The Map of Critical Thinking and Modern Science

Jamie noticed an interesting map of critical thinking and science done in a sort of subway style. You can track Newton and Einstein and Tesla and so on. It's actually pretty interesting to navigate.

Comments

Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[eldavojohn]

This map at first glance appears to be decidedly western individuals only.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[IndustrialComplex]

I zoomed in on a random portion of the map, and it lost a lot of it's charm when it listed Phil Plait, heading up 21st century Astronomy along the same line as Carl Sagan.

I don't want to knock what Phil has done, and I DO read his BadAstronomy blog fairly regularly. However, I think that including him in this map is highly premature. He is well educated, and can put together a somewhat interesting article, but I'm thinking it's a bit more pop-celebrity and reaching to find a 'current' astronomer that put him on there.

Not that in 15-20 years I would be surprised to see him on a later version of this map, but it just feels like a rush to make it more relevant. No offence Phil, if you read this, but I'm sure you can agree that there are likely a great number of more influential Astronomers who may better deserve the 'inheritance'.

There will probably be a few other 'gripes', and if the creator of this map had ended it a little earlier we might have been able to avoid statements like mine. It becomes an easy debate topic like a top 100 list.

Perhaps some metrics to show why the latest people were placed there?

Back to reading Phil's posts on Fark...

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Shihar]

True, but that in large part is because where you put the period at the end of this map has a massive influence on where you begin, especially philosophically. That isn't to suggest that there were not some parallels elsewhere in the world, but due to the great leaps the West made over the East from 16th century on up until the dawn of the 21st, those parallels became dead ends.

China was ahead of the West for a very long time. Right up into and even during the early part of the colonial age China was pretty far ahead of the West in terms of technology and culture. If China had maintained that path we might be in exactly the same place we are today in terms of technology, but instead of being able to trace back philosophical lines from Europe, to Roman, to Greece, you might trace it back from Japan, to Korea, to China with a set of Eastern philosophers to match. Hell, if you were to simply draw the map in the 1500s of where the major technologies trace their schools of thought from you would have two maps, on Eastern and one Western, and the Eastern one would be further ahead.

This isn't even to suggest that the West made its advancements in a vacuum. Lots of technology and thought crossed both ways across Eurasia, but when an idea travels a few thousand miles in the ancient world and suffers a dozen translations you pretty much lose all traceability. Hell, just jumping from an Islamic Empire to a Christian Empire is a pretty sure way to ensure that traceability is lost. It isn't like a Christian scholar in 1,200 AD influenced by an Islamic Arab scholar is going to cite his inspiration. The only reason why we remember those ancient Greek scholars at all is because the empires that came after worship the empires that came before, and were happy to cite them as influences.

Starting the map in the 1500s and working up to today means it is going to be a Western map because that was the period of time when the West dominated world thinking. Draw this map from 2000 BC to 1500 AD, or from 600 AD to 1200 AD, or from many other two points and you would see totally different maps. Hell, I bet the map from 2000 AD to 2500 AD is going to be a wild one with lines crossing all over the world like never before.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[0xdeadbeef]

Yeah, I noticed that. And yet it is missing Gerard Kuiper. How many belts does Phil have named after him?

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Rogerborg]

Shocking, isn't it? There's, what, 120 names on it? So, go on, name 120 notable 'non Western' scientists, and we'll fix it. It's OK, we'll wait while you do that.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[c0d3g33k]

You think you're being clever and insightful, but it all depends on who does the naming, doesn't it? 'non Western' folks, who are unlikely to be hanging out here, might be able to provide quite a fine list.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Hylandr]

Considering the work he has done to bring astronomy to the previously oblivious ( yes that's the right word ) masses. He should be sainted.

In America most peoples eyes glaze over if you take a conversation outside TV, Beer or Politics. It's disgusting. The fact that he has done what he has demonstrates a pretty solid will, as most Americans will also fight against anyone that tries to open their eyes or awareness.

But this is Slashdot, We have all seen this at some point.

- Dan.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ultranova]

This map at first glance appears to be decidedly western individuals only.

Well, perhaps you might list some important non-Western scientists from the last 500 years which the map covers who are missing from it, so that they might be added in?

Besides, as a quick test, at least Jagadish Chandra Bose, Andrey Kolmogorov and Min Chueh Chang seem to have made it in.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Anonymous Coward]

Min Chueh Chang seem to have made it in.

Yes, the Chinese born American made it.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[SQL Error]

Yeah, where are people like Satyendra Nath Bose (as in "Bose-Einstein condensate", Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Richard Feynmann for QED), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (as in the Chandrasekhar limit) or Chen Ning Yang (Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on parity non-conservation)?

Oh, wait...

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[0xdeadbeef]

You think you're being clever and insightful

He is simply stating the facts.

might be able to provide quite a fine list.

No, they won't.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ElectricTurtle]

58 + 72 = 130. And that's just Japan and China (and then only those notable enough to be in an English language index).

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Sagan's dead and Phil has launched a pilot for hopefully a new series on Discovery channel. Eventually someone's got to take up the torch Sagan left behind.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Hell, just jumping from an Islamic Empire to a Christian Empire is a pretty sure way to ensure that traceability is lost.

Suppose this is why many American teenagers don't understand Algebra?

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what about the one considered the "first scientist", founder of scientific method? Or the founder of robotics and modern engineering? Or the father of algebra and algorithms? Here is a good read for you, this list contains more than the 120 "just" from the Islamic golden age, more known to you by the dark ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists.
Here are some that I knew and I copied from that list:

*Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), father of optics, pioneer of scientific method and experimental physics, considered the "first scientist", founder of experimental psychology, psychophysics, phenomenology and visual perception
*Ab Rayhn al-Brn, father of geodesy, considered the first geologist and "first anthropologist"
*Avicenna, father of modern medicine, pioneer of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, pharmaceutical sciences, clinical pharmacology, aromatherapy, pulsology and sphygmology, and also a philosopher
*Averroes, pioneer of Parkinson's disease among other stuff
*Muhammad ibn Ms al-Khwrizm (Algorismi) - father of algebra and algorithms
*Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi (Haly Abbas), pioneer of neuroanatomy, neurobiology and neurophysiology
*Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi (854–931), pioneer of peer review and medical peer review
*Ab al-Hasan ibn Al al-Qalasd (1412–1482), pioneer of symbolic algebra
*Al-Jazari, 13th century civil engineer, father of robotics, father of modern engineering

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Jedi Alec]

Shocking, isn't it? There's, what, 120 names on it? So, go on, name 120 notable 'non Western' scientists, and we'll fix it. It's OK, we'll wait while you do that.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell us that you do not get to vote in a country that has nuclear weapons. When did it become fashionable to wear one's ignorance as a badge of pride anyway?

