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  • Could you drop the word "fittest", please? It does not seem to make any sense.

  • A decade ago my parents and I got lost in Rome and wound up in a square with a statue of Bruno were we found the best cafe meal of or week there.

  • This video is very well done. Powerpoint slides are normally so boring, but the narrator's excitement and energy really grabs your attention. There is no denying that some details have been left out, but I feel like there are enough names, dates, and topics that point you in the right direction if you are interested in obtaining detailed information on any one of the ideas. Well done

  • Corpuscular and Mechanistic philosophies were the main paradigms that replaced the previous Ptolemaic/Aristotelian views previously adopted by the Church. Atomism and greek mathematics revived from the Renaissance was improved upon and gave rise to new theories by the sixteenth century.

  • Obviously phlogiston is absurd, but at the time it went a very long way toward explaining the world as it was understood. I can't help but think that dark matter, dark energy and quantum particles popping in and out of existence are essentially the modern version of phlogiston -- sure they make perfect sense within the framework of present knowledge, but they really don't go much beyond that. I really really hope I'm still around to see the next paradigm come to light.

  • Great videos. A lot of information in just half-an-hour!

  • Newton didn't necessarily die a virgin. Celibacy means not getting married. Chastity is abstaining from sex.

    That said, from what I know about Newton, he probably had a hard time getting a date.

  • Wow, these lecture videos are AWESOME. Thank you so much for sharing them on YouTube. Clearly you know what's up. One suggestion though, white text on gray background strains the eyes. All the same, you rock!

  • Bruno was NOT burned [alive] at the stack for saying there were other planets. He was murdered for denying the divinity of christ.

  • @LearnerChess lol ha-ha there is no god. lol

  • Perhaps if Newton had spent less time dedicated to the philosopher's stone or alchemy he would have had more opportunity to pursue the "carnal" sciences.

  • "then it became undeniable "

    I suggest that you study the Galileo case in depth since it had more to do with personal conflict between Galileo and natural philosophers and the pope.

    in any way, Galileo still did not prove Copernican system.He was missing star paralax ( 200 years later) and newtonian physics ( 100 years later) So the church was right.

    The theory that should have won was where earth is in the centre and everything else revolved around the sun and sun revolved around the earth.

  • Writing an AP Euro paper and this was the most helpful thing. Thanks!

  • Your videos are so goooood, DAMN IT I CANT STOP WATCHING.

  • LOL!!Wow! you sound bitter....I love geeks! ; D

  • As much as i admire Isaac Newton for all of His discoveries, i would still put Gottfried Leibnitz above Newton in importance. Leibnitz developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton,

  • I hope you mention in your next video Karl Popper, without whose brilliant idea of falsifiability(Which pretty much debunks any argument of religion as being scientific) science would not be what it is today

  • @Akatam0t0ma Popper won't be in the next video, but there will be at least one whole video dedicated to him (probably more) and to falsificationism later on.

  • Chemistry is yet another powerful example of the benefits of democratising knowledge (see my post on pt. 2). And phlogiston theory was first proposed in 1667 in a book called "Physical Education" (NOT about the benefits of exercise!) by Johann Joachim Becher. It was scientific orthodoxy that led Priestly astray, not his own theories. Where did you say you teach?

  • @colourmegone Summarizing 3,000 years of intellectual history in a coherent narrative that fits in the space of a sitcom is really, really hard. Some details will inevitably be glossed over. So I'm not sure if I'm reading your tone right, but if you're suggesting I'm making gross mistakes I'd say you're being horribly pedantic.

    And to suggest that phlogiston wasn't Priestly theory is to let him off the hook. I didn't say he invented it, but he did own it and defended it.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed Your summary is excellent and well presented but there are some flaws, e.g. if Priestly defended phlogiston he did so from within the fortress of scientific orthodoxy. To suggest that phlogiston was fallacious would have been tantamount to questioning e.g. evolution. Now I believe that evolution is correct but I also believe that orthodoxy can do more harm than good.

  • @colourmegone I fully accept that I have some flaws. And I'm sorry if I seem a little testy, but I get frustrated when people complain that I didn't get every single detail of this 3,000 year history right in such a short space. This work is hard, and such nit-picking can make one feel unappreciated.

