The Stolen Credit For What Makes Up the Sun

StartsWithABang writes: Sure, it's easy today to look at the Sun and know it's a ball of (mostly) hydrogen, generating energy by combining those protons in a chain into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. But before we even knew that nuclear fusion was possible, we needed to figure out what the Sun was made out of, a more difficult task than you'd imagine. The credit was given to Henry Norris Russell (of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram fame), but he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of: his student, Cecilia Payne, after discouraging her from publishing her work on the subject four years prior.

Comments

Helium

[itzly]

The article missed the opportunity to mention that the spectral line for helium was unknown at the time, and was first discovered in the sun. Hence the name was adopted from Helios, the Greek god of the sun.

Young Marsden Aaaward

[VAXcat]

HA! This reminds me of my days at Rice University, in the early 70s. The Post grad students there each year would award one of their number the "Young Marsden" award. It was presented to the student whose work had been most egregiously ripped off by a faculty member that year. It was called the Young Marsden award, in memory of Marsden, since Rutherford and Geiger got credit for his work on alpha particle scattering

Re:The Facts Don't Matter Because "Narrative"

[Brulath]

...his vids that expose...

It is often extremely difficult to find a perfect example of something when trying to explain it, so many of the materials people use when trying to make a larger point have flaws and can be nitpicked pretty easily. Any sufficiently complicated argument suffers from this when you attempt to compress it into a smaller time-scale, making it easy to overlook the 'bigger picture' and be offended by the examples presented. How do you distil the years of experiences and biases which have lead you to a particular argument in an objective manner in a short presentation without exposing yourself to seriously flawed examples, regardless of the topic? Try convincing a religious person why they should abandon their religion in 20 minutes without presenting examples that can be nitpicked; it's pretty difficult, because the topic is quite complex when you drill down into it (even though it seems pretty simple, it really requires analysing why they believe first).

I read somewhere that the best way to respond to an argument is to re-state your opponent's argument, as you understand it and in the best possible light, comment on and discuss the parts you agreed with or liked, and then present the pieces you disagree with. *some searching later* turns out it was Daniel Dennett, here: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/.

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Turns out I forgot the learned bit. The reason I'm replying is because I don't think the video creator you mentioned prescribes to a method of arguing which is useful for much beyond entertainment for those who already agree, whatever the subject under discussion. Which is partly the fault of the format – it's much faster and easier to make a dissection-style video that is short and matches your preconceived viewpoint than it is to do the above – but that's not really an excuse for intellectual laziness in the end.

Note that I'm not saying his opponents are correct – some use the same approach as he does and fail for the same reasons. I'm pointing out that his videos don't prescribe to any form of argument which could be used to convince a person to change their mind. He does not expose anyone, because the people who watch them already agree. The best that most short youtube arguments aspire to is entertainment.