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[0xdeadbeef]

There are only 516 American scientists on Wikipedia's list, and the country has only been around 234 years.

I'm not sure you actually understand that "notable" is the key word here, and that Wikipedia's notability standard is far weaker than what merits inclusion in that silly diagram.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[radtea]

This map at first glance appears to be decidedly western individuals only.

Glance again. You'll see Bose and Yukawa, at least, and a few others as well.

But I agree that the non-Westerners who invented calculus and laid down the foundations of physics, chemistry, natural history, evolutionary biology, relativity, cosmology and quantum mechanics do seem to be missing.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Skjellifetti]

I hadn't realized the gravity of Newton's interest in Alchemy. Putting Thomas Edison on a branch of the Theoretical Physics and QM Line was enlightening. Also interesting that biology does not seem to have acquired any characteristics from Lamark. Jared Diamond's work has too many facets to be relegated to just the Evolutionary Biology line. And I thought the whole project kinda bombed after I noticed that they had left off Andrei Sakharov.

I'll stop now.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[IndustrialComplex]

Sagan's dead and Phil has launched a pilot for hopefully a new series on Discovery channel. Eventually someone's got to take up the torch Sagan left behind.

My point is that it's on the same 'line' as Christian Huygens, Isaac Newton, Johanes Kepler, Edwin Hubble, Galileo Galilei, and Copernicus.

The creator of this map has some serious 'scale' issues. Perhaps if he split the Astronomer line to cover 'Astronomy-cheerleader'/got-a-show-on-Discovery. And I'm not saying that isn't important, but it's far too pop-culture for me.

If we are going to include people like that, then I'd like to see Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard) up on the list, because a hell of a lot more people can point to him as a science role model than Phil Plait.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Haxamanish]

Arab and Persian scientists had the habit of citing their sources in the Middle Ages, Westerners did not do that yet. So, a lot is lost due to our (=Western) lack of decent citing in those times. For example, we say it is 100 degrees Celcius or Farenheit, but we do not say it is 20hrs 08 minutes and 59 seconds Al-Nasawi.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ElectricTurtle]

And you don't suppose there is a reason why a site created by Americans for which most contributors are Americans written in a language most native speakers of which are American might have a bias toward American figures?

In contrast, the Chinese language version of Wikipedia lists 120 Chinese physicists alone. I didn't add up all the categories but a rough look through I could honestly estimate about 500 for China too in the Chinese language wikipedia.

I would suggest you educate yourself more about the contributions made to science outside of the West. It does not diminish the value of the Western contributions to know they that didn't happen in a vacuum.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[c0d3g33k]

Please refer to the rest of the parent thread where you will find your refutation. The cultural bias you are carrying around might be limiting how much of the larger scientific world you have been exposed to, both in the present and historically. Your view may be even more limited if you actually aren't trained in or actively practicing science, since your knowledge would only extend to what the popular media in your country presents as notable. "I haven't heard of them" does not equate to "not notable".

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[treeves]

+1, Snarky, but true.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[0xdeadbeef]

I'm well aware of the language bias, I had also added up around 400 scientists from six European countries but removed it because it detracted from the real point. You're so wrapped up in the perception of Western chauvinism that you deny reality, and that reality is that modern science was born in Europe and has been lead by Europe and later the United States for almost all of its existence. Yes, Japan, China, and India are now contributing in a big way, and yes, Islamic and Chinese scholars were making progress while Europe stared at its navel for a thousand years, but it hardly compares to the explosion of innovation and discovery that began in 16th century Europe.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[godamntheman]

This map at first glance appears to be decidedly western individuals only.

I see prominent Soviet Physicist Lev Landau, on there. Zel'dovich probably should have been listed too.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Bryansix]

Ya, seriously. What was Carl Sagan doing on there? Have you ever gone back and looked at his videos. The amount of wrong information is astounding and he lived in the last century!

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ElectricTurtle]

Where did I deny reality? I said specifically that non-Western science does not diminish Western science. The person to whom I was originally replying was the one denying reality, saying essentially that non-Western scientists didn't exist. I never said that non-Western science was greater/better, I never, in fact, said it was even equivalent, though that could be taken as implied. (That equivalence would be sourced, as you allude, in periods of history mostly prior to the 16th century.) I'm really not interested in a disagreement about scale, as that is inherently subjective and largely dependent on where you want to draw lines. I made my point, that non-Western scientists do exist, and that was the only point I wished to make.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Lije Baley]

But Kuiper said the moon was made of crunchy snow...

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[0xdeadbeef]

"I haven't heard of them" does not equate to "not notable".

No, that pretty much is the definition of not notable. But please, assuming my layman ignorance, list those non-Western scientists that this diagram unfairly excludes. Show us that cultural chauvinism.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

well, given that the field of astronomy has largely exploded and we're talking about visible figures in the skepticism community today, yes, Phil counts.

Although I'm wondering where the hell Donald Knuth, RMS, ESR, Linus Torvalds and Steve Wozniak are on the Blue line. :)

Then again, this is about *rational* thinking, which kicks RMS and ESR out.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a dick with no perspective. Social, historical or global.

But mostly you're just a dick.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Anonymous Coward]

There probably would have been more if it wasn't for the Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and all the intellectuals who "disappeared" in it. How may disappeared after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989?

