when we say "Oh, it's just a theory."
That's a phrase that doesn't mean anything except "I'm slightly uncomfortable with where this conversation is heading because it challenges some of my fundamental assumptions on life and so I will make a quick dash for the exit by calling it all a theory. By doing that I somehow cast doubt on everything without having to actually do any work and show anything." Saying something is "just a theory" is the conversational equivalent of telling your history teacher "and then some other stuff happened." and expecting to get an "A" on that term paper.
4. "Your blog is not as significant as I thought" and your review won't make much of an impact.
Response: I keep this blog for anyone who cares to read it (which is mostly my family, thanks Mom!) and I never really intended to "make an impact" with my review. I just wanted to write down my thoughts so that if anyone asked me directly I could tell them to read my review on my blog. In the end my review has gotten a much bigger response than I ever anticipated.
5. I really enjoyed The Kolob Theorem and it has really opened my eyes to somethings. It's like you don't want people to consider these great truths.
Response: On the contrary. These are ideas that we should consider (see #1 above), but I think that The Kolob Theorem is the exact wrong place to start. If the book is some member's only exposure to some of the great truths and ideas found in scripture then they are really missing out on the best stuff. I would suggest some alternative reading. Try the book Science, Religion and Mormon Cosmology by Erich Robert Paul (mentioned in #2). If you want some general sciencey-LDS theology stuff to read about try LDS FAQ. It is a good resource to start.
6. Dr. Hilton had a "spark of inspiration [that] opened his eyes to far more than a few details of astrophysics."
Response: His "spark" was not unique. I have sat though many conversations on this very topic as an undergrad at BYU. Many such theories were proposed and just as many were shot down for being unworkable. Dr. Hilton's book was not the first place I have heard ideas like his, but most of those theories had a very short lifespan in the Physics and Astronomy Department at BYU. This is stuff that many, many undergrads (and some professors) like to speculate about.
Most of the speculation revolves (ha!) around black holes and neutron stars. About 99.95% of the theories die a very quick death under scrutiny. Some of the best ideas I have ever heard were proposed in a class on general relativity, and those ideas are light years beyond anything Dr. Hilton wrote. There is some pretty remarkable stuff talked about late at night in the physics department, but there is a reason why hardly anyone has written about it. There is too much speculation and the people involved generally realize that there is soooo much that we don't know, and that our scientific understanding changes so rapidly that it is not a good idea to put such extreme speculations into a book.
Just consider this: The thoughts and ideas that Dr. Hilton had were not unique. Many, many students at BYU have proposed just such ideas to their classmates. Some professors have even hinted at similar speculations, yet none of them chose to write The Kolob Theorem, and it is not for lack of ideas, or lack of a desire to speculate. There is plenty of that. In the end Dr. Hilton was in way over his head and didn't realize that he was writing down just about every half baked idea that was ever proposed by intro astronomy students at BYU. There is a reason why those half baked ideas never made it out of the labs and classrooms in the Eyring Science Center.
7. Do you apply the same level of criticism to the Church, its teachings, its leaders and the scriptures?
Response: Yes.
And that is why I believe.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Book Review: Offenders for a Word by Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks
The subtitle for this book is How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints, and that about sums up the book right there. This book is not for the faint of heart as it is packed full of scholarly references, page numbers, author lists, historical references, philosophical and theological terms and esoteric arguments. The book Offenders for a Word is essentially a collection of responses and research that the two authors collected over many years in response to numerous and dishonest attacks from anti-Mormons. They make no attempt to sugar coat their topic and respond to all the accusations with blunt force.
Even though there are a large number of topics covered, many of them are very similar and thus there does appear to be some repetition, but that is the nature of the topic they are dealing with. I would not recommend this book so someone who is struggling with their testimony (unless they are a serious scholar and like reading dense books), but it is a very good book to have as reference for someone who is helping people who are struggling with their testimonies due to an over exposure of anti-Mormon literature. The book can be used as a reference to draw ideas from and to get the facts straight and to understand and frame the arguments so that a more honest and enlightening discussion can be had.
Because this is a book written in response to a set of polarizing and (let's face it) dishonest anti-Mormon works it does have the tendency to draw out that polarization. This means that this WOULD NOT BE A GOOD BOOK TO GIVE TO MISSIONARIES, they have a different work to do and should not be arguing polarizing topics. Nor would this be a good book to give to someone who is only slightly interested in the Church, and would definitely not be a good book to give to someone who is already antagonistic towards the Church. But this book can be used as a reference to frame a discussion, but that discussion should be done in such a way as to minimize the polarization.
The bulk of the book is a section that deals with the question, "Are Mormons Christian?" The general thrust of the response looks at all the reasons why Mormons are accused of not being Christians and then goes through Christian history and finds examples of Christians who believed the exact same thing or at least something similar but were not (and still aren't) accused of being non-Christians. To which the authors argue, "If they can be called Christian, then why can't we?"
For a large portion of the first section of the book the authors go through 22 specific claims made by anti-Mormon authors about why Mormons are not Christians and give detailed, referenced (with extensive footnotes) responses to each claim. It was a bit of a hassle switching between the text and the very extensive footnotes, where a lot of the interesting stuff was.
All the claims that the authors respond to can be broken down into two categories, those that are demonstrably false (or that rely on a very false and skewed interpretation of what happened), and those that come down to nothing more than a difference of opinion. An example of the former would be, "Mormonism is non-Christian because, in the nineteenth century, it practiced the hideous doctrine of blood atonement--killing heretics, adulterers, and the like." The response to that one was simple and short. An example of the latter would be, "Christianity teaches creation ex nihilo. Mormonism does not. Therefore, Mormonism is not Christian." That one took a little longer to explain.
One thing that I found interesting about the book was that a large number of the things that are used to exclude Mormons from Christianity can also apply to Catholics (which the authors note, by pointing out that many of the "Christian" ministries that write the anti-Mormon literature also accuse Catholicism of being a non-Christian cult. Interesting.). Another thing pointed out by the authors is that if one were to take the criteria used by the anti-Mormons in determining who could or could not be Christian then those criteria would end up excluding just about the entire population of Christians in the world from being Christian. In some cases the restrictions are so severe that it would restrict Christianity to one specific pastor and his church. The authors argue that if a definition of Christianity goes so far that in excludes a majority of Christians in the world, or even nearly all Christians in the world (and in the extreme case exclude Christ himself) then perhaps that definition of Christian is not an honest definition and should not be used in determining who is or is not Christian.
Overall the book was informative, if a little dense (and repetitive) but good. I would use it as a reference if I were helping someone who had been overexposed to anti-Mormon literature and was at a loss with how to respond.
Even though there are a large number of topics covered, many of them are very similar and thus there does appear to be some repetition, but that is the nature of the topic they are dealing with. I would not recommend this book so someone who is struggling with their testimony (unless they are a serious scholar and like reading dense books), but it is a very good book to have as reference for someone who is helping people who are struggling with their testimonies due to an over exposure of anti-Mormon literature. The book can be used as a reference to draw ideas from and to get the facts straight and to understand and frame the arguments so that a more honest and enlightening discussion can be had.
Because this is a book written in response to a set of polarizing and (let's face it) dishonest anti-Mormon works it does have the tendency to draw out that polarization. This means that this WOULD NOT BE A GOOD BOOK TO GIVE TO MISSIONARIES, they have a different work to do and should not be arguing polarizing topics. Nor would this be a good book to give to someone who is only slightly interested in the Church, and would definitely not be a good book to give to someone who is already antagonistic towards the Church. But this book can be used as a reference to frame a discussion, but that discussion should be done in such a way as to minimize the polarization.
The bulk of the book is a section that deals with the question, "Are Mormons Christian?" The general thrust of the response looks at all the reasons why Mormons are accused of not being Christians and then goes through Christian history and finds examples of Christians who believed the exact same thing or at least something similar but were not (and still aren't) accused of being non-Christians. To which the authors argue, "If they can be called Christian, then why can't we?"
For a large portion of the first section of the book the authors go through 22 specific claims made by anti-Mormon authors about why Mormons are not Christians and give detailed, referenced (with extensive footnotes) responses to each claim. It was a bit of a hassle switching between the text and the very extensive footnotes, where a lot of the interesting stuff was.
All the claims that the authors respond to can be broken down into two categories, those that are demonstrably false (or that rely on a very false and skewed interpretation of what happened), and those that come down to nothing more than a difference of opinion. An example of the former would be, "Mormonism is non-Christian because, in the nineteenth century, it practiced the hideous doctrine of blood atonement--killing heretics, adulterers, and the like." The response to that one was simple and short. An example of the latter would be, "Christianity teaches creation ex nihilo. Mormonism does not. Therefore, Mormonism is not Christian." That one took a little longer to explain.
One thing that I found interesting about the book was that a large number of the things that are used to exclude Mormons from Christianity can also apply to Catholics (which the authors note, by pointing out that many of the "Christian" ministries that write the anti-Mormon literature also accuse Catholicism of being a non-Christian cult. Interesting.). Another thing pointed out by the authors is that if one were to take the criteria used by the anti-Mormons in determining who could or could not be Christian then those criteria would end up excluding just about the entire population of Christians in the world from being Christian. In some cases the restrictions are so severe that it would restrict Christianity to one specific pastor and his church. The authors argue that if a definition of Christianity goes so far that in excludes a majority of Christians in the world, or even nearly all Christians in the world (and in the extreme case exclude Christ himself) then perhaps that definition of Christian is not an honest definition and should not be used in determining who is or is not Christian.
Overall the book was informative, if a little dense (and repetitive) but good. I would use it as a reference if I were helping someone who had been overexposed to anti-Mormon literature and was at a loss with how to respond.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Book Review: Muhammad, Prophet of God by Daniel C. Peterson
I have been wanting for a while to read something that would give a good basic introduction to either Islam or the history of its founding so that I could better understand the religion. So when I recently came across this book I jumped at the chance to read it.