    As for your point about orthodoxy, you're absolutely correct. And that will be a concern for both Kuhn and Fereyabend, whom I'll cover later on.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed Thanks for your prompt and courteous reply, a far cry from most of the people I encounter on YouTube. You are doing a really good job, I just think poor old Priestly got robbed, probably because he was too conservative. At any rate it's too late for him now. YouTube is probably the greatest force for spreading knowledge since the invention of the printing press and it's really great that so many busy people take the time and trouble to contribute. Thanks.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed

    Your work is appreciated.

  • Awesome series. Can't wait to see the rest!

  • Eppur si muove ;)

  • Galileo was house arrest? How did that work?

  • The only reason why the Greeks predicted life on other planets first was because they WERE from other planets.

    I mean seriously, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and all the Art that was advanced in Greece (I guess you could even say Athens) in such a short time. The only way to explain that is that they were aliens.

  • I don't think Giordano Bruno was burned specifically because he was a Copernican. As I understand it Bruno also taught Jesus was a mere magician (far more likely to get one burned). Cardinal Bellarmine was involved in both the trail against Bruno and Galileo; and while I haven't seen the documents related to Bruno's, I do remember in studying Galileo's case that Bellarmine never mentioned the earlier case, which would have been relevant IF Bruno had been burned for Copernicanism.

  • I like your work, but I wish you wouldn't put white print on a white. Makes it hard for me to see. But thanks anyway. I always look forward to your vids.

  • Been wating for this and you didn't dissapoint, thanks alot.

  • Correction, dephlogistoned air is not oxygen, is air without oxygen 8:25

  • @michalchik Actually, no, dephlogisticated air is oxygen. My mistake was the example I gave of a closed fire burning up the oxygen and becoming 'dephlogisticated air.'

  • @SisyphusRedeemed oops you are right, sorry

  • Your vid like a lot of histories of science I think underestimates the contributions of Galileo and Avicenna (Ibn Sina), both of whom made tremendous contributions to the basic methodology of science that Newton and his contemporaries capitalized on.

  • @michalchik Really, 3,000 years; 30 minutes. It is really hard to condense it all down. So pardon me if I didn't get every nuance and detail absolutely right. I was trying for a coherent narrative that would work in the space of a sitcom. I don't mind corrections of fact, but to complain that I didn't give full credit to two figures (both of whom I did mention by name) for all of their contributions seems really pedantic.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed Ok, i know it was a formidable task to summarize so much, but a single sentence mentioning their foundational work in the scientific method would be nice. Newton's synthesis was indeed incredible but people often talk as if he invented science. Avicenna and Galileo had laws of motion and helped develop the techniques by which such things were developed. Newton really did stand on the shoulders of giants.

  • Awesome trilogy. Can't wait for the rest. I had a similar presentation to this in a religion class last year only the topic was on religious history obviously.

    What song is playing at the end?

  • @bighugejake "The Space in Between" by How to Destroy Angels (Trent Reznor's new band!)

  • @SisyphusRedeemed Thank you. I pretty much love anything he does that I've heard.

  • Really enjoying this series, excellent work.

  • The dinosaur comic wasn't funny.... Good vid :D

  • Thanks for the videos, learning about scientific history is always good.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed just curious on what you think the 3 or 5 most important books of human history are. You peaked my interest

    Thanks

  • @A5Hellcat Off the top of my head:

    1) The Bible

    2) Plato's "Republic"

    3) Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy"

    4) Newton's "Principia"

    5) Darwin's "On The Origins of Species"

    But I should hedge: this is WESTERN history, not all of human history.

  • Non-overlapping Magisteria is complete shit. There is no religion that doesn't make factual claims about reality, and all of them have been completely destroyed on the altar of physical evidence. "EI DUN BAKTRASED IT AND SIIENS WIL NEVAR BEE TEH SAYM!!"

    So yes....SCIENCE!! FUCK YEAH!! Please help me to support the advancement of science, Google: BOINC or watch my video Scientific Progress Goes BOINC!!!

  • What a great series. Thanks for making it.

  • Newton and the Calculus Wars, the smear campaign begins.

    I'd bet that Newton at the very least, woke up with a little mess to clean up more often than most.

  • Bloody interesting. Can't wait for the rest :)

    Cheers for making all this.