But then again, I'm sure Chinese history textbooks tell a different story.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Rogerborg]

Excellent! Now, let's put them in the right places in the diagram. Since they're all totally notable and significant and stuff, that part should be trivial.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ElectricTurtle]

There would be indeed. The CCP has done irredeemable harms to Chinese academia, but that sort of phenomenon is hardly new to Chinese culture historically.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[mattack2]

I hadn't realized the gravity of Newton's interest in Alchemy.

There's an excellent Nova (that's almost redundant) about this. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/
It's available on netflix.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[mjwx]

Yeah, I noticed that. And yet it is missing Gerard Kuiper. How many belts does Phil have named after him?

Back in your box. We've changed things before, remember pluto? Well that used to be a planet. Don't test our patience.

The Plait belt has quite a ring to it.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[ppanon]

RMS is rational. He just has a very different set of priorities from most of the rest of the world.

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Venerable Vegetable]

Metric:

"The map primarily includes modern scientists who have made significant advances to our understanding of the world, however I have also included many present day scientists who fuel a passion for, and advances in, science through communication and science popularisation"

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Anonymous Coward]

And no von Neumann?

Re:Only One Half of the World Covered in This Map

[Mattskimo]

Perhaps some metrics to show why the latest people were placed there?

"Number of times featured/mentioned on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" is probably not too far off. He does say that it is a rough draft and will likely be revised and updated; he probably used the people he was most familiar with.

Great Bear

[DIplomatic]

Very similar to "The Great Bear" by Simon Patterson

Where In The World

[Anonymous Coward]

is Glenn Beck on the map?

Yours In Osh,
K. Trout

Re:Where In The World

[Drakkenmensch]

He's on the unseen part of the map where angry emotional outburst meets paranoid fear.

Re:Where In The World

[ScentCone]

where angry emotional outburst meets paranoid fear

You mean the spot on the map where his critics were referring to his event the other day as a "klan rally?" That spot? If you want to see irrational outbursts and paranoid fear, listen to what people actually say about him instead. It's really quite amusing.

The spot on the map occupied by paranoia and emotional outbursts is going to be heavy with every other person that posts feverishly on MoveOn.org or the HuffPo, etc. The level of vitriol, naked hate, and refusal to address any issue of actual substance is off the charts. It's right up there with the Ron Paul fans sending the blogosphere off the charts this week based on his observation that it's a possibility there is no gold in Ft. Knox.

You need to step back a bit and look at the wider universe of irrational people - it's a whole lot bigger than your pet list of villains.

Re:Where In The World

[Drakkenmensch]

Have you seen Glenn start crying live on the air as he was denouncing the families of 9/11 victims as selfish profiteers trying to exploit the victims for their own profit? I think Beck is way out there already.

Re:Where In The World

[oldspewey]

Gotta love the Kids in the Hall.

Re:Where In The World

[Skjellifetti]

What issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?

Re:Where In The World

[ScentCone]

What issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?

Let's see ... profligate spending on enormous debt-fueled entitlement programs? Colossal bailout programs that have done none of the things promised, but which have piled onto the deficits and debt? The huge and growing intrusion of government into more and more aspects of personal life, small business, and the rest? The rather spectacular waffling by politicians of every stripe on fundamental stuff that should be crystal clear, and plainly spoken about (like, say, what our actual goals are in dealing with illegal immigration, or in energy policy, or in trade deficits).

He's WAY too religious for my taste. But does that make harping on the fact that everyone's grandkids are going to be wearing the debt from just this year's deficits somehow insubstantial?

Re:Where In The World

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Glenn Beck is that those important messages get lost amidst his sensationalist antics, like the embarrassingly fake crying episode, that are the real reason he has a show to begin with. Beck is Fox's attempt to snare the libertarian crowd's eyeballs. We libertarians are already seen as loony...we ought not point to someone as crazy as Glenn Beck for raising the issues when there are other more level-headed folks doing the same thing.

Re:Where In The World

[mspohr]

But what issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?

Those that you mention are just the radical conservative ideology rants... nothing of actual substance there.

Re:Where In The World

[ScentCone]

nothing of actual substance there

Right. What's a few tens of trillions of dollars of debt, currency headed towards worthlessness, and people on the left clammoring for more entitlement spending? So, the single most substantive topic there is, when talking about politics (to wit, what is the role of government) ... you don't see that as substantive? You're why the economy is in the toilet, sir.

Re:Where In The World

[mspohr]

A discussion of actual substance would include the role of taxes, stimulus spending in a depression, appropriate social support for those out of work, and health care to those in need. It would also include the recent history of starting two wars without paying for them (and cutting taxes on the rich in the process). It might also take a look at how we got from a surplus under Clinton to large deficits and economic collapse under Bush.

However, just ranting about entitlements is blind ideology, not anything of actual substance.

Re:Where In The World

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

actually, entitlement programs aren't debt fueled. What has been debt fueled has been tax cuts for the rich, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.

Funny enough the bailouts didn't actually cost us anything. We made most of our money back on the bailouts. Just like we did in the 80's and 90's when we had to clean up after Reagan and Bush 1's messes.

Re:Where In The World

[Mr. Slippery]

What's a few tens of trillions of dollars of debt

How is it that right-wingers only discovered this concern about debt after decades of it being rung up by Reagan and the Bushes, and how is it that they don't seen it connected with the massive tax breaks that the rich have enjoyed under these administrations? Is it massive ignorance, or willing blindness?

Yes, trillions in debt is bad. End the wars, dismantle the military-industrial complex, and restore the taxes on the richest Americans to the level they were during the Reagan -- or better, the Eisenhower -- administration, and we could start to bring it down. Also helpful would be ending the futile and expensive War on Drugs.

Folks on the left have been advocating this solution for the debt for years. If right-wingers were serious, they could get on board with it; or they could continue to whine about "entitlements", not understanding that the biggest part of that is Social Security -- a program that supports some of the "Tea Party" organizers.

The debt is a substantive issue. But the right wing's "OMG liberals want to bankrupt us!" song-and-dance, is not. A more substantive issue would be, why did the right only discover it recently? How are they so ignorant of its history? And what should we do about people like Beck, Palin, and the whole Fox News crew who are active sources of misinformation that poisons the political dialog?

people on the left clammoring for more entitlement spending?