Daniel C. Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU and his book Muhammad, Prophet of God came highly recommended and I was not disappointed. The book is basically short biography written for a general (American) audience, with perhaps a slight bent towards an LDS audience, though that would not be an obvious fact. It is obvious that Dr. Peterson wanted to give a fair telling of the prophet's life. This is perhaps due to the fact that he spends so much of his time writing and defending the prophet Joseph Smith that he felt that the founding prophet of Islam should also get a telling of his story. In this respect Dr. Peterson is successful. The book comes across as honest and true to a believer's perspective. There is no obvious attempt to question or discuss theological differences but rather an attempt to explain them in such a way that his intended audience would understand the origins of Islam.
The book reads almost like a novel so if the reader is not knowledgeable about the history and geography of Arabia they can still follow and understand what is happening. There is sufficient background information given that the prophet's life can be put into context, though the reader is not inundated with more facts and information than can be handled. This is not perhaps a book for an intense study of Muhammad or of Islam, but it is a good place to start.
Dr. Peterson does cover some of the things that would be considered controversial about Islam and Muhammad specifically, but while he notes them and recognizes (mostly in footnotes) the differing opinions among scholars he does not try to debate theology or history. As I noted, the book is written so that a believer would find it acceptable (though you can always find that one who doesn't) so it easily blends stories of faith and miraculous events with more "established" and "recorded" events in a way that the narrative is not interrupted with a discussion of an explanation for these supernatural events. It is presented merely as is without trying to beat some theological drum. This does not mean that Dr. Peterson ignores or buries what some would claim to be the more controversial aspects of Muhammad's life, but seamlessly weaves them into the narrative.
If the reader is looking for a book that is heavily bent one way or the other (pro- or con-) this is not it. If the reader is looking for an easily accessible introduction to the life of Muhammad that presents matters of faith in an honest way then this is it.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Book Review: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate by Michael J. Crowe
This is actually two reviews in one. The author, Michael J. Crowe, wrote two books that dealt with the debate on extraterrestrial life. The first book, published in 1986 and the second in 2008, give a comprehensive view of all of the scholarly, religious, and popular writings about extraterrestrials from antiquity (i.e. the Greeks) until about 1915.
His first book, entitled The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900, is more narrative, meaning he does a lot of the explaining and tells the history of the the ideas behind extraterrestrial life. The second book, entitled The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book, contains large portions of the source material that he used to write his first book. Thus it is not narrative, but more informational, with long quotes and brief explanations. Combined both books are a great resource for anyone who wants to know what people thought about extraterrestrials before they became little green men.
I think that if you asked the typical person on the street when was it that we first got the idea that there might be extraterrestrials, they would probably say that the idea of extraterrestrials has only been around for about 100 years, or maybe 150 or so. Very few people would realize that the discussion of extraterrestrials goes back to the Greeks (such as Epicurus and Democritus (yes the guy who thought up atoms, and lost the debate to Aristotle, at least until they found atoms again)). Few people would also realize that the debate about extraterrestrials was also on going through out the middle ages, but that it got much more coverage during, and after, the Enlightenment.
Perhaps the most prominent driver of the extraterrestrial debate was religion, mostly because the question of whether or not there are extraterrestrials directly impacts many religious doctrines and ideas. The author, Dr. Crowe, points this out, but while he does not take a side on the issue, he readily admits that this is a very important question because the discovery of extraterrestrials would radically change the way we view ourselves, our ethics, our culture and religion. One thing that is interesting to note is that while religion has been a major driver in the debate, religion as a whole, or even just Christianity and a whole has not universally taken a side on the debate. Many (almost all) of the theologians in the middle ages took the stance that there were no extraterrestrials, but since the Enlightenment there have been just as many theologians (and even non-theologians) that have taken the view that there were extraterrestrials.
One of the most interesting things I got out of these books was the very different view of extraterrestrials that people had during that time period. Our current view of extraterrestrials has been so radically changed by H. G. Wells, Star Wars, Star Trek, Sputnik, Buck Rogers, E.T., Alien, Roswell and others that it is difficult to get past our current view of extraterrestrials to understand how people viewed extraterrestrials before 1900. Their conception of extraterrestrials was so radically different that most people would not realize just how much our views have changed in 100 years. These books give an excellent insight into how people though of extraterrestrials before there was "The War of the Worlds".
The difference in ideas, and thinking is so profound that any attempt by modern people to understand what was written about extraterrestrials before 1900 will most likely result in misunderstanding, and a severe misconstruing of what people thought and believed. Any attempt to retroactively project our modern ideas of extraterrestrials on what was written before then would be a severe intellectual disservice. The types of questions, dilemmas and motivations in the extraterrestrial life debate are so different from what they currently are that the possibility for misunderstanding and fundamentally missing what was talked about are very high. These books are supposed to bridge the gap between the historical and modern views of extraterrestrials.
His first book, entitled The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900, is more narrative, meaning he does a lot of the explaining and tells the history of the the ideas behind extraterrestrial life. The second book, entitled The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book, contains large portions of the source material that he used to write his first book. Thus it is not narrative, but more informational, with long quotes and brief explanations. Combined both books are a great resource for anyone who wants to know what people thought about extraterrestrials before they became little green men.
I think that if you asked the typical person on the street when was it that we first got the idea that there might be extraterrestrials, they would probably say that the idea of extraterrestrials has only been around for about 100 years, or maybe 150 or so. Very few people would realize that the discussion of extraterrestrials goes back to the Greeks (such as Epicurus and Democritus (yes the guy who thought up atoms, and lost the debate to Aristotle, at least until they found atoms again)). Few people would also realize that the debate about extraterrestrials was also on going through out the middle ages, but that it got much more coverage during, and after, the Enlightenment.
Perhaps the most prominent driver of the extraterrestrial debate was religion, mostly because the question of whether or not there are extraterrestrials directly impacts many religious doctrines and ideas. The author, Dr. Crowe, points this out, but while he does not take a side on the issue, he readily admits that this is a very important question because the discovery of extraterrestrials would radically change the way we view ourselves, our ethics, our culture and religion. One thing that is interesting to note is that while religion has been a major driver in the debate, religion as a whole, or even just Christianity and a whole has not universally taken a side on the debate. Many (almost all) of the theologians in the middle ages took the stance that there were no extraterrestrials, but since the Enlightenment there have been just as many theologians (and even non-theologians) that have taken the view that there were extraterrestrials.
One of the most interesting things I got out of these books was the very different view of extraterrestrials that people had during that time period. Our current view of extraterrestrials has been so radically changed by H. G. Wells, Star Wars, Star Trek, Sputnik, Buck Rogers, E.T., Alien, Roswell and others that it is difficult to get past our current view of extraterrestrials to understand how people viewed extraterrestrials before 1900. Their conception of extraterrestrials was so radically different that most people would not realize just how much our views have changed in 100 years. These books give an excellent insight into how people though of extraterrestrials before there was "The War of the Worlds".
The difference in ideas, and thinking is so profound that any attempt by modern people to understand what was written about extraterrestrials before 1900 will most likely result in misunderstanding, and a severe misconstruing of what people thought and believed. Any attempt to retroactively project our modern ideas of extraterrestrials on what was written before then would be a severe intellectual disservice. The types of questions, dilemmas and motivations in the extraterrestrial life debate are so different from what they currently are that the possibility for misunderstanding and fundamentally missing what was talked about are very high. These books are supposed to bridge the gap between the historical and modern views of extraterrestrials.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Book Review: Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective by Kirk Hawkins
If I had to sum this book up in one word it would be "dense". This is not a book that you would (typically) want to curl up with on a lazy afternoon to relax with. This book has an incredible wealth of information, complexity, and analysis. This is not a book written for a general audience, but the things it talks about are incredibly important for the general audience. Perhaps the only way I could begin to understand what the author was talking about was because I have at least a minimal familiarity with Latin American politics and I spent four years studying philosophy, that way I could understand a lot of the technical terms and their proper context.
Perhaps I can give a brief overview of the book (kind of like trying to explain the history of Western Civilization in 1000 words or less), so here goes:
As the title implies the book deals with the Chavismo movement in Venezuela (it does not provide a breakdown of Hugo Chávez himself, as the Chavismo movement, while centered on Hugo Chávez, is much more complex than a single movement lead by one man). Furthermore, the book looks at Chavismo as a populist movement rather than an expression of a particular political ideology. The movement does have a particular ideology, but to think of it in such narrow terms is to miss what is really going on.
One of the first things Dr. Hawkins does is set out an understanding of three critical ideas; populism, worldview and discourse. In terms of worldview, Chavismo movement has what is called a Manichaean outlook, which means they view their own actions, plight and work as being part of a larger cosmic struggle between the Good and the Evil. In this case the Good is interpreted by them to be the unified will of the people and the Evil to be a conspiring minority. In this sense their worldview is a populist worldview. The discourse refers not to a set cannon of political tracts or works, but a more elusive and set of vocabulary, tone, metaphor and broad themes that drive the movement.
After laying this foundation Dr. Hawkins then proceeds to give an in depth analysis of Hugo Chávez's use of populist discourse and also gives a method of measuring the populist discourse quantitatively. This is compared to other countries and leaders to give a sense of where Chávez and Chavismo in general falls in the populist spectrum. Not surprisingly it falls at the extreme end of the populist spectrum.
Then Dr. Hawkins looks into the historical causes that lead to the rise of populism in Venezuela. While there were a number of factors that contributed to the formation of the societal forces in Venezuela, Dr. Hawkins clearly states that it was the break down of democratic norms and the underlying violation of the rule of law that allowed for the creation of a populist movement in Venezuela. This assertion is accompanied by a number of studies and surveys (presented in a number of tables) to measure the level or the perceived level of corruption in government. This measure is compared against the causes of populism across several countries and areas of the world.
The book finishes up with a look at how the introduction of a populist movement has affected Venezuela in general. Specifically the author looks at the effect of Bolivarian Circles on the fundamental political organization of the country. The Circles are characterized by four attributes: low institutionalization, movement structure, disruptive tactics, and insularity within the larger society. These four things both defined and drove the populist movement in Venezuela. The effects of populism on public policy are also considered where it is asserted that the ideology of the populist movement drives the economic policies rather than economic policies driving the movement.
