Slashdot Mirror
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.
This map at first glance appears to be decidedly western individuals only.
My work here is dung.
Very similar to "The Great Bear" by Simon Patterson
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 /.
Do all destinations in this map equal 42?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
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!
ObQuote: "Ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?...Morons."
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...).
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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.
Run with the lemmings, and you'll get your feet wet.
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.
This map have a clear message for all humanity: You need a bigger screen.
Modern science and critical thinking are OPPOSITES!
- (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.)
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
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?
What issues of actual substance has Glen Beck ever raised?
... 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).
Let's see
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?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Those that you mention are just the radical conservative ideology rants... nothing of actual substance there.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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.