If the government can provide a service more efficiently than massive for-profit corporations -- and in the case of health insurance, it can -- it is only rational to have the government provide it. Yes, this means raising government spending -- but decreasing spending to private interests. If my tax bill goes up by $150 a month, but I'm no longer paying $200 a month to Amalgamated Health Insurance Profits, Inc., that's a win. (Numbers pulled out of the air.)

Of course, if we ended the wars, dismantled the military-industrial complex, and restored taxes on the richest Americans to a sane level, we might not even have to raise the tax bills of most Americans to provide services that civilized nations take for granted.

Re:Hey you!

[WrongSizeGlass]

I tried using my iPhone's Map app's "use current location" feature, but instead of placing me somewhere on that map of critical thinking and science it took me back here to /.

Destination

[Wowsers]

Do all destinations in this map equal 42?

LAST CALL!

[Kc_spot]

ALL ABOARD THE LOGIC TRAIN!!

Re:LAST CALL!

[WrongSizeGlass]

Bugs Bunny pops up between George Gamow and Robert Oppenheimer. He looks left, looks right then throws down his carrot.
Bugs: I knew it! I should've turned left at Albuquerque!

Re:LAST CALL!

[Drakkenmensch]

Nietzche would probably refuse to board that train on the basis that it has no free will.

Re:LAST CALL!

[cmiller173]

Crud, anyone hear when the alchemy line is slated to re-open?

Re:LAST CALL!

[Anonymous Coward]

and Hegel would argue that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics.

Re:LAST CALL!

[oliverthered]

too late, perspectivism is very much relative.

Re:LAST CALL!

[BarefootClown]

It's going to be up and down for the next few years.

Re:LAST CALL!

[cmiller173]

Well played sir.

Re:LAST CALL!

[martas]

I don't get it.

"sort of subway style"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's done in the style of the london tube map:

http://images.intolondon.com/images/intolondon/transport-maps/london-underground-tube-map.gif

Re:"sort of subway style"

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind the gap.

Re:"sort of subway style"

[TheRaven64]

If you're going to be pedantic, you should point out that it's the style of Harry Beck, who took his inspiration from circuit diagrams.

Omissions?

[schmidt349]

I realize this map is intended to be pretty much science-only, but if that's the case, can you please leave off the "reason and critical thinking" part? It kind of raises my hackles a bit when a document claims to list prominent personalities in the history of critical thought and leaves off such basic people as, I don't know, Plato and Aristotle. If you plot Western thought on a Tube map they're Paddington Station. I could go on with a pretty massive list of non-empirical non-mathematicians, but let's just stick with those two to avoid confusion.

Re:Omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons

Re:Omissions?

[ejWasTaken]

ObQuote: "Ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?...Morons."

Re:Omissions?

[Coryoth]

It kind of raises my hackles a bit when a document claims to list prominent personalities in the history of critical thought and leaves off such basic people as, I don't know, Plato and Aristotle.

If you actually scan the map you'll see that it is only since the 15th century and anyone prior to that is left off. If you want to talk about omissions then try scanning along the "mathematics and computing" line, which is far more sparse than it should be. Where is Bertrand Russell, who ought to be straddling a couple of lines at least? Where are many of the mid to late 20th century mathematicians (are Grothendieck, Conway, and Wiles really all you can manage? How about Deligne, Mac Lane, Quillen, Tate, Perelman, thew list goes on...).

Re:Omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair it's a map of Modern Science, with the innermost part of the map labeled the 16th century. The earliest figures are guys like Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Niolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516) and Erasmus Reinhold (1511-1553) while Plato and Aristotle are outside the scope of the project by nearly 2,000 years.

Re:Omissions?

[Shihar]

It is a map of modern science. Do you know what a philosophy map that starts with Plato and Aristotle is? Neither modern, nor science. It is like complaining that a lineage map of Linux OS's doesn't include the complete history of agriculture.

Re:Omissions?

[natehoy]

Plato and Aristotle appeared approximately one thousand years too early to be included in this map. Hence their exclusion.

It only claims to list prominent personalities in the last 500 years. Hence the whole "Modern Science Map" description of it, the first paragraph specifically stating that it encompasses the last 500 years, the prominent markings of the century each person appeared in starting with the number "15", the specific mention that there were significant contributors further back in the past but that the map only includes the last 500 years. Little details like that.

Critical thinking indeed.

Re:Omissions?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

They were making room for Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Frank Drake, Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, Alexander Graham Bell...

Re:Omissions?

[oldspewey]

the "mathematics and computing" line, which is far more sparse than it should be. Where is Bertrand Russell, who ought to be straddling a couple of lines at least?

Indeed, where is Darl McBride? Or did the authors intentionally omit the "21st century douchebaggery" line?

Re:Omissions?

[Arthur Grumbine]

Plato and Aristotle appeared approximately one thousand years too early to be included in this map...

Plato (b. 426 BC)

Little details like that.

Critical thinking indeed.

The ironing is delicious.

Re:Omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Hawking?

Re:Omissions?

[Arthur Grumbine]

Also, the lack of two of my favorites Francis Bacon and Karl Popper, two of the most influential minds in separating the empirical sciences from metaphysics and pseudo-sciences.

Re:Omissions?

[jvkjvk]

Critical thinking indeed.

Indeed. If one thought about the parent comment, they were more lamenting the fact that it was labeled (science), "reason and critical thinking".

The fact that you missed the basis of the argument and instead focused on a mere detail tells me more about your critical thinking skills than his, indeed.

Little details like that.

Yup, you decided that lambasting him about the choice of his examples was more important than understanding what he was saying.

How about instead of those two examples, you tell me what is wrong with his basic statement when I substitute Bertrand Russel and Whitehead as examples?

Regards.

Re:Omissions?

[natehoy]

The ironing is delicious.

Yes, I like to make tasty ironing. I put a little oregano and garlic in the starch.

Isn't two thousand approximately one thousand? (grin). Math fail on my part. LOL!

Re:Omissions?