The book concludes by emphasizing the importance of the ideas developed in the course of the book, namely that of populism as discourse and worldview that can be used to understand and apply to different situations across the world. It is important to understand how the system works because that will determine future outcomes and/or determine how the society interacts with other societies. How that particular society responds to external forces and influences will be highly dependent on the strength and amount of populist fervor in the country. Definitely important things to consider when interacting or studying the country in question.
Overall I found the book to be very informative and interesting. I realize that I could never give an adequate summary of the book here as it is very complex, but it does provide a wealth of ideas, analysis and understanding of populism.
Disclaimer: Dr. Kirk Hawkins is my brother-in-law, which is why I decided to read this book. I don't typically go and pull random Political Science books of the shelf and read them. But I really did enjoy reading this book.
Perhaps I can give a brief overview of the book (kind of like trying to explain the history of Western Civilization in 1000 words or less), so here goes:
As the title implies the book deals with the Chavismo movement in Venezuela (it does not provide a breakdown of Hugo Chávez himself, as the Chavismo movement, while centered on Hugo Chávez, is much more complex than a single movement lead by one man). Furthermore, the book looks at Chavismo as a populist movement rather than an expression of a particular political ideology. The movement does have a particular ideology, but to think of it in such narrow terms is to miss what is really going on.
One of the first things Dr. Hawkins does is set out an understanding of three critical ideas; populism, worldview and discourse. In terms of worldview, Chavismo movement has what is called a Manichaean outlook, which means they view their own actions, plight and work as being part of a larger cosmic struggle between the Good and the Evil. In this case the Good is interpreted by them to be the unified will of the people and the Evil to be a conspiring minority. In this sense their worldview is a populist worldview. The discourse refers not to a set cannon of political tracts or works, but a more elusive and set of vocabulary, tone, metaphor and broad themes that drive the movement.
After laying this foundation Dr. Hawkins then proceeds to give an in depth analysis of Hugo Chávez's use of populist discourse and also gives a method of measuring the populist discourse quantitatively. This is compared to other countries and leaders to give a sense of where Chávez and Chavismo in general falls in the populist spectrum. Not surprisingly it falls at the extreme end of the populist spectrum.
Then Dr. Hawkins looks into the historical causes that lead to the rise of populism in Venezuela. While there were a number of factors that contributed to the formation of the societal forces in Venezuela, Dr. Hawkins clearly states that it was the break down of democratic norms and the underlying violation of the rule of law that allowed for the creation of a populist movement in Venezuela. This assertion is accompanied by a number of studies and surveys (presented in a number of tables) to measure the level or the perceived level of corruption in government. This measure is compared against the causes of populism across several countries and areas of the world.
The book finishes up with a look at how the introduction of a populist movement has affected Venezuela in general. Specifically the author looks at the effect of Bolivarian Circles on the fundamental political organization of the country. The Circles are characterized by four attributes: low institutionalization, movement structure, disruptive tactics, and insularity within the larger society. These four things both defined and drove the populist movement in Venezuela. The effects of populism on public policy are also considered where it is asserted that the ideology of the populist movement drives the economic policies rather than economic policies driving the movement.
The book concludes by emphasizing the importance of the ideas developed in the course of the book, namely that of populism as discourse and worldview that can be used to understand and apply to different situations across the world. It is important to understand how the system works because that will determine future outcomes and/or determine how the society interacts with other societies. How that particular society responds to external forces and influences will be highly dependent on the strength and amount of populist fervor in the country. Definitely important things to consider when interacting or studying the country in question.
Overall I found the book to be very informative and interesting. I realize that I could never give an adequate summary of the book here as it is very complex, but it does provide a wealth of ideas, analysis and understanding of populism.
Disclaimer: Dr. Kirk Hawkins is my brother-in-law, which is why I decided to read this book. I don't typically go and pull random Political Science books of the shelf and read them. But I really did enjoy reading this book.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Book Review: Inventing the Flat Earth by Jeffrey Burton Russell
I have known about the flat earth error for some time but I have never actually read a book or even a scholarly article detailing where the myth started and how it entered our popular culture. Then I came across Inventing the Flat Earth by Dr. Russell, and I was impressed with how quickly he presented the argument and dealt with the issue. The book is a very short read (77 pages, not including end notes, 30 pages, "selected" bibliography, 7 pages, and an index) and can be finished in an afternoon (or over a few days if you only take it a few pages at a time). It covers the topic very well and gives you a good sense of how, and why, the flat earth error started. But because of its length, it is only good as a starting point if you want to get deeper into the subject. For those who only want to learn about the flat earth error and how it started then this is the book for you.
First, the book is about the flat earth error also referred to as the Myth of the Flat Earth, not to be confused with the error of the flat earth. Simply put, the flat earth error is the idea that people in the middle ages thought that the earth was flat and not spherical. As Dr. Russell demonstrates, ever since the Greeks proved the sphericity of the earth the scholarly consensus has been that the earth was spherical. There was some debate as to the size, whether or not there was land on the opposite side and whether or not that land was inhabited. But there was never any serious question as to whether or not the earth was a sphere.
Dr. Russell explains that the only opposition to Columbus was not from people who thought the earth was flat, but from other scholars who thought that the earth was bigger than Columbus calculated it to be (which it was). If Columbus's calculations were correct then it would have been possible to sail west from Europe to Asia using the boats they were building at the time. If he was wrong, then the distance would have been too great and they would not have been able to make the journey (alive). That was the only concern raised by scholars at the time. There were a few people in history that flat out stated (ha ha) that the earth was flat, but of the two theologians/scholars that get cited most often, one had his writings condemned for being heretical (for other reasons), and the other was never read nor cited all throughout the middle ages except by two different writers, who only cited him to point out in no uncertain terms that he was wrong about the earth being flat. Other than that those writings were not cited, noted, quoted, or even read until the 1800's when historians and scholars began citing them as evidence that "everyone" believed the earth was flat. Dr. Russell goes into more detail in his book.
Sometime in the 1800's a few different people thought that it would be great to cast Columbus as a great scientist fighting against the darkness of the illiterate and ignorant traditions of the past and say that he was trying to prove that the earth was round and not flat. Thus scholars cherry picked the writings of a few theologians from the middle ages and said, "Look! People used to think that the earth was flat, and they thought this until Columbus proved that it was round." Thus from about 1870 to 1920 there was virtually unanimous consensus among historians that people (theologians and scholars) in the middle ages thought the earth was flat. This lasted until people actually began reading what they wrote, and not reading what other historians thought about what they wrote. After this there was a shift in the scholarly world that recognized that people in the middle ages did not think that the earth was flat, but unfortunately that idea became so strongly embedded in our culture that even today it is still put into text books and taught in our schools as being true (I asked my cub scouts about it and they all repeated back to me the flat earth error, as told them by their teachers. I then told them that their teachers were wrong and I set them right.).
Dr. Russell speculates as to the motivation of the scholars who started this myth. There were some non-scholars who contributed to the myth, such as Washington Irving, but it was mostly spread by scholars who had ulterior motives. There were some who promoted the idea so that they had a basis to attack the Catholic Church ("Hey, look at what the crazy Church leaders used to believe. And I hear they wanted to burn Columbus at the stake for believing the earth was round!"). There were others who used it to attack religion in general, saying that the idea was a hold over from an antiquated era when people believed in silly things such as magic, and religion. But "we have moved past that we are now in a more enlightened era, dominated by Natural Philosophy". This of course was all strongly influenced by the ideas of Aususte Comte, who viewed history as a progression from less enlightened to more enlightened ways of thinking. With this as the basis, it made sense to assume that any opposition to Columbus was due to unenlightened thinking about the world, which meant that everyone else must have thought that the earth was flat. So strong where these ideas that the myth persisted and persists to this day.
Dr. Russell also talks about how there might be some confusion regarding some words, such as antipodeans, which he explains scholars in the middle ages used to refer to people that lived on the other side of the earth, and modern scholars interpret to mean literally, the other side of the earth. Thus medieval scholars debated the existence of antipodeans (meaning people living on the other side of the earth), and scholars in the 1800's interpreted that debate to mean that they were discussing the existence of the other side of the earth, and used that debate as proof that they thought the earth was flat.
I would recommend reading this book, and I think it should be required reading for all elementary education majors. My only complaint is that the all the notes in the book are in endnote format, which means they are all crammed into the end of the book, and it is hard to have to keep flipping to the back of the book to see if the note is something interesting (i.e. a break down of the Latin root of a word used, and how the meaning changed over time) or if it simply contained a list of additional books to read. So my only complaint is in the format, not the writing. Footnotes would have been better.
First, the book is about the flat earth error also referred to as the Myth of the Flat Earth, not to be confused with the error of the flat earth. Simply put, the flat earth error is the idea that people in the middle ages thought that the earth was flat and not spherical. As Dr. Russell demonstrates, ever since the Greeks proved the sphericity of the earth the scholarly consensus has been that the earth was spherical. There was some debate as to the size, whether or not there was land on the opposite side and whether or not that land was inhabited. But there was never any serious question as to whether or not the earth was a sphere.
Dr. Russell explains that the only opposition to Columbus was not from people who thought the earth was flat, but from other scholars who thought that the earth was bigger than Columbus calculated it to be (which it was). If Columbus's calculations were correct then it would have been possible to sail west from Europe to Asia using the boats they were building at the time. If he was wrong, then the distance would have been too great and they would not have been able to make the journey (alive). That was the only concern raised by scholars at the time. There were a few people in history that flat out stated (ha ha) that the earth was flat, but of the two theologians/scholars that get cited most often, one had his writings condemned for being heretical (for other reasons), and the other was never read nor cited all throughout the middle ages except by two different writers, who only cited him to point out in no uncertain terms that he was wrong about the earth being flat. Other than that those writings were not cited, noted, quoted, or even read until the 1800's when historians and scholars began citing them as evidence that "everyone" believed the earth was flat. Dr. Russell goes into more detail in his book.
