4 ms·
> Pure BS. Newton wouldn't be able to publish through a modern Harvard because nothing would be new. It's a thought experiment. Hypothetical modern-day Newton
by ggreer 9y ago
> Pure BS. Newton wouldn't be able to publish through a modern Harvard because nothing would be new.
It's a thought experiment. Hypothetical modern-day Newton would have some hypothetical novel discovery.
> Instead, he kept his heretical ideas secret that it wasn't until long after he died that others had an clue about them.
It's true that Newton kept some of his religious views secret, but he made other controversial views known and was widely regarded as a misanthrope. Had modern university speech codes existed back then, Newton would have likely been fired over some controversy. As a result, science would have advanced more slowly.
That's the article's core argument: University speech codes filter out many eccentric geniuses, reducing the quality of ideas and slowing scientific progress. It's something I hadn't considered before, and I'm hard-pressed to find a good counterargument. It's definitely not dismissible as, "Pure BS."
- matt4077 9y agoDo you really belief a 17th century university didn't have "speech codes"? Just as a hint: to become a professor at the time, you had to be an ordained priest. Edit: From Wikipedia: "In April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years and an assertion of conformity to the Church of England was sufficient. However, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way.[20] Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II"
- pjc50 9y agoI don't know why this is downvoted when it's obviously correct about speech codes: Newton's own Cambridge banned Catholics until 1871. I don't think the ordainment requirement is true, I think it's the other way round; the universities were founded in training people for ordainment.
- eesmith 9y agoIt's a thought experiment using an ahistoric Newton as a straw man to fit the argument. An argument by an author who likes to make lists of famous people who are conjectured to have Aspergers ... I write "conjectured" because most of those assignments seem more based in hope than any historical reality, as pointed out in the comments to the essay. Thought experiment: university speech codes allow other types of geniuses. Modern science is highly collaborative, and misanthropic lone geniuses like Newton will do little to advance most fields, but much to retard them by creating an environment which rejects geniuses that don't wish to be in a misanthropic environment. See, BS handwaving is easy!
- eesmith 9y agoTo follow up, Newton can be characterized various ways, including "English academic around 1600", "possible Asbergers", and "possible asexual". The argument is something like "Newton was neurologically atypical and the Newton of the 1600s couldn't manage the speech codes at modern Harvard therefore the speech codes at modern Harvard discriminate against the neurologically atypical." However, replace "neurologically atypical" with "English academic around 1700s", which could include Hooke, Boyle, Halley, and many others. Would they be able to be at a modern Harvard? I suspect not all of them would. On the other hand, the author lists many scientists "who seem, given biographical records, to have been on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum." Two are Barbara McClintock and Alan Turing. I selected them because I have read biographies about their lives. Would they be able to be at a modern Harvard? Almost certainly. So it's not obvious that rejecting Newton implies rejecting all those who are on the autism/Asperger’s spectrum.