[dkleinsc]

Stephen Hawking really has the most interesting position on this map, because besides his contributions to 20th century physics, he also has (according to the map) built a time machine and contributed to 18th century astronomy. Really remarkable achievement there.

Also, I'm surprised that Rene Descartes doesn't get anything for his work in philosophy, which was really his primary focus. The mathematics was just a fun side project.

Re:Omissions?

[Badge 17]

There are also some particularly strange choices for the overlaps of mathematics and physics. Einstein, for instance, wasn't pioneering new mathematical methods for the most part, but links the math and physics lines. Then Ed Witten, the only physicist ever to win a Fields Medal, isn't connected to the math line.

Also a problem: where's Ken Wilson in modern physics? Renormalization group ended up simultaneously revolutionizing particle physics and condensed matter physics - I can't think of a comparable example in the last 40 years or so, aside from the rise of computational methods.

Re:Omissions?

[Coryoth]

There are also some particularly strange choices for the overlaps of mathematics and physics. Einstein, for instance, wasn't pioneering new mathematical methods for the most part, but links the math and physics lines. Then Ed Witten, the only physicist ever to win a Fields Medal, isn't connected to the math line.

Very true, Einstein leaned heavily on Hilbert top produce any new mathematics required to support his ideas. And yes, Witten is oddly lacking in the extra connection. I also note that Leibniz, who was one of the last true polymaths, is only attached to a single line, despite being a world renowned figure in philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology is his day.

Re:Omissions?

[Grishnakh]

That's not really fair. Philosophy is an important part of science, which is why there's "philosophy of science" classes taught in Philosophy departments at universities, teaching about the works of Karl Popper and others.

A better analogy for you is: "It is like complaining that a lineage map of Linux OSes doesn't include the complete history of the computer, going back to the ENIAC and the Analytical Machine."

Re:Omissions?

[Grishnakh]

I think it's supposed to be a map of people who contributed to sciences and progress, not those who detracted from it.

This makes me wonder how much better things might be now if Darl McBride had never been born. Probably not a huge difference, but Linux might be doing a little better in the marketplace.

Gauss should be on the physics line too

[Anonymous Coward]

Gauss should be on the physics line too, after all Gauss' law is one of maxwell's equations.

And then there's the big train wrecks of...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eugenics! Fascism! Communism! Capitalism! Segregation! Anti-Desgregation! Anti-Environmentalism! Anti-Abortion! Free Love! Free Drugs! The Drug War! Abstinence Only!

Ok, I'm running out of exclamation marks.

Where are the women?

[Kristian T.]

Women always seem to say they can do anything as well as the men - so I guess women always have, and still are, choosing to not be good at science. What troubles me the most, is that even in the current generation, where the girls are fare much better in our school systems - none of that intellectual potential goes into moving the frontiers of the hard sciences.

Re:Where are the women?

[Yvanhoe]

One theory is that they lack role models.
GO MARIE CURIE !
Also this kind of mindset may not help : http://xkcd.com/385/

Re:Where are the women?

[thms]

Women staying out of the engineering and "hard" sciences is mostly a phenomenon of the western world (in Cold War terms). In eastern Europe and Russia these subjects are much closer to parity, IIRC the same hold true for China. Even in Iran (!) women don't share the western prejudices against CS, Math etc.

However, once in these fields, there is the entirely different issue of the glass ceiling, i.e. not getting promoted beyond a certain level.

Re:Where are the women?

[theghost]

There's still a lot of cultural pressure telling women (everyone really) that the important things in life are popularity, beauty, love, and child-rearing.

It's kind of a wonder that anyone at all goes into science these days. Maybe they should make a "Real Physicists of MIT" show.

Re:Where are the women?

[Anonymous Coward]

the ones that aren't giving birth at the moment are in the kitchen

Re:Where are the women?

[MozeeToby]

In the past, women were actively discouraged from entering sciences by the male dominated establishments. What women did enter science were often not credited with their work. Hell, half the female scientists in history are only well known because their research partner was their husband, the only person willing to give them equal credit for the work and even when they do research and even then it wasn't a sure thing. People still argue over how much influence Einstein's first wife had on his work.

And I think you can attribute the problems of getting young women interested in science at least partly to the fact that there are so few historical role models for them. What role models they do have were ostracized, largely uncredited, or only accepted because of the support of their husbands. It doesn't set a very good example for them to live by.

The other side of the coin is female math and science teachers who are selfdescribed to be bad at the subject that they teach. There's been lots of studies that show that a confident female teacher is all that it takes to get girls interested in science, but such teachers are surprisingly and depressingly rare.

Re:Where are the women?

[shiftless]

There's still a lot of cultural pressure telling women (everyone really) that the important things in life are popularity, beauty, love, and child-rearing

Their culture isn't telling them that--it's their genes.

Of course women can do well in science, it's just that most women are not interested in a scientific career, regardless of culture.

Re:Where are the women?

[ultranova]

People still argue over how much influence Einstein's first wife had on his work.

Who is arguing it? Have they showed any evidence that she had significant - or any - influence?

Re:Where are the women?

[Kristian T.]

So by this line of reasoning - there should be at least some russian and chineese women on the chart.

Regarding the glass ceiling - I don't think it matters one bit. Most of the truly revolutionary ideas a born in the mind of scientists while they are still students. It may take them the whole of their lives to prove and have the ideas accepted - but that's not the limiting factor.

Personally I believe that the reason for the gender disparity cannot be blamed on culture.

Re:Where are the women?

[ElectricTurtle]

To be fair, it's not an exclusive dichotomy, quite the opposite, it is both societal pressure and genetic disposition.

Re:Where are the women?

[ElectricTurtle]

I would like to note that Wikipedia lists more women scientists than it does all scientists from China.

Just because you haven't heard of somebody doesn't mean that person doesn't exist.

Re:Where are the women?

[radtea]

none of that intellectual potential goes into moving the frontiers of the hard sciences

Science and engineering are both pretty sucky careers, and like men have been brought up in an environment where male self-sacrifice is held up as an ideal and "Men Last!" is a highly admired sentiment. So it only makes sense that they would be dominated by men, in the same way that jobs that kill people are dominated by men.