Sometime in the 1800's a few different people thought that it would be great to cast Columbus as a great scientist fighting against the darkness of the illiterate and ignorant traditions of the past and say that he was trying to prove that the earth was round and not flat. Thus scholars cherry picked the writings of a few theologians from the middle ages and said, "Look! People used to think that the earth was flat, and they thought this until Columbus proved that it was round." Thus from about 1870 to 1920 there was virtually unanimous consensus among historians that people (theologians and scholars) in the middle ages thought the earth was flat. This lasted until people actually began reading what they wrote, and not reading what other historians thought about what they wrote. After this there was a shift in the scholarly world that recognized that people in the middle ages did not think that the earth was flat, but unfortunately that idea became so strongly embedded in our culture that even today it is still put into text books and taught in our schools as being true (I asked my cub scouts about it and they all repeated back to me the flat earth error, as told them by their teachers. I then told them that their teachers were wrong and I set them right.).
Dr. Russell speculates as to the motivation of the scholars who started this myth. There were some non-scholars who contributed to the myth, such as Washington Irving, but it was mostly spread by scholars who had ulterior motives. There were some who promoted the idea so that they had a basis to attack the Catholic Church ("Hey, look at what the crazy Church leaders used to believe. And I hear they wanted to burn Columbus at the stake for believing the earth was round!"). There were others who used it to attack religion in general, saying that the idea was a hold over from an antiquated era when people believed in silly things such as magic, and religion. But "we have moved past that we are now in a more enlightened era, dominated by Natural Philosophy". This of course was all strongly influenced by the ideas of Aususte Comte, who viewed history as a progression from less enlightened to more enlightened ways of thinking. With this as the basis, it made sense to assume that any opposition to Columbus was due to unenlightened thinking about the world, which meant that everyone else must have thought that the earth was flat. So strong where these ideas that the myth persisted and persists to this day.
Dr. Russell also talks about how there might be some confusion regarding some words, such as antipodeans, which he explains scholars in the middle ages used to refer to people that lived on the other side of the earth, and modern scholars interpret to mean literally, the other side of the earth. Thus medieval scholars debated the existence of antipodeans (meaning people living on the other side of the earth), and scholars in the 1800's interpreted that debate to mean that they were discussing the existence of the other side of the earth, and used that debate as proof that they thought the earth was flat.
I would recommend reading this book, and I think it should be required reading for all elementary education majors. My only complaint is that the all the notes in the book are in endnote format, which means they are all crammed into the end of the book, and it is hard to have to keep flipping to the back of the book to see if the note is something interesting (i.e. a break down of the Latin root of a word used, and how the meaning changed over time) or if it simply contained a list of additional books to read. So my only complaint is in the format, not the writing. Footnotes would have been better.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Book Review: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Recently I have been reading the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. It is a follow up to his other book Guns, Germs, and Steel [editor's note: I will provide a review of that book when I finish writing it. I have read the book, but I have not finished writing the review], which won the Pulitzer Prize.
If you are interested in a more comprehensive review of the book then I am sure that you can find a link to a good review from the Wikipedia page on the book, or a review on Amazon. This review is just my own personal take on the book.
First off, the book is well written and full of details, but it is not technical and can be read by any high school graduate (or anyone still in high school for that matter). He makes some excellent points in the book, and it is obvious that his motivations for writing the book are sincere. He truly hopes that by writing this book he will inspire us to take action and to prevent the collapse of our modern societies. I think that this book would be useful for people to get an idea of the sheer scale of our impact on the environment, and how that impact can have some serious consequences on us and our ability to survive.
While Diamond tries to express the complex nature of what causes certain societies to collapse, by the end of the book what I was getting out of it was that the entirety of the book could be summed up in one word, "Deforestation". In every chapter, no matter how complex the situation or society, or how many factors went into the decline (or not) of a society, the clincher...every...single...time, was deforestation. If a society cut down too many trees, they collapsed, if they managed to preserve their forests they succeeded. So while he talked about other causes and the complexity of the situation he, either knowingly or unknowingly, wrote the book so that deforestation was the prime cause of the collapse of a society. In every...single...example that he gives, the final straw that broke the backs of the societies was deforestation. So if you read the book, don't be surprised that you feel like going out and saving every last tree in sight, and don't be surprised if you suddenly become overly concerned about forest management. While he does have a point, and being concerned about proper forest management is very important, I think there are some more severe root causes to societal collapse that he only hints at in the book. While he also mentions soil erosion and soil fertility along with water management and introduction of "noxious weeds" and other ecologically destructive species, eventually it all comes down to deforestation.
But in all of his complex analysis Diamond falls victim in this book, just like in Guns, Germs, and Steel, to what I refer to as the Observational Astronomer Syndrome (OAS) [editor's note: I will explain this in more detail in my review of Guns, Germs and Steel, which I still have to finish writing. When I finish that review I will provide a link here to that review]. To briefly explain OAS you need to understand a little about astronomy. Astronomers spend most of their time looking at data gathered from telescopes (they spend most of their time looking at the data, and not looking through a telescope) and from that data they find correlations between different things. Such as the observe that galaxies that have an overall red color are generally older than galaxies with a more blue color. Also the red galaxies tend to be bigger. Thus an astronomer may spend much of their time taking observational data and plotting it on a graph to see if they can find any trends or correlations between seemingly unrelated things, such as the presence of iron and age, or the presence of magnetic fields and rotation (or a star or galaxy). In his book Diamond does something similar. He looks at historical data and says, "Look, when people cut down all their trees, a short time later their society collapses." And then he proceeds to look at many different societies that apparently were in different situations and says, "Look, for every society in different parts of the world, when they began to cut down too many trees they started to fall apart and die off." So in this way he is like an observational astronomer that looks through a telescope, takes a survey of many different things and finds out what each one had in common right before something bad happened to them. In this case the common thread was apparently deforestation.
While this is not a bad thing to do it does fall victim to the OAS, which is a tendency to look at the correlations and to ignore the underlying causes of the problem. One of the things I learned in astronomy is that there are two types of plots that we can make of astronomical data. The first is simply correlational plots which plot one thing against another and (hopefully) produce a useful trend that can then tell us something about other stars or galaxies that we might look at. It is kind of like looking out your window and noting what kinds of trees you see and from that you can figure out what kinds of trees you ought to see if you go outside and look at places that you can't see from your window. But in astronomy there is a second type of plot that astronomers make and these are arguable more useful. The second type of plots that astronomers make are ones that show or reveal what we call "the underlying physics", that is, it tells us something about the laws of physics that govern everything down to individual atoms. These plots are more interesting because they are more than "happy coincidences" that can be used to find trends and correlations, they tell us something about the universe, about how it works and why we see what we see. If we understand the underlying physics then we can determine the final effects that we should observe in all cases. The problem with most observational astronomers is that they get caught up in finding the interesting correlations, and while the correlations may be useful for further observations and surveys, don't really tell us much about how the universe works. Thus the Observational Astronomer Syndrome is a tendency to look at the correlations and to become fixated on them and to ignore the reasons why the universe (or history) unfolds as it does. Someone with OAS fails to look for the underlying causes to what we observe. They look at interesting correlations, and even correlations that contribute to the end result, but fail to consider the causes that are effective on the small, and smallest, scales, which ultimately determine the whole.
The reason why I say that Diamond falls victim to OAS is that even though he spends an inordinate amount of the book describing how environmental degradation contributes to societal collapse he writes disproportionately less about what factors in society contributed to either the success or collapse of the society. While he focuses a lot on how the practices and customs of the society contribute to the environmental degradation, he does not spend as much time considering just what is it about the society (i.e. the particular practices of the society) that lead directly to the triggering of environmental and consequently societal collapse. Diamond only briefly mentions possible causes, such as mentioning that selfish actions taken by politicians contributed to the genocide in Rwanda, or that the inordinate pride of chiefs lead to excessive monument building that caused the deforestation on Easter Island. Nor does Diamond adequately consider which societal practices would contribute to a successful society, other than good forest management and environmental protections, such as in his example with Japan. Thus at the end of the book the reader is left with a sense that we must do something and that we must practice better forest management and enact better environmental controls, but beyond that there is no clear idea of how a society must be organized so that those practices and controls are effective in accomplishing anything. Diamond briefly mentions in his example with Japan that the Shogun only felt the need or the desire to promote better forest management when the Shogun could ensure that the practices would last for more than a generation. In other words, it would not matter how advanced or how organized the Japanese were with the forest management skills, or how well intentioned they were if they could not transmit that organization and dedication on to the next generation. He notes that it was only when the island was united to the point that large scale warfare was practically nonexistent that the Shogunate could practice good forest management that would last for more than a few years. Without that level of stability any forest management would ultimately be pointless and impossible to enforce, and thus would be unable to prevent the societal collapse that Diamond is warning us about.
So while I agree with Diamond that poor forest management, poor farming practices, and poor environmental controls can and will cause problems for societies, the presence of these dangerous conditions are predicated on societal traits that are necessarily prior to the environmental conditions. These societal traits that either allow good environmental management or prevent it are only mentioned briefly and indirectly in Collapse, and this is why I say Diamond falls victim to OAS. While he does a good job at demonstrating how fragile, or overly exploited environmental conditions contribute to societal collapse, he does not explore to any great depth why particular societies failed to adopt either positive or at least minimal practices that would allow for their success.
He does mention how selfishness of political leaders played a role in Rwanda, and how excessive monument building contributed to the collapse of Easter Island culture and the Maya. He also notes how failure to adopt innovations contributed to the disappearance of Greenland's Norse, and how excessive violent tendencies created problems for the Norse, Maya and Rwanda. He also notes how an extreme distrust in foreigners contributed to the disappearance of the Norse in Greenland and is at the root of the current problems in Haiti. In all of his examples he notes that there was an extreme disparity in resources and that the disparities reached their highest levels right before the collapse. In some cases the disparity caused the collapse (i.e. through excessive monument building on Easter Island and with the Maya), and in others the disparity resulted when the society experienced a drastic change in their fortunes and the "rich and powerful" attempted to maintain their wealth and lifestyle at the expense of the poor until the poor forced a redistribution and thereby triggered a collapse (as was the case with the Greenland Norse, the Anasazi and Rwanda).