  • It's a shame Newton didn't reproduce. 

  • Really insightful! I think we're on the verge of another philosophical shift like the ones you've pointed out with Steven Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". You should check it out if you haven't already.

  • This series continues to be nothing short of heroic.

  • Newton had a very important influence, as did Einstein. Ground-breaking, revolutionary theories. But they're "clockwork" theories - plug in the numbers and turn the handle. A threat to the church but not a big threat - an aspect of God in mathematics.

    Darwin was the big man. His theory overturned the need for God. Outside the US, many biologists acknowledge that Darwin didn't merely make God unnecessary, Darwin made God unreal (see Dawkins, et al).

  • Before I watched this series I thought it was impossible to make a power-point presentation exciting...

  • 7:47

    I used to play bass guitar back in the late '80's for "Dephlogisticated Wood".

  • @Edella Seriously? That's awesome. In multiple ways.

  • Love these videos, very informative. Keep it up mate! cheers

  • There is a scientific revolution going on right now, that is very politically charged. There is huge resistance by the old guard to the dawning of a new day. Religion again has a vested interest in this revolution. Only now they are for the change. This revolution of course is over Darwinian Evolution. It's paradigm of a single ancestor and a TOL has been killed by genetic discoveries. What will be the replace meant theory is still being hammered out. Heads will roll in the end!

  • @Howie47 I'll talk about Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions later, but according to him you can't have a revolution until you have a new paradigm. Otherwise all you have is a bunch of anomalies, or at worst, a period of crisis science. But a revolution is far from guaranteed at that point.

    As to your specific claim, to my knowledge genetics has perfectly supported common ancestry and the TOL. Do you have a reference you can point to to back up your claim?

  • @SisyphusRedeemed LOL, Your assertion at the end is the real bogus claim; not mine which is easily researched on the net. How ever I don't want to divulge the exact links. As that kind of information has a tendency to disappear, when made to public. Kuhn is wrong, if that's his belief. If a current paradigm is undermined by new discoverers. A revolution ensues to get rid of it and establish a new one. Keeping a disproved theory as a place marker, is arrogant ignorance.

  • @Howie47 Your also confusing a paradigm with a theory. A new paradigm can be the auto-matic conclusion of disproving the previous. If not Geo-centrism, then the opposite is true. The paradigm of Darwinism is. That all live evolved from a (single) ancestor forming the tree of life. The new one says, multiple ancestors formed a web of life. The theory would start determining where those multiple ancestors came from, or how they formed.

  • @Howie47

    Oh look an evolution denier, let's all have a good laugh.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed Since some moron, not you "ButtShot" invited me back with his moron statement. I would also like to point out you are thinking of the wrong def. of "revolution". It's not referring to a revolutionary new idea in science. It refers to a idea that sparks a revolution in the scientific community. A split, between those who hold to the old paradigm and those who embrace the new. I do believe in evolution. How much life changes and how is not settled.

  • @Howie47

    To suggest that discoveries in genetics are discrediting evolutionary theory is simply to be ignorant of what is reality. The field of genetics has done more to support and enrich evolutionary theory than any other field in science. Your claims are pure fantasy and are no doubt the result of you continuing to feed your confirmation bias on creationist websites rather than actually studying what is going on in the real world. Yet again you fail monumentally.

  • @nakedapedude The delutions of the deluted lives on in those with their heads buried in the sands of ignorance. Enjoy the little time your fantsy world of superiority to others, has left. 

  • @Howie47

    You can't just close your eyes and ears to reality and keep on making these absurd and unsupported assertions that modern genetics is discrediting evolutionary theory, you might as well be claiming that modern astronomy has confirmed the sun orbits the earth, your error is on the same kind of level.

    p.s. it's not difficult to appear superior to someone who is spouting the kind of nonsense that you are.

  • @Howie47 Sorry, but Sisyphus is right. Evolutionary theory not only PREDICTED that species are interrelated, but REQUIRED it to be accurate. It also required that intraspecies variation be a part of this interrelated aspect. And sure enough, we've since discovered not only genetics, which perfectly fits evolutionary theory, but mutation, the mechanism for introducing variation into species.

    But even if evolutionary theory were somehow overturned, why would heads roll? Science EMBRACES change.

