No. 22: Science mistakes, devils, and rest

Aristotle/Dostoevsky/Galen/Marx/Milton/Plato

Here's some things people have been writing:

Miltons’s Paradise Lost told of a “firm concord” among the devils while mankind bickered. In the same way, Hamas and Russia will endorse each others crimes. If they win it’ll be trouble for democracies everywhere. theatlantic

Marx’ wrote in the Communist Manifesto that the world has always been struggle between oppressor and oppressed. Too many “Champagne Marxists” are too ready to forgive anything–no matter how heinous–if it’s done by the oppressed group. thefederalist

Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer tells of Ottoman’s flaying Slavic men alive in front of their kids. Back then the empire was Muslim and the subjects were Christian, something most pro-Hamas types don’t know. wsj

Plato’s Republic book club starts on October 22. reddit

Aristotle and Galen furnished lots of examples where mistakes moved science forward. That’s cool, but as Seneca cautioned “To err is human, but to persist in error is diabolical”. So it is in science; “Reproducible” results are no good if the same mistakes are happening over and over again. academic.oup

Galen thought rest and recovery vitally important. Whitman thought much of it after his two strokes, so did Teddy Roosevelt and countless others. Woolf skewered the practice in Mrs. Dalloway and its been falling out of favor ever since. newyorker