Thus if we take as the premise that excessive environmental damage precedes a society's collapse then we might justifiable ask, "What is it about certain societies that cause them to cause so much damage to their environment?" From Diamond's book we can immediately pick out a few obvious ones, and even a few not so obvious ones.
First, selfishness. As is evident in his example of Rwanda, the selfishness of a few political leaders who wished to maintain their power at any cost, cost the country many, many lives. While selfishness played a decisive role in other societies, it was in Rwanda that its effects were most evident (at least as explained by Diamond). Selfish tendencies undermine any attempts at regulation are restraint that may help preserve the environment. Selfish tendencies contribute to over exploitation through the mindset of "if I don't get the [resources, i.e. fish, wood, sheep, grass etc.] for myself then somebody else will just go get it". The concept of restraint and preservation are lacking in a selfish society.
Second, Diamond referred to it as excessive monument building, but other people would use a different word to describe it, namely, pride, or hubris. The drive to make someone's monument bigger, better, taller, or more extravagant than anyone else's is something that ultimately causes harm and contributes to a decline in resources. This pride, though Diamond never uses that word, is what caused the Easter Islanders to build more, and more massive monuments until they literally ran out of trees. It is what caused Mayan kings to continue to build massive monuments until the people rebelled and overthrew the kings.
Third, violence. Diamond notes that one of the main reasons why the Norse in Greenland never established good relations with the Inuit was because their first meeting consisted of the Norse killing eight of the nine Inuit that they met. All other meeting generally followed a similar style for the next 450 years until the surviving Norse at the Greenland settlements were killed off. Now I chose to use the word violence because there are more types of violence than just murder and warfare. Violence can also be oppression, segregation, intolerance and ridicule.
Fourth, disintegration of the family. This does not refer to changing societal expectations or gender roles, or even to a decrease in family size. This refers to family relations becoming broken, strained or resulting in conflict. Essentially when family ties get to the point where husbands and wives do not care for each other, and where parents do not care for children, and siblings for each other. In looking at why Rwanda happened, Diamond noted that many people were killed by family because they had a grudge or felt that they had inherited less than they felt they should have received. On the other hand Japan was able to achieve stability when families felt that they could pass down their inheritance/land/business to their children. They began managing their forests when they felt that their children would be around in 20 or 30 or 40 years to harvest the trees from the forest. Thus the preservation of family ties directly affected the peoples ability to act unselfishly and to enact good environmental controls, thus preserving their society.
Fifth, greed. While this could be lumped with selfishness or pride, greed is distinct enough to warrant mentioning. While selfishness can be characterized by short-sighted decisions, greed is characterized by poor, negative or irrational decisions. These are actions taken with no regard for the result or consequences. Diamond frequently mentions the greed of major corporations (though he does mention how some of them feel and act responsibly), in that they mine, dig, or cut not caring what gets damaged and then when they are done they go away and leave the mess for someone else to clean up (and pay for).
Sixth, failure to adopt innovations. Diamond lists this as the principle reason for the demise of the Norse in Greenland. Another way of putting this is it is a failure to think critically and to accept novel idea. To be fair, in retrospect it is easy for us to say, "If they had just done ______, then they would not have died.", but to look at our own situation and determine what we should do, or what aspects of our society we need to change in order to preserve our society is not so clear. But this is precisely Diamond's reason for writing Collapse in the first place. What sets this societal trait apart from the first five that I mentioned is that a failure to adopt innovation is often unintentional, or in some cases due to other pressures that to those involved consider benign. For example, in the US we use either paper of plastic shopping bags to hold our groceries when we buy food (and other things). The reason why more people do not switch over to using reusable cloth bags is not because they don't want to or have a particular desire to use plastic shopping bags, but because to make the switch is too much effort for the perceived benefit. So it is not a result of ill intention or irrational thought but rather the inertia of human societies, a desire to continue doing what we have always been doing.
This is by no means a complete or comprehensive list of societal traits that are found in collapsed societies, these are just the most obvious ones. Of the six traits that I have mentioned here four are explicitly mentioned by Diamond in Collapse; selfishness, greed, violence, and failure to adopt innovations, and two of them are mentioned indirectly or are referred to by other phrases, namely, pride and the disintegration of the family.
In considering these six things that contribute to the demise of society it might be said that these traits come about because of environmental pressures, but there is also sufficient evidence that these traits are prior to the environmental damage done by a society, and that the reason why a particular society fails to adopt good environmental controls is because of societal traits like the six listed above. This might be a prime candidate for a chicken vs. egg debate but instead a better way of looking at it is as a positive feedback mechanism. This means that there is nothing specific that starts the process, but that natural perturbations will augment the problem and cause it to grow. The societal problems prevent the society from adopting good environmental controls, and in turn the lack of environmental controls contributes to ecological damage which destabilizes the society and creates more societal pressure which augments the problem. This approach gives the impression that societal collapse is somewhat fatalistic because once the process starts it is nearly impossible to stop. The only way to prevent the collapse would be to prevent the problems (either environmental or societal) from growing beyond a manageable level.
In the end, the environmental concerns that Diamond raises are important and require action, but the environmental concerns are of little consequence if our society is not stable enough to follow through with the environmental controls. Thus it should be of greater concern to fix society so that we can then be effective in controlling our impact on the environment. While the book is very well written and Diamond gets his point across, because he gets caught up in the Observational Astronomer Syndrome in that he focuses too much on what is happening in the environment around a particular society and not what the society is specifically doing, other than damaging the environment, that leads to the precarious environmental situation in which the society finds itself. This means that he shows that societies that damage their environment too much will ultimately collapse, but I think the important question to consider here is what is it specifically about the society that prevented them from adopting good environmental controls. This is why I pointed out the six societal traits mentioned directly or indirectly by Diamond, that seem to prevent societies from adopting good environmental controls. The six that I mentioned are definitely not the only societal traits that may contribute to collapse, but they are a good starting point. If someone were to extend the investigation into societal collapse started by Diamond in Collapse then these traits would be a good place to start.
If you are interested in a more comprehensive review of the book then I am sure that you can find a link to a good review from the Wikipedia page on the book, or a review on Amazon. This review is just my own personal take on the book.
First off, the book is well written and full of details, but it is not technical and can be read by any high school graduate (or anyone still in high school for that matter). He makes some excellent points in the book, and it is obvious that his motivations for writing the book are sincere. He truly hopes that by writing this book he will inspire us to take action and to prevent the collapse of our modern societies. I think that this book would be useful for people to get an idea of the sheer scale of our impact on the environment, and how that impact can have some serious consequences on us and our ability to survive.
While Diamond tries to express the complex nature of what causes certain societies to collapse, by the end of the book what I was getting out of it was that the entirety of the book could be summed up in one word, "Deforestation". In every chapter, no matter how complex the situation or society, or how many factors went into the decline (or not) of a society, the clincher...every...single...time, was deforestation. If a society cut down too many trees, they collapsed, if they managed to preserve their forests they succeeded. So while he talked about other causes and the complexity of the situation he, either knowingly or unknowingly, wrote the book so that deforestation was the prime cause of the collapse of a society. In every...single...example that he gives, the final straw that broke the backs of the societies was deforestation. So if you read the book, don't be surprised that you feel like going out and saving every last tree in sight, and don't be surprised if you suddenly become overly concerned about forest management. While he does have a point, and being concerned about proper forest management is very important, I think there are some more severe root causes to societal collapse that he only hints at in the book. While he also mentions soil erosion and soil fertility along with water management and introduction of "noxious weeds" and other ecologically destructive species, eventually it all comes down to deforestation.
But in all of his complex analysis Diamond falls victim in this book, just like in Guns, Germs, and Steel, to what I refer to as the Observational Astronomer Syndrome (OAS) [editor's note: I will explain this in more detail in my review of Guns, Germs and Steel, which I still have to finish writing. When I finish that review I will provide a link here to that review]. To briefly explain OAS you need to understand a little about astronomy. Astronomers spend most of their time looking at data gathered from telescopes (they spend most of their time looking at the data, and not looking through a telescope) and from that data they find correlations between different things. Such as the observe that galaxies that have an overall red color are generally older than galaxies with a more blue color. Also the red galaxies tend to be bigger. Thus an astronomer may spend much of their time taking observational data and plotting it on a graph to see if they can find any trends or correlations between seemingly unrelated things, such as the presence of iron and age, or the presence of magnetic fields and rotation (or a star or galaxy). In his book Diamond does something similar. He looks at historical data and says, "Look, when people cut down all their trees, a short time later their society collapses." And then he proceeds to look at many different societies that apparently were in different situations and says, "Look, for every society in different parts of the world, when they began to cut down too many trees they started to fall apart and die off." So in this way he is like an observational astronomer that looks through a telescope, takes a survey of many different things and finds out what each one had in common right before something bad happened to them. In this case the common thread was apparently deforestation.
While this is not a bad thing to do it does fall victim to the OAS, which is a tendency to look at the correlations and to ignore the underlying causes of the problem. One of the things I learned in astronomy is that there are two types of plots that we can make of astronomical data. The first is simply correlational plots which plot one thing against another and (hopefully) produce a useful trend that can then tell us something about other stars or galaxies that we might look at. It is kind of like looking out your window and noting what kinds of trees you see and from that you can figure out what kinds of trees you ought to see if you go outside and look at places that you can't see from your window. But in astronomy there is a second type of plot that astronomers make and these are arguable more useful. The second type of plots that astronomers make are ones that show or reveal what we call "the underlying physics", that is, it tells us something about the laws of physics that govern everything down to individual atoms. These plots are more interesting because they are more than "happy coincidences" that can be used to find trends and correlations, they tell us something about the universe, about how it works and why we see what we see. If we understand the underlying physics then we can determine the final effects that we should observe in all cases. The problem with most observational astronomers is that they get caught up in finding the interesting correlations, and while the correlations may be useful for further observations and surveys, don't really tell us much about how the universe works. Thus the Observational Astronomer Syndrome is a tendency to look at the correlations and to become fixated on them and to ignore the reasons why the universe (or history) unfolds as it does. Someone with OAS fails to look for the underlying causes to what we observe. They look at interesting correlations, and even correlations that contribute to the end result, but fail to consider the causes that are effective on the small, and smallest, scales, which ultimately determine the whole.
