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Overall, I liked this article, but a bit of a tangent: most historians today reject the term "Dark Ages" when referring to the entirety of the time between the

Overall, I liked this article, but a bit of a tangent: most historians today reject the term "Dark Ages" when referring to the entirety of the time between the fall of the Roman Empire in the west and the Renaissance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)). Also, the claim "In the historical Dark Ages, religion put down science" is simplistic. If by "Dark Ages," the author means the time between the fall of Rome in the west and the Carolingian Renaissance in 800, there was no institution maintaining science, but there happened to be institutions maintaining religion. During this time, what scientific knowledge that was preserved in the west was preserved by monks copying manuscripts. If the author means to refer to the whole Medieval period, then many of the most famous scientists were clergy, and many scientific institutions grew out of religious institutions, so again the claim is confusing. It's unfortunate that the author chose to distract from a good point by using a problematic metaphor.

agomez314 5y ago
Agree with your comment on the metaphor. Making mistakes like these makes the reader question the subtlety of the arguments presented. Still a good read though!
- codetrotter 5y ago
  If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. I have literally almost never come across any metaphor, save for a very very small number of them, that are at all helpful even. Most metaphors IMO only serve to obscure the reality of things and to draw false parallels between things, and to make it seem like knowledge is being imparted when it is not really. On top of that there are all of the times that the metaphors themselves may consist of comparing against something where what they are comparing against is not even correct, such as may be the case here. If I could legally change my middle name to “Enough With the Frickin’ Metaphors Already”, I would almost be inclined to do so, except I don’t want the word “Metaphor” to even be a part of my name because that’s how much I dislike the absolute majority of metaphors.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    I'm coming to agree with you. The platonic example of this has to be Neward's "Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science" article. This thesis and summary of this article are utterly amazing and everybody should read them. It has a history of how we got here, a summary of ways forward, and an analysis of each solution's pros and cons. Too bad at least half of the article is a painful tortured amateur analysis of the Vietnam War which ultimately does not tie into the topic of the paper at all.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. Yeah, but metaphors are like cockroaches, they spread like wildfire and are really tough to kill.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      I see what you did there ;)
      - HKH2 5y ago
        They used a simile. If it were a metaphor it would be "metaphors are cockroaches".
mrits 5y ago
Given the information available at the time it isn't really that surprising that a lot of what drives people to become scientists would also drive them to religious studies. They are trying to understand the world around them and where we all came from.
dalbasal 5y ago
Historians putting down the dark ages is (IMO) a game of Hegelian tennis. Someone has to hit the ball, so that you can refute it. If the previous historians had not framed the dark ages this way, modern historians would be. The process of erecting and dismantling such frames itself is just a way of doing history. Here's my dismantling... The Carolingian Renaissance was not a renaissance. Frankia had never really been a part of the ancient civilization of Greece, Rome and "eastern lands." It was a roman outpost, for a time, but they never had urban civilization, widespread literacy, political unity or such. Same for the "Scottish Renaissance" or whatnot. The term makes sense for Italy, but that's about it. Before this period, it's all darkness... apart from an occasional roman flashlight. In any case, the term "dark ages," at core, just means the absence of historical records.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  Yeah, Western and Northern Europe were, as Taleb so aptly put it, backwaters for most of human history. The Dark Ages merely described their loss connection to urbane, cosmopolitan civilization, which never ceased in the east, and had been ongoing since the Bronze Age. Those yokels had to go east and plunder from the Romans of Constantinople and the Muslims of the Levant to get resources and knowledge or get them from the Moors in Spain. Muslims in the East were still busy reading and interpreting Aristotle, practicing the most advanced medicine, mathematics, and religious tolerance while petty lords were raping and pillaging from peasants on and off their fiefdoms so much the Clergy had to make sermons and talks about cutting that out.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > Muslims in the East were still busy reading and interpreting Aristotle, practicing the most advanced medicine, mathematics, and religious tolerance while petty lords were raping and pillaging from peasants on and off their fiefdoms so much the Clergy had to make sermons and talks about cutting that out. ...seriously? It is that simple to you?
    - imbnwa 5y ago
      I mean those sermons and talks are literally where the code of chivalry evolved from, are we saying the Romans in the East and the Caliphates didn't have access to more resources and knowledge?
jhgb 5y ago
I'd also question what is meant by "science" in this context. Philosophy? I mean, look at Socrates -- religion played a large role in that as well. The "Dark Ages" don't seem to stand out in this respect anyway.
mrob 5y ago
Slate Star Codex concluded that the Dark Ages were real: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/ Previous HN discussion of this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15485409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15485409

agomez314 5y ago

Agree with your comment on the metaphor. Making mistakes like these makes the reader question the subtlety of the arguments presented. Still a good read though!

