Re: Reconsidering Halton Arp

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
(Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>
>>> >Archimedes was a remarkable engineer and mathematician.  Pretty much
>>> >nothing is known about whether he was a very good scientist.  By at
>>> >least one canon of science, he was miserable: he kept his discoveries
>>> >a secret.
>>> 
>>> Ptui.  How do you know that?  I was in the computer biz.  We
>>> did not document the obvious.  Now that obvious is gone and
>>> today's developers are "rediscovering" the knowledge all over again.
>>
>>He was famous for keeping them secret.  His engineering triumphs were
>>military secrets.  
>>
>Well, hi buyoancy law wasn't secret and it was good science.  Same for 
>the lever rule.  That's alone qutie enough to be considered great 
>scientist.  How many other scientists of that time you know whose 
>results are still routinely used today.
>
>As for engineering, this was usually secret throughout history.  
>Especially engineering possessing military applications.

And, if you stretch the classification of engineering to the trades,
that knowledge was "kept" within the training system.  How much
of that so-called secrecy was due to trying to keep techniques
within a particular branch of a guild <shrug>, I don't know.  
Most of the habit of keeping info within a trade group, I would
think, had more to do with geography and difficulty of wide-travel
than anything else.  A technique used in Northern Iraq might
not be learned by one individual who then travels to Eqypt to
set up shop.  The ancient tech history book, that I just read,
pondered on the number of spokes in a wheel and, IIRC, some
pottery firings.  But I don't think much of any of this
was some conspiracy to keep knowledge from everybody.  Everybody
didn't care or have a need to know; they were busy doing their
specialty.  

I'm also beginning to think that people who cry conspiracy are really
using it as an excuse to not do the work.  It would be much simpler
and more honest to just say, "I don't have time" or "I'm not interested".


/BAH

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