Women are more than capable of doing these things, they just haven't been indoctrinated with the irrational willingness to sacrifice themselves that men have.

Re:Where are the women?

[dave420]

As you don't have any evidence to back up your point, your personal beliefs show you are a bigot. You are also conveniently forgetting a whole shit-tonne of facts that don't help your position, such as that this chart is not accurate. Using it as some sort of metric into the scientific capability of women is fucking retarded. Seriously retarded.

Re:Where are the women?

[Rudisaurus]

I wish I had mod points right now. I believe your comment to be idiotic and I wish I could mod it down as overrated (even at 0) rather than merely commenting on it. I'm not certain that this exercise (my commenting) isn't a complete waste of time and energy with respect to influencing your thinking, but here's why I think your remarks are so stupid: there are many more possible reasons than merely "choosing to not be good at science" for women not to appear prominently in the annals of scientific history. Here are a few of them:

- in a patriarchal culture, women may not be given the same educational or career opportunities as their male counterparts
- in a patriarchy, women may not be fully credited with their accomplishments (Lise Meitner springs to mind; note that Otto Hahn appears on the map but she does not)
- in a patriarchal society, women may not even be allowed to work in fields which are considered to be in the male domain, such as science and mathematics

I don't think that anyone would rationally argue that what has existed in human society for the past two millenia -- whether we are talking about the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Arabs of the 10th century, or European societies through the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and practically right up to the present -- is anything other than a patriarchy. Ergo, the strictures I've listed for you above do apply, and in applying go a long way explain why there have been so few notable scientific accomplishments credited to women through history.

Disclaimer: I am a male Ph.D. engineer who heartily wishes that more women were working in my field. This is changing now, but very slowly.

Re:Where are the women?

[Grishnakh]

There's two reasons for this:

1) Before the mid/late 20th century, society mostly prevented women from doing anything substantial in science, or really having any kind of career other than "housewife" or "prostitute" (with a few exceptions like nurse and schoolteacher).

2) These days, girls don't go into science careers because they're more well-rounded than boys, and think of the whole picture, and realize that science as a career sucks in Western countries, so they do something else. I believe we've had multiple Slashdot articles about this recently. Trying to "move the frontiers of the hard sciences" means getting a PhD and basically working for less than minimum wage as a slave to some professor, not having a family or being married, and being unemployable by the time you're in your 30s unless you're one of the lucky few who gets one of the few slots as a professor. Most people with half a brain see what a shitty path this is, and either go into engineering (which has its own problems, but at least you can make some good money and a decent career out of it until you're about 40), or choose another profession entirely.

If you want to see where the smart career-driven women are, look at medicine. There's lots of female doctors, surgeons, etc. Not coincidentally, there's a lot of money to be made there too. And for smart women who are sociopaths, there's law: there's tons of female lawyers. And of course, there's lots of money to be made (ethically and unethically) there too.

Re:Where are the women?

[Grishnakh]

It's true for India too. Lots of female engineers there.

However, it's not just women here in the West that avoid engineering and hard sciences, men avoid them too. Most of the classes are filled with foreign nationals, who'll be going back home after they finish. As a society, we're basically throwing in the towel on these things, partly because we're lazy, and partly because the careers really suck. For instance, as an engineer you probably will only be able to work until you're about 40, after which you'll be unable to get a job because of age discrimination. The only way out of this trap is to "advance" into management, but if you're really an engineer, why would you want to give that up and become a manager who spends all his time flapping his lips in meetings and on the phone?

Women can do science just as well as men, they're just better at taking a long-term view of things, and thus they avoid shitty careers like the hard sciences, where they'd probably never amount to anything more than a severly-underpaid postdoc, and instead go into things like medicine, where they can become doctors or surgeons and make tons of money. There's lots of female doctors.

These dynamics aren't the same in other countries, like China and India, because over there engineering is still a lucrative profession with both very high pay and prestige.

Re:Where are the women?

[theghost]

No. We're not talking about genetic drives. The desires to join a community, attract a mate and produce offspring are not driving people away from science. They are completely compatible with a career in science. The fact that you don't seem to recognize that is just indicative of your own problematic attitude.

It's the cultural pressures which elevate those things to paramount importance such that people spend all their time pursuing them instead of other things. People (not just women) are not interested in science because our culture does not value it. How many of the last decade's Nobel Prize winners can you name from memory? How many cast members from Jersey Shore can you name memory? (Cue pedantic twit who has never heard of Jersey Shore in 3...2...)

Blah blah blah...kids these days rant...blah blah blah...get off my lawn!

Re:Where are the women?

[Paul Fernhout]

Or to sacrifice themselves for irony: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

Re:Where are the women?

[Chowderbags]

Most people are not interested in a scientific career, regardless of gender (or race, creed, height, and handedness).

Regardless, science is considered "unattractive" by many people, and it's a lot easier in our (and basically every) culture for a guy to get what he wants in life through means other than attractiveness (money, power, fame, etc) than it is for a female.

Re:Where are the women?

[radtea]

Fascinating essay. Thanks!

Re:Where are the women?

[Paul Fernhout]

You're welcome. Thanks for reading it.

it confuses rather enlightens

[peter303]

Not the proper graphics metaphor. Plus its too convoluted to fit it on a page.

Obvious

[gmuslera]

This map have a clear message for all humanity: You need a bigger screen.

Re:Obvious

[ultranova]

Nah, the real message is: "SVG, learn to love it."

Seriously, what kind of moron uses a bitmap for something like this?

SHTMTOTH

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has too much time on their hands.

Re:SHTMTOTH

[RevWaldo]

- (looking at the drawing) Wow, you must have a lot of free time to do something like this.
- No, I'm usually quite busy. I just set aside half and hour every other day for a few months to work on it, and when it was nearly completed, I finished it up last Sunday night, after the century bike tour.
- Well, that's just amazing, it must take a lot of discipline to - Wow Hey! A double rainbow! (points up, then delivers a suckerpunch and runs off.)

.

That makes no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern science and critical thinking are OPPOSITES!