The reason why I say that Diamond falls victim to OAS is that even though he spends an inordinate amount of the book describing how environmental degradation contributes to societal collapse he writes disproportionately less about what factors in society contributed to either the success or collapse of the society. While he focuses a lot on how the practices and customs of the society contribute to the environmental degradation, he does not spend as much time considering just what is it about the society (i.e. the particular practices of the society) that lead directly to the triggering of environmental and consequently societal collapse. Diamond only briefly mentions possible causes, such as mentioning that selfish actions taken by politicians contributed to the genocide in Rwanda, or that the inordinate pride of chiefs lead to excessive monument building that caused the deforestation on Easter Island. Nor does Diamond adequately consider which societal practices would contribute to a successful society, other than good forest management and environmental protections, such as in his example with Japan. Thus at the end of the book the reader is left with a sense that we must do something and that we must practice better forest management and enact better environmental controls, but beyond that there is no clear idea of how a society must be organized so that those practices and controls are effective in accomplishing anything. Diamond briefly mentions in his example with Japan that the Shogun only felt the need or the desire to promote better forest management when the Shogun could ensure that the practices would last for more than a generation. In other words, it would not matter how advanced or how organized the Japanese were with the forest management skills, or how well intentioned they were if they could not transmit that organization and dedication on to the next generation. He notes that it was only when the island was united to the point that large scale warfare was practically nonexistent that the Shogunate could practice good forest management that would last for more than a few years. Without that level of stability any forest management would ultimately be pointless and impossible to enforce, and thus would be unable to prevent the societal collapse that Diamond is warning us about.
So while I agree with Diamond that poor forest management, poor farming practices, and poor environmental controls can and will cause problems for societies, the presence of these dangerous conditions are predicated on societal traits that are necessarily prior to the environmental conditions. These societal traits that either allow good environmental management or prevent it are only mentioned briefly and indirectly in Collapse, and this is why I say Diamond falls victim to OAS. While he does a good job at demonstrating how fragile, or overly exploited environmental conditions contribute to societal collapse, he does not explore to any great depth why particular societies failed to adopt either positive or at least minimal practices that would allow for their success.
He does mention how selfishness of political leaders played a role in Rwanda, and how excessive monument building contributed to the collapse of Easter Island culture and the Maya. He also notes how failure to adopt innovations contributed to the disappearance of Greenland's Norse, and how excessive violent tendencies created problems for the Norse, Maya and Rwanda. He also notes how an extreme distrust in foreigners contributed to the disappearance of the Norse in Greenland and is at the root of the current problems in Haiti. In all of his examples he notes that there was an extreme disparity in resources and that the disparities reached their highest levels right before the collapse. In some cases the disparity caused the collapse (i.e. through excessive monument building on Easter Island and with the Maya), and in others the disparity resulted when the society experienced a drastic change in their fortunes and the "rich and powerful" attempted to maintain their wealth and lifestyle at the expense of the poor until the poor forced a redistribution and thereby triggered a collapse (as was the case with the Greenland Norse, the Anasazi and Rwanda).
Thus if we take as the premise that excessive environmental damage precedes a society's collapse then we might justifiable ask, "What is it about certain societies that cause them to cause so much damage to their environment?" From Diamond's book we can immediately pick out a few obvious ones, and even a few not so obvious ones.
First, selfishness. As is evident in his example of Rwanda, the selfishness of a few political leaders who wished to maintain their power at any cost, cost the country many, many lives. While selfishness played a decisive role in other societies, it was in Rwanda that its effects were most evident (at least as explained by Diamond). Selfish tendencies undermine any attempts at regulation are restraint that may help preserve the environment. Selfish tendencies contribute to over exploitation through the mindset of "if I don't get the [resources, i.e. fish, wood, sheep, grass etc.] for myself then somebody else will just go get it". The concept of restraint and preservation are lacking in a selfish society.
Second, Diamond referred to it as excessive monument building, but other people would use a different word to describe it, namely, pride, or hubris. The drive to make someone's monument bigger, better, taller, or more extravagant than anyone else's is something that ultimately causes harm and contributes to a decline in resources. This pride, though Diamond never uses that word, is what caused the Easter Islanders to build more, and more massive monuments until they literally ran out of trees. It is what caused Mayan kings to continue to build massive monuments until the people rebelled and overthrew the kings.
Third, violence. Diamond notes that one of the main reasons why the Norse in Greenland never established good relations with the Inuit was because their first meeting consisted of the Norse killing eight of the nine Inuit that they met. All other meeting generally followed a similar style for the next 450 years until the surviving Norse at the Greenland settlements were killed off. Now I chose to use the word violence because there are more types of violence than just murder and warfare. Violence can also be oppression, segregation, intolerance and ridicule.
Fourth, disintegration of the family. This does not refer to changing societal expectations or gender roles, or even to a decrease in family size. This refers to family relations becoming broken, strained or resulting in conflict. Essentially when family ties get to the point where husbands and wives do not care for each other, and where parents do not care for children, and siblings for each other. In looking at why Rwanda happened, Diamond noted that many people were killed by family because they had a grudge or felt that they had inherited less than they felt they should have received. On the other hand Japan was able to achieve stability when families felt that they could pass down their inheritance/land/business to their children. They began managing their forests when they felt that their children would be around in 20 or 30 or 40 years to harvest the trees from the forest. Thus the preservation of family ties directly affected the peoples ability to act unselfishly and to enact good environmental controls, thus preserving their society.
Fifth, greed. While this could be lumped with selfishness or pride, greed is distinct enough to warrant mentioning. While selfishness can be characterized by short-sighted decisions, greed is characterized by poor, negative or irrational decisions. These are actions taken with no regard for the result or consequences. Diamond frequently mentions the greed of major corporations (though he does mention how some of them feel and act responsibly), in that they mine, dig, or cut not caring what gets damaged and then when they are done they go away and leave the mess for someone else to clean up (and pay for).
Sixth, failure to adopt innovations. Diamond lists this as the principle reason for the demise of the Norse in Greenland. Another way of putting this is it is a failure to think critically and to accept novel idea. To be fair, in retrospect it is easy for us to say, "If they had just done ______, then they would not have died.", but to look at our own situation and determine what we should do, or what aspects of our society we need to change in order to preserve our society is not so clear. But this is precisely Diamond's reason for writing Collapse in the first place. What sets this societal trait apart from the first five that I mentioned is that a failure to adopt innovation is often unintentional, or in some cases due to other pressures that to those involved consider benign. For example, in the US we use either paper of plastic shopping bags to hold our groceries when we buy food (and other things). The reason why more people do not switch over to using reusable cloth bags is not because they don't want to or have a particular desire to use plastic shopping bags, but because to make the switch is too much effort for the perceived benefit. So it is not a result of ill intention or irrational thought but rather the inertia of human societies, a desire to continue doing what we have always been doing.
This is by no means a complete or comprehensive list of societal traits that are found in collapsed societies, these are just the most obvious ones. Of the six traits that I have mentioned here four are explicitly mentioned by Diamond in Collapse; selfishness, greed, violence, and failure to adopt innovations, and two of them are mentioned indirectly or are referred to by other phrases, namely, pride and the disintegration of the family.
In considering these six things that contribute to the demise of society it might be said that these traits come about because of environmental pressures, but there is also sufficient evidence that these traits are prior to the environmental damage done by a society, and that the reason why a particular society fails to adopt good environmental controls is because of societal traits like the six listed above. This might be a prime candidate for a chicken vs. egg debate but instead a better way of looking at it is as a positive feedback mechanism. This means that there is nothing specific that starts the process, but that natural perturbations will augment the problem and cause it to grow. The societal problems prevent the society from adopting good environmental controls, and in turn the lack of environmental controls contributes to ecological damage which destabilizes the society and creates more societal pressure which augments the problem. This approach gives the impression that societal collapse is somewhat fatalistic because once the process starts it is nearly impossible to stop. The only way to prevent the collapse would be to prevent the problems (either environmental or societal) from growing beyond a manageable level.
In the end, the environmental concerns that Diamond raises are important and require action, but the environmental concerns are of little consequence if our society is not stable enough to follow through with the environmental controls. Thus it should be of greater concern to fix society so that we can then be effective in controlling our impact on the environment. While the book is very well written and Diamond gets his point across, because he gets caught up in the Observational Astronomer Syndrome in that he focuses too much on what is happening in the environment around a particular society and not what the society is specifically doing, other than damaging the environment, that leads to the precarious environmental situation in which the society finds itself. This means that he shows that societies that damage their environment too much will ultimately collapse, but I think the important question to consider here is what is it specifically about the society that prevented them from adopting good environmental controls. This is why I pointed out the six societal traits mentioned directly or indirectly by Diamond, that seem to prevent societies from adopting good environmental controls. The six that I mentioned are definitely not the only societal traits that may contribute to collapse, but they are a good starting point. If someone were to extend the investigation into societal collapse started by Diamond in Collapse then these traits would be a good place to start.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Book Review: Hamlet's Mill
The book I am reviewing is entitled Hamlet's Mill: An essay on myth and the frame of time by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend. I am using the 1969 edition published by Gambit Inc.