codetrotter 5y ago
If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. I have literally almost never come across any metaphor, save for a very very small number of them, that are at all helpful even. Most metaphors IMO only serve to obscure the reality of things and to draw false parallels between things, and to make it seem like knowledge is being imparted when it is not really. On top of that there are all of the times that the metaphors themselves may consist of comparing against something where what they are comparing against is not even correct, such as may be the case here. If I could legally change my middle name to “Enough With the Frickin’ Metaphors Already”, I would almost be inclined to do so, except I don’t want the word “Metaphor” to even be a part of my name because that’s how much I dislike the absolute majority of metaphors.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  I'm coming to agree with you. The platonic example of this has to be Neward's "Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science" article. This thesis and summary of this article are utterly amazing and everybody should read them. It has a history of how we got here, a summary of ways forward, and an analysis of each solution's pros and cons. Too bad at least half of the article is a painful tortured amateur analysis of the Vietnam War which ultimately does not tie into the topic of the paper at all.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. Yeah, but metaphors are like cockroaches, they spread like wildfire and are really tough to kill.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    I see what you did there ;)
    - HKH2 5y ago
      They used a simile. If it were a metaphor it would be "metaphors are cockroaches".

mrits 5y ago

Given the information available at the time it isn't really that surprising that a lot of what drives people to become scientists would also drive them to religious studies. They are trying to understand the world around them and where we all came from.

dalbasal 5y ago

Historians putting down the dark ages is (IMO) a game of Hegelian tennis. Someone has to hit the ball, so that you can refute it. If the previous historians had not framed the dark ages this way, modern historians would be. The process of erecting and dismantling such frames itself is just a way of doing history. Here's my dismantling... The Carolingian Renaissance was not a renaissance. Frankia had never really been a part of the ancient civilization of Greece, Rome and "eastern lands." It was a roman outpost, for a time, but they never had urban civilization, widespread literacy, political unity or such. Same for the "Scottish Renaissance" or whatnot. The term makes sense for Italy, but that's about it. Before this period, it's all darkness... apart from an occasional roman flashlight. In any case, the term "dark ages," at core, just means the absence of historical records.

imbnwa 5y ago
Yeah, Western and Northern Europe were, as Taleb so aptly put it, backwaters for most of human history. The Dark Ages merely described their loss connection to urbane, cosmopolitan civilization, which never ceased in the east, and had been ongoing since the Bronze Age. Those yokels had to go east and plunder from the Romans of Constantinople and the Muslims of the Levant to get resources and knowledge or get them from the Moors in Spain. Muslims in the East were still busy reading and interpreting Aristotle, practicing the most advanced medicine, mathematics, and religious tolerance while petty lords were raping and pillaging from peasants on and off their fiefdoms so much the Clergy had to make sermons and talks about cutting that out.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > Muslims in the East were still busy reading and interpreting Aristotle, practicing the most advanced medicine, mathematics, and religious tolerance while petty lords were raping and pillaging from peasants on and off their fiefdoms so much the Clergy had to make sermons and talks about cutting that out. ...seriously? It is that simple to you?
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    I mean those sermons and talks are literally where the code of chivalry evolved from, are we saying the Romans in the East and the Caliphates didn't have access to more resources and knowledge?

jhgb 5y ago

I'd also question what is meant by "science" in this context. Philosophy? I mean, look at Socrates -- religion played a large role in that as well. The "Dark Ages" don't seem to stand out in this respect anyway.

mrob 5y ago

Slate Star Codex concluded that the Dark Ages were real: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/ Previous HN discussion of this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15485409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15485409