The MIA thread

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I don't see Alonzo Church or Stephen Kleene. Or Noam Chomsky, for that matter.

Re:The MIA thread

[Gablar]

A quick wikipedia review leads me to believe that he is going for a wider view of the cosmos(outside of conconciousness) by not including the computation theorists that you mention. it. As far as my understanding goes all the mathematicians you listed advanced greatly the field of computation, but computation is quite limited in the quantum world.

On a side note...

[Muad'Dave]

Crispian Jago is also the creator of the awesome "Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense" T-Shirt that I was wearing when a nice husband and wife pair of Baptists stopped by to invite me to their church. Uncomfortable!

Re:On a side note...

[oliverthered]

I wouldn't buy a jumper then if you find t-shirts uncomfortable when being baptised.

Mirror anyone?

[Scrameustache]

I got the map, but it looked to be getting slashdotted when I did (at around 30 comments in), and no wonder! A 2882.62 KB, 4450px × 2737px image on the front page of /.? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

What about psychoanalytic?

[stanlyb]

What about psychoanalytic? Is not this the greatest and newest science ever made in human history since some 100 years ago???

Re:What about psychoanalytic?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Come on, people, this is comedy gold!

Ideas, not people

[Yvanhoe]

Critical thinking and science is about ideas, not people. I do not care for the name of an inventor or of a discoverer, I care about what they actually did. Hubble is the name of an effect, not of an astronomer.

I would prefer a tech-tree, a la Civilization, with more details and updated to the latest discovery than a list of people the author of the map felt were important.

Re:Ideas, not people

[ElectricTurtle]

I've come across opinions like yours before (which you don't explicitly state but allude to the idea that if guy X didn't discover a thing then guy Y would, therefore only the thing discovered is important), and I have one important example that effectively refutes it: the wheel. Even after more than five thousand years of use in the Eastern Hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere had no wheels until the Europeans arrived. We don't know who came up with the wheel, but if an entire hemisphere could miss that opportunity for more than 5000 years, for all we know, without that unknown person in the fertile crescent the other hemisphere could have suffered the same fate. Then where would we be? The mind reels. Just as great works of art cannot exist without great artists, great ideas are not accessible to humanity without great minds. Both need to be known and remembered.

Re:Ideas, not people

[TheLink]

They did have wheels before the Europeans arrived: http://www.mcguinnessonline.com/wheel/

Re:Ideas, not people

[stdarg]

The wheel is an interesting example. I didn't know it wasn't around in the New World. Plenty of other foundational technologies/ideas were independently developed though, like positional number systems, written language, boats, etc. Have you thought of other things besides the wheel to refute op's argument?

Re:Ideas, not people

[ElectricTurtle]

Oh, I'm sorry, I figured that a use limited completely to toys was functionally irrelevant. What you're saying is equivalent to showing that pre-Columbian civilizations had toy birds with wings and therefore they invented the airplane. Bollocks. In fact it only indicts them further that nobody in those cultures was smart enough to figure out 'well, what if we made these bigger?'

Re:Ideas, not people

[ElectricTurtle]

Bronze was also virtually unknown in the Western Hemisphere. There is some evidence that the Moche culture and their successors the Inca (through the Wari/Huari and Killke) did some small-scale smelting, and even if this is true it puts them more than 4000 years behind the Eastern Hemisphere metallurgically speaking. (And in the 1000 years between the possible discovery and use of bronze and Columbian contact the Moche/Inca did very little with it.) As such there were almost no durable metallic objects in the whole hemisphere which had corresponding impact on their development, constructive and logistical capacity, and infrastructure generally.

Re:Ideas, not people

[bzipitidoo]

I thought much the same thing the GP did. But we love to think we're special, love stories about ourselves. It's an extension of flattery, and it's all over the place in SF. When it's not all about a special person who could be me, it's all about my society, or people, species, whatever. Brin's Uplift stories have us humans as these unpredictable, wild, "wolfing" intelligent life forms that upset the stodgy and stale interstellar civilization we meet. In Star Trek, the Borg should have easily defeated and assimilated the Federation but, highly improbably, we managed to outthink them. The Cylons are revealed over and over as inferior in many ways. Despite incredible toughness, endurance, cunning, and killing capacity, the Terminator fails. The Matrix and Independence Day are others of that sort. Feels good, and who wants to think about the much more likely outcome?

But I think we willfully blind ourselves. Imagine if we could travel to nearby star systems and found a world much like Earth during the Age of Dinosaurs. Those alien dinosaurs would be utterly at our mercy, and if we decided against them, they wouldn't have a prayer against the technology we have now, let alone what we might have in a future of interstellar travel. If intelligent life is out there and can find and reach Earth, most likely we'll be in the same situation as those hypothetical alien dinosaurs. It doesn't bear thinking about. And that I think is how someone could conceive of such a chart, and just naturally think the best way to populate it is not with discoveries and inventions, but with discoverers and inventors. Other than very general classification into fields of study, there isn't any mention at all of the former.

Re:Ideas, not people

[Yvanhoe]

That's not my opinion. My opinion is that Gallileo could have been named Glenn Beck, the name is not important. I want to know what he did. I do believe that without some people, some ideas would have taken a lot more time to appear. But when Newton's said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, he was referring to their works and ideas.

When I look at a castle, I want to see the stones, not the masons' names.

Re:Ideas, not people

[TheLink]

> In fact it only indicts them further that nobody in those cultures was smart enough to figure out 'well, what if we made these bigger?'

The article I linked to has some theories on why they didn't do it, and I doubt it's because they weren't smart enough to think "what if we made these bigger".

Re:Ideas, not people

[ElectricTurtle]

It's funny that you direct me back to your article for 'some theories on why they didn't do it' one of which (number 4) was, in fact, that 'they weren't smart enough to think "what if we made these bigger"'.

In any case, all of those were pure speculation with no anthropological or archeological evidence given to support any of them, and they are primarily based on other deficiencies whether in terms of social constructs ('wheels are evil! hur dur!'), poverty of ingenuity ('ball bearings? lolwut?'), or a failure to improve other technologies (do your roads suck? Maybe you should try making better ones). No matter how you slice it, the root is deficiency.