Hamlet's Mill is not an easy read. At first glance the book seems disorganized and disjointed. The authors make a number of obscure references to ancient texts and stories that they assume the reader is familiar with. They also have a tendency to insert critical phrases in Latin or French without translation, thus a knowledge of the Romantic languages is necessary to get some of the finer points of the book (they do give translations to quotes given in German, but they seem to assume that anyone reading the book also knows all the languages they know). Also a good working knowledge of world history is fundamental as the authors are not attempting to create a coherent story of world history, nor do the feel the need to include any further explanation. If the reader is not familiar with all the stories, cultures and references it would be a good idea to read Hamlet's Mill with quick access to a reliable encyclopedia to get the general background the authors just assume you know.
There are essentially two separate theses in Hamlet's Mill. The first thesis deals with the coherent nature of myths all over the world. This thesis takes up the majority of the book and is the primary thesis. The assertion is that all major mythologies from all over the world are fundamentally connected. To prove this the authors show the connections and similarities of myths from every major cultural group. The major point of this thesis is to show the reason why myths all over the world have a similar form is that they all draw from the same source, astronomy. The authors argue that myths from all over the world originally were references to astronomical observations. Thus all myths have common connecting threads and references.
They state that the only way to explain these similarities is to use astronomical observations, something the archeological and anthropological communities seemed to have ignored up to that point. In the introduction and the first few chapters the authors make a big deal out of the fact that other scholars in their field have never considered an astronomical (or cosmological) explanation to myths and legends. Therefore the authors feel it imperative that they explain their thesis so that others will consider this possibility. From their assessment it is the only explanation which makes sense, due to the striking similarities between myths all over the world. Furthermore they try to establish a direct connection between the myths and the actual astronomical observations made by ancient cultures.
By establishing a link between the different constellations and the growth and spread of the myths through out the world, the authors are attempting to show that the mythologies of ancient (and modern!) cultures first grew out of astronomy. This is to say that highly specific and accurate astronomical observations grew into and became the major world mythologies, as opposed to the commonly accepted idea that world myths (myths of creation and world phenomena such as weather) were the basis of and the inspiration for the original astronomical observations. To present it schematically the commonly accepted theory of the development of mythologies, and by extension astronomy, would be:
Mysticism --> Mythology --> Astronomical Observations motivated by the mythology --> Modern Astronomy
This is contrasted with the author's approach which can be characterized thus:
Accurate Astronomical Observations --> Mythology motivated by the observations --> More Recent Astronomical Observations --> Modern Astronomy
The authors also argue that mysticism, at least the ancient mysticism that we "know" of grew out of the mythologies after people had forgotten that the myths were simply a way of remembering the complex astronomical observations. This conclusion and the reasoning behind the authors' approach is based on an assumption that is central to the author's second thesis.
The second thesis given in the book is most clearly expressed after Chapter Four in what they call an Intermezzo (Intermission), aptly titled A Guide for the Perplexed. In this chapter they pause in their narration of the myths and legends related to the story of Hamlet, to "take stock" and give some guidance to the admittedly complex narration. While they take this intermission to introduce the first and primary thesis they also incidentally layout the secondary thesis. The secondary thesis is arguably the more important of the the two and provides greater and farther reaching insight into ancient cultures. As presented by the authors the second thesis is no more than conjecture but gains support from the validity of the first thesis.
The second thesis is founded on the idea of cyclic time as opposed to linear time. This idea is integral with and underlies all arguments made by the authors regarding ancient cultures and how we should view them. The concept of cyclic time as opposed to linear time has two major applications in studying and understanding ancient cultures. The first deals with understanding how the ancient people viewed the world and the proper mindset that we should have in attempting to understand them. The second deals primarily with how we view them and their abilities of reason.
To understand the second thesis and its implications we need to understand the concept of cyclic time. Suffice it to say that our modern concept of time is inextricably linked to the concept of linear time, so being able to understand cyclic time is perhaps the hardest part of understanding anything in Hamlet's Mill. In considering the ancient concept of cyclic time we must admit that we are approaching it with a bias (even by using the word ancient we express our bias) and we must be prepared to give up all that we know or think we know about the world.
As the authors tell it, the academic community does more than merely overlook the concept of cyclic time, they either ignore it or hold it in contempt, but they contend that if we are to understand anything about ancient cultures we must understand the concept of cyclic time. I have previously run across the concept from two unrelated sources so, since Hamlet's Mill was written it seems that the concept has at least been mentioned in academic circles but the lack of more mention of it is a good indication that there has been absolutely no progress in understanding ancient cultures since Hamlet's Mill was published.
To put it simply the modern concept of time is linear and the ancient concept of time involves cycles. To put it bluntly, ancient peoples did not view the world they same way we do. For us we think of time has having a definite duration and direction, as in thinking of time as an arrow. For ancient people time repeated itself just like a wheel will rotate and come back to where it started from. Time consists of cycles, the cycle of a day (the sun rises it moves through the sky, it sets and starts over), the changing of the seasons, the movements of the planets, stars and moon. Even the cycle of life repeats itself. Thus to the ancient cultures all things were governed by cycles of time, some longer and some shorter.
Indeed the different cycles of time could be ordered in such a way from the least to the greatest, with the greater (longer) governing the lesser (shorter), just as the equinoxes govern the seasons and the seasons the days (that is the seasons determine what the days will be like, and the equinoxes govern when the seasons will come). So as there are cycles which govern each aspect of life it is the longer cycles that ultimately govern over all other cycles and the longest cycle that ancient cultures knew of was the precession of the equinoxes, which has an approximately 26,000 year cycle. Thus as the precession of the equinoxes was the longest and greatest known cycle it governed over and determined all others. To the ancient mind it could be considered the ultimate driving force behind all aspects of life. Just as the seasons bring with them warmth and life or cold and death, the thing which governed over the seasons (the equinoxes) were thus more important for determining the fate of men. With this in mind it would only be natural to conclude that that which governed over the equinoxes was more important than them all.
When presented in this way an emphasis on equinoxes, and the movement of the sun through the zodiac, is no longer an ignorant and whimsical expression of pre-rational minds, but is a natural conclusion reached by intelligent and reasoning minds trying to make sense of the world. If presented in the proper context this way of looking at the world almost seems more intuitive and natural than our present concept of linear time. It is precisely this different view of time that allows the authors to conclude that the original astronomical observations were not motivated by mysticism or mythology, but the other way round. This is to say that the mythologies and stories associated with the constellations, planets and stars grew out of a need to preserve the complex astronomical observations. As a type of complex pneumonic device the stories were created to both entertain and to give a way of remembering the collected wisdom and scientific observations from previous generations.
Returning to the schematics that I presented above:
Mysticism --> Mythology --> Astronomical Observations motivated by the mythology --> Modern Astronomy
Accurate Astronomical Observations --> Mythology motivated by the observations --> More Recent Astronomical Observations --> Modern Astronomy
Without and understanding of the concept of cyclic time the second option seems almost absurd given the progression of modern thought and the discoveries of the last few hundred years in the area of astronomy. But with an understanding of cyclic time the second option seems almost natural, with the first being the absurd option. The key in understanding this lies in a rejection of Social Darwinism, which whether or not we realize it is derived from and integral to the concept of linear time. Because of the linear nature of our understanding of time it is a natural conclusion to think that mankind has progressed from a less advanced state to a more advanced state. The basis for this thinking lies in the technological advancements that we have achieved through out our history. The authors do not dispute this advancement but what they do dispute is the conclusion of Social Darwinism that the reasoning ability of mankind has progressed over the short time span of recorded (and even non-recorded) history.
The critical assertion of the authors is that even if ancient cultures did not have the same level of technological advancement that we now have does not and should not reflect on the mental or cognitive abilities of the ancient peoples. As the authors put it, "our ancestors of the high and far-off times were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours, and were capable of rational processes--always given the means at hand. It is enough to say that this flies in the face of a custom which has become already second nature." (p. 68) This concept calls into question the idea that the gradual Darwinian progression can apply to cultural understandings and interpretations. Again as the authors put it, "The lazy word "evolution" had blinded us to the real complexities of the past." (p. 69) They assert that the time scale on which evolution works is much too long for it to be applied to the history of man.
The key understanding of the authors' second thesis is that the concept of cyclic time is central to understanding the world view of ancient societies, and while this world view may be radically different from ours it does not make them "primitive" or "'howling barbarians' who were, to say the least, utterly incapable of working out complex astronomical cycles...over many years" (p. 69). With this basis of understanding we may again approach the authors' first thesis, that the basis of ancient myths and legends is grounded in astronomical observations, and find that it makes more sense.
In concluding I feel I should mention the oddity of the authors' conclusion. The book finishes out with an epilogue entitled The Lost Treasure in which the authors bemoan the fact that the basis of understanding the ancient cultures is already lost. In their conclusion they end the book by saying, "the system as a whole may lie beyond all conjecture, because the creating, ordering minds that have made it have vanished forever." (p. 348) Given the entire premise of the book this seems like a rather misguided ending to the book. Essentially they spend the entire book attempting to prove that world myths from all over the world have a common generational basis and source found in astronomical observations, and that the ancient peoples were just as capable at complex reasoning as we are. But when they end the book they end it with a statement lamenting the fact that we have no possible basis to interpret and/or understand completely ancient cultures. The authors apparently have missed the fact that the basis of understanding lies in astronomical observations (which they spend most of the book trying to establish) and that if ancient peoples "were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours" then surely we should be able to comprehend and recreate the same world view and mind set of our ancestors. The implication is that if they are "endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours" then they are capable of understanding our view point and we theirs.
Overall I would say that Hamlet's Mill is a very important book for understanding ancient cultures as it gives a correct mind-set in which to approach myths and legends. If understood the book gives the reader an approach to interpreting the work and methods of ancient peoples that other sources do not give out of bias, ignorance or laziness. It also raises certain questions of "standard" interpretations that have the potential to change entire fields of study. If the authors are correct then the true story of the growth of civilization is more amazing than we could have possible imagined, and we have so much more to learn.