Ziggy

[phrostie]

I can't find Ziggy and his, You Are Here, sign.

Re:Ziggy

[RepelHistory]

"I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it." -Steven Wright.

No.

[blair1q]

Any map that puts Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox at antipodes is bollocks.

Astronomy and physics are more intimately related than most sciences, and should come out at almost the same point, not carry unsuspecting travellers to opposite ends of the map.

Looking at the rest of it, graphically it's confusing and randomly connected rather than insightfully linked.

Someone had a spreadsheet full of names in columns by college major and sorted by date, and they hung it on a colorful template. Which didn't fit so they wrapped the data around in a spiral, just like a ...subway system....?

Weren't we just discussing the fact that PowerPoint makes you stupid?

Re:No.

[Bryansix]

Obviously you have never been on the Tube in London. It looks just like this.

Bunch of Dorks

[Anonymous Coward]

All these posts and no one has suggested a quick game of Mornington Crescent yet.

Tufte

[Anonymous Coward]

While interesting as artwork, I don't feel that this map really adds much value as a tool to help us derive meaning from the content. I don't think Edward Tufte would rate it very highly.

Hrm

[bigspring]

While I'm sure it was difficult to compile and put this together, I find some of the very basic omissions of this work surprising. Einstein wasn't a major contributor to astronomy? Really?

Some of the overlap is interesting.

[JoshuaZ]

Some people are listed on multiple tracks. So for example Emmy Noether is listed for both math and physics. But other decisions seem questionable. For example, I'm not at all convinced that Einstein should be listed for both math and physics rather than just physics. Similarly Sheldon Glashow is listed as both math and physics whereas I'd put him down almost completely as physics. But Riemann only gets math and no physics? What's up with that? And there are also some odd choices to leave out. For example, G.H. Hardy is not included at all (presumably would go in both the math and natural history lines). There are also a lot of gaps in the math line in the last few years. The different lines seem to also end in slightly different times. The physics end has a fair number of fairly young physicists but the math end lacks Terry Tao for example (in fact the math line seems to be very sparse over the last few years). I'd be very curious as to how they made their various decisions for whom to include or not.

Descartes and Pascal

[Bryansix]

Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal were both also philosophers in addition to being mathmaticians. I don't know why the paths diverge there and do not include them in both.

A Map of their Theories and Discoveries

[Anonymous Coward]

A Map of their theories and discoveries, and how long the theories lasted might be very interesting. A lot of the theories they put forward were wrong, or were superceded by theories based on later experiments and discoveries. An example is the debate about whether light is a wave or a particle. While we still use those terms, they don't really describe electromagnetic energy, quantum mechanics does a better job. So how long a physist's or chemist's work stood up and what superceded it would be a very interesting map of ideas.

Time Windows and Historical Significance

[kumanopuusan]

Objective scoring of importance can be problematic, although algorithms exist (for example, Google's PageRank for scoring webpages, automated methods of assigning importance to authors based on patterns of citation, or even Erds number ;-). In this case, though, incorrect scope is more important than scoring errors.

The diagram's creator admits that he chose some merely popular individuals in addition to significant scientists, but let's suppose that we are trying to determine which events or persons are historically significant and those whose importance is merely transient. Imagine the importance (by some standard) of an individual or event as a (locally linear) function of time in a certain time window. Forgive the conceit of calling this an importance function.

Picking an appropriate time window is essential. When the sun supernovas, the entire history of this world will be erased, so the importance function of any terrestrial event is transient on a scale of billions of years. Any non-trivial importance function will be non-zero at some point, and so, by viewing such an object in a sufficiently brief window, it will appear non-transient (We have assumed local linearity.). In other words, the significance of an event depends both upon its importance and the time period used to evaluate that significance.

Further, let us assume that we estimate importance based on empirical data. Due to causality, observations of the future are not possible, so the latest possible upper bound of any time window is the present. Likewise, there are no observations of a given event before it occurs, so the earliest useful lower bound of a time window is the time at which the event occurs. To restate, the time window used to evaluate significance is constrained by both the time at which the event occurs and the time at which the evaluation occurs.

The preceding analysis is simply a formal way of stating that the historical significance of recent events and persons cannot be determined. The insight is the reason for this: only local characteristics of the importance function are available and only in a small interval, thus the long-term behavior of the importance function cannot be predicted.

Applying this to the specific topic of discussion, Phil Plait might well be felled by acute disease, natural disaster or random crime tomorrow and his importance function would drop suddenly. To be fair to Phil, let's imagine sudden success as well as tragedy. Perhaps tomorrow he will publish a paper that proves responsible for a new paradigm in cosmology and astronomy. Unfortunately Don Herbert has died, but the future of his legacy is also uncertain. Perhaps he will be eclipsed by Bill Nye or someone similar. The difference between Phil and Don is that there is evidence of Mr. Wizard's importance in previous decades, while Bad Astronomy is less than 10 years old. Of course, neither of them is comparable to scientists whose work has been influential for centuries or millennia.

Significance being related to uniqueness, it seems reasonable to assume the significance of an event of a certain type is a decreasing function of the number of events of that type (ceteris paribus). Then, it's natural that significant events are much rarer than insignificant events, which is intuitive. While the current popular interest in an event or person may be the best estimate of its short-term popularity, in light of the previous statement, we can see that most events in question will be revealed as historically insignificant in the future. Perhaps it is an unwitting assumption that popular interest will continue unchanged that accounts for the widely seen overestimation of the importance of the status quo. The article's author seems to share this bias with modern popular culture.

Re:Time Windows and Historical Significance

[Anonymous Coward]

s/Erds/Erdös/
:-(

Slashdot sez: Slow Down Cowboy!

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

"The map primarily includes modern scientists who have made significant advances to our understanding of the world, however I have also included many present day scientists who fuel a passion for, and advances in, science through communication and science popularisation"

Looks like that de-rails your smug wank-train, doesn't it? You must've been real excited to show Slashdot how much you know what real science is. Too bad, you didn't make the map, and you can't understand it either.

Missing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Circle Lines?