Hamlet's Mill is not an easy read. At first glance the book seems disorganized and disjointed. The authors make a number of obscure references to ancient texts and stories that they assume the reader is familiar with. They also have a tendency to insert critical phrases in Latin or French without translation, thus a knowledge of the Romantic languages is necessary to get some of the finer points of the book (they do give translations to quotes given in German, but they seem to assume that anyone reading the book also knows all the languages they know). Also a good working knowledge of world history is fundamental as the authors are not attempting to create a coherent story of world history, nor do the feel the need to include any further explanation. If the reader is not familiar with all the stories, cultures and references it would be a good idea to read Hamlet's Mill with quick access to a reliable encyclopedia to get the general background the authors just assume you know.
There are essentially two separate theses in Hamlet's Mill. The first thesis deals with the coherent nature of myths all over the world. This thesis takes up the majority of the book and is the primary thesis. The assertion is that all major mythologies from all over the world are fundamentally connected. To prove this the authors show the connections and similarities of myths from every major cultural group. The major point of this thesis is to show the reason why myths all over the world have a similar form is that they all draw from the same source, astronomy. The authors argue that myths from all over the world originally were references to astronomical observations. Thus all myths have common connecting threads and references.
They state that the only way to explain these similarities is to use astronomical observations, something the archeological and anthropological communities seemed to have ignored up to that point. In the introduction and the first few chapters the authors make a big deal out of the fact that other scholars in their field have never considered an astronomical (or cosmological) explanation to myths and legends. Therefore the authors feel it imperative that they explain their thesis so that others will consider this possibility. From their assessment it is the only explanation which makes sense, due to the striking similarities between myths all over the world. Furthermore they try to establish a direct connection between the myths and the actual astronomical observations made by ancient cultures.
By establishing a link between the different constellations and the growth and spread of the myths through out the world, the authors are attempting to show that the mythologies of ancient (and modern!) cultures first grew out of astronomy. This is to say that highly specific and accurate astronomical observations grew into and became the major world mythologies, as opposed to the commonly accepted idea that world myths (myths of creation and world phenomena such as weather) were the basis of and the inspiration for the original astronomical observations. To present it schematically the commonly accepted theory of the development of mythologies, and by extension astronomy, would be:
Mysticism --> Mythology --> Astronomical Observations motivated by the mythology --> Modern Astronomy
This is contrasted with the author's approach which can be characterized thus:
Accurate Astronomical Observations --> Mythology motivated by the observations --> More Recent Astronomical Observations --> Modern Astronomy
The authors also argue that mysticism, at least the ancient mysticism that we "know" of grew out of the mythologies after people had forgotten that the myths were simply a way of remembering the complex astronomical observations. This conclusion and the reasoning behind the authors' approach is based on an assumption that is central to the author's second thesis.
The second thesis given in the book is most clearly expressed after Chapter Four in what they call an Intermezzo (Intermission), aptly titled A Guide for the Perplexed. In this chapter they pause in their narration of the myths and legends related to the story of Hamlet, to "take stock" and give some guidance to the admittedly complex narration. While they take this intermission to introduce the first and primary thesis they also incidentally layout the secondary thesis. The secondary thesis is arguably the more important of the the two and provides greater and farther reaching insight into ancient cultures. As presented by the authors the second thesis is no more than conjecture but gains support from the validity of the first thesis.
The second thesis is founded on the idea of cyclic time as opposed to linear time. This idea is integral with and underlies all arguments made by the authors regarding ancient cultures and how we should view them. The concept of cyclic time as opposed to linear time has two major applications in studying and understanding ancient cultures. The first deals with understanding how the ancient people viewed the world and the proper mindset that we should have in attempting to understand them. The second deals primarily with how we view them and their abilities of reason.
To understand the second thesis and its implications we need to understand the concept of cyclic time. Suffice it to say that our modern concept of time is inextricably linked to the concept of linear time, so being able to understand cyclic time is perhaps the hardest part of understanding anything in Hamlet's Mill. In considering the ancient concept of cyclic time we must admit that we are approaching it with a bias (even by using the word ancient we express our bias) and we must be prepared to give up all that we know or think we know about the world.
As the authors tell it, the academic community does more than merely overlook the concept of cyclic time, they either ignore it or hold it in contempt, but they contend that if we are to understand anything about ancient cultures we must understand the concept of cyclic time. I have previously run across the concept from two unrelated sources so, since Hamlet's Mill was written it seems that the concept has at least been mentioned in academic circles but the lack of more mention of it is a good indication that there has been absolutely no progress in understanding ancient cultures since Hamlet's Mill was published.
To put it simply the modern concept of time is linear and the ancient concept of time involves cycles. To put it bluntly, ancient peoples did not view the world they same way we do. For us we think of time has having a definite duration and direction, as in thinking of time as an arrow. For ancient people time repeated itself just like a wheel will rotate and come back to where it started from. Time consists of cycles, the cycle of a day (the sun rises it moves through the sky, it sets and starts over), the changing of the seasons, the movements of the planets, stars and moon. Even the cycle of life repeats itself. Thus to the ancient cultures all things were governed by cycles of time, some longer and some shorter.
Indeed the different cycles of time could be ordered in such a way from the least to the greatest, with the greater (longer) governing the lesser (shorter), just as the equinoxes govern the seasons and the seasons the days (that is the seasons determine what the days will be like, and the equinoxes govern when the seasons will come). So as there are cycles which govern each aspect of life it is the longer cycles that ultimately govern over all other cycles and the longest cycle that ancient cultures knew of was the precession of the equinoxes, which has an approximately 26,000 year cycle. Thus as the precession of the equinoxes was the longest and greatest known cycle it governed over and determined all others. To the ancient mind it could be considered the ultimate driving force behind all aspects of life. Just as the seasons bring with them warmth and life or cold and death, the thing which governed over the seasons (the equinoxes) were thus more important for determining the fate of men. With this in mind it would only be natural to conclude that that which governed over the equinoxes was more important than them all.
When presented in this way an emphasis on equinoxes, and the movement of the sun through the zodiac, is no longer an ignorant and whimsical expression of pre-rational minds, but is a natural conclusion reached by intelligent and reasoning minds trying to make sense of the world. If presented in the proper context this way of looking at the world almost seems more intuitive and natural than our present concept of linear time. It is precisely this different view of time that allows the authors to conclude that the original astronomical observations were not motivated by mysticism or mythology, but the other way round. This is to say that the mythologies and stories associated with the constellations, planets and stars grew out of a need to preserve the complex astronomical observations. As a type of complex pneumonic device the stories were created to both entertain and to give a way of remembering the collected wisdom and scientific observations from previous generations.
Returning to the schematics that I presented above:
Mysticism --> Mythology --> Astronomical Observations motivated by the mythology --> Modern Astronomy
Accurate Astronomical Observations --> Mythology motivated by the observations --> More Recent Astronomical Observations --> Modern Astronomy
Without and understanding of the concept of cyclic time the second option seems almost absurd given the progression of modern thought and the discoveries of the last few hundred years in the area of astronomy. But with an understanding of cyclic time the second option seems almost natural, with the first being the absurd option. The key in understanding this lies in a rejection of Social Darwinism, which whether or not we realize it is derived from and integral to the concept of linear time. Because of the linear nature of our understanding of time it is a natural conclusion to think that mankind has progressed from a less advanced state to a more advanced state. The basis for this thinking lies in the technological advancements that we have achieved through out our history. The authors do not dispute this advancement but what they do dispute is the conclusion of Social Darwinism that the reasoning ability of mankind has progressed over the short time span of recorded (and even non-recorded) history.
The critical assertion of the authors is that even if ancient cultures did not have the same level of technological advancement that we now have does not and should not reflect on the mental or cognitive abilities of the ancient peoples. As the authors put it, "our ancestors of the high and far-off times were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours, and were capable of rational processes--always given the means at hand. It is enough to say that this flies in the face of a custom which has become already second nature." (p. 68) This concept calls into question the idea that the gradual Darwinian progression can apply to cultural understandings and interpretations. Again as the authors put it, "The lazy word "evolution" had blinded us to the real complexities of the past." (p. 69) They assert that the time scale on which evolution works is much too long for it to be applied to the history of man.
The key understanding of the authors' second thesis is that the concept of cyclic time is central to understanding the world view of ancient societies, and while this world view may be radically different from ours it does not make them "primitive" or "'howling barbarians' who were, to say the least, utterly incapable of working out complex astronomical cycles...over many years" (p. 69). With this basis of understanding we may again approach the authors' first thesis, that the basis of ancient myths and legends is grounded in astronomical observations, and find that it makes more sense.
In concluding I feel I should mention the oddity of the authors' conclusion. The book finishes out with an epilogue entitled The Lost Treasure in which the authors bemoan the fact that the basis of understanding the ancient cultures is already lost. In their conclusion they end the book by saying, "the system as a whole may lie beyond all conjecture, because the creating, ordering minds that have made it have vanished forever." (p. 348) Given the entire premise of the book this seems like a rather misguided ending to the book. Essentially they spend the entire book attempting to prove that world myths from all over the world have a common generational basis and source found in astronomical observations, and that the ancient peoples were just as capable at complex reasoning as we are. But when they end the book they end it with a statement lamenting the fact that we have no possible basis to interpret and/or understand completely ancient cultures. The authors apparently have missed the fact that the basis of understanding lies in astronomical observations (which they spend most of the book trying to establish) and that if ancient peoples "were endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours" then surely we should be able to comprehend and recreate the same world view and mind set of our ancestors. The implication is that if they are "endowed with minds wholly comparable to ours" then they are capable of understanding our view point and we theirs.
Overall I would say that Hamlet's Mill is a very important book for understanding ancient cultures as it gives a correct mind-set in which to approach myths and legends. If understood the book gives the reader an approach to interpreting the work and methods of ancient peoples that other sources do not give out of bias, ignorance or laziness. It also raises certain questions of "standard" interpretations that have the potential to change entire fields of study. If the authors are correct then the true story of the growth of civilization is more amazing than we could have possible imagined, and we have so much more to learn.
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