  • @Underlings Let's stick to the subject of the video. Which I have done. Darwinist are way to sensitive! No, the history of science does not speak of scientific community "embracing change". Are you a partially educated teen? When a new paradigm is forced by new observational evidence. It causes a revolution, that is fought out for decades. Between the old guard and the new. IF you guys and gals haven't learned that let. You need to watch allot more vids on this subject!

  • @Howie47 Actually, my university education was in evolutionary biology, and I studied at the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, where I worked as a naturalist/guide for a year. So I'm not completely ignorant.

    Science DOES embrace change. It's BUILT INTO the scientific method ("falsifiability"). Individual scientists may argue bitterly, but science ultimately cares only about the evidence, and if the evidence requires theories to change, they change.

    Why would heads roll?

  • @Underlings "Why would heads roll?" Of course not literally. Scientist aren't lined up against the wall and shot after a scientific revolution. How ever their careers can and have been shot! When they stood to firmly in the way of scientific progress because of selfish unscientific reasons. Which is often the case. Protecting, research grants, to entrenched in old dogma, political ties they don't want to break. etc. As I said, study the history of such scientific revolutions.

  • @Howie47

    Instead of suggesting we study the history of scientific revolutions for evidence supporting what you are saying, how about providing an example. Just one example in the last 20 years of legitimate scientific work/discovery that has been squashed and scientists who have had their careers ended because of this conspiracy that you hint at, in other words put up or shut up.

  • @nakedapedude By the tone of your other post, and your choosen handle, I don't see any openness in you to receive knowledge that doesn't fit your prescribe notions. I have no interest in wasting time with you, in a head banging contest. I leave you to your own devises. 

  • @Howie47

    In other words, you have nothing, how very unsurprising.

    Perhaps in future when you make the kinds of absurd claims you have been making you might consider whether you actually have any evidence to back them up, then when someone calls you out on them you won't have to slink away with your tail between your legs making excuses that people are far to rude and closed minded for you to bother with. Pathetic.

  • @Howie47 you have the audacity to use science and the scientific method, to which you have not contributed one iota of work or intellectual debate, to disagree with the facts of science and the scientific method?

  • @neurocrater LOL, "The times theyyy are a  changgging"!

  • @Howie47 Your perspective of how science work is...off, to put it kindly. Scientist careers are MADE by changing the scientific worldview, not by reiterating it. And careers are NOT destroyed when someone else comes along and changes the worldview again. Newton's gravitational theory was wrong, but his proverbial head didn't roll when Einstein came up with a better theory.

    Who is standing in the way of scientific progress? Where do you get the idea grants and success come from supporting dogma?

  • @Howie47 BTW, I also studied the history of science in grad school, so I'm familiar with that as well. Scientists who have promoted hoaxes or bad data (cold fusion, for instance), or made claims contrary to the evidence (like creationists) have lost credibility and had their careers limited. In other words, bad science is what causes "heads to roll," not challenging the status quo. And the scientific method pretty much guarantees bad science gets found out. Science selects FOR good researchers.

  • @Howie47 With all due respect, you have been grossly misinformed. i have been actively involved in genetic research and with each new discovery in genetics evolution has been strengthened. The arguments being made by creationist simply prey on the lack of science knowledge of their audience with respect to genetics and are the same old irreducible complexity arguments that fail over and over again. Every evolutionary biologist is deeply aware of genetics, way beyond these charlatan preachers.

  • @michalchik Your post is a insult and has no respect. I'm not going to argue evolution on a history of science video. It's being argued on hundreds of other videos, go there. I have argued their and exposed many claimed or real evo scientist.

    Who certainly meet the def. of "charlatan preachers". My claim of a revolution & paradigm shift happening now is well supported, and easily researched on the Web. Though Radical Darwinist mostly Atheist are doing all they can to hide the fact!

  • The Darwin part comes from this:

    /watch?v=Odsuv8x67dk

  • dude where is kepler and his laws? ya know newton proved that they must be ture, that is how he created calculus!

  • @theartofstew In part 2 I mentioned how Kepler and Brahe did the necessary work to correct Copernicus' mistakes. Didn't mention his laws by name, but hey, 3,000 years of scientific history in 30 minutes, a lot of condensing needs to be done.

  • Fantastic stuff! Thanks for putting together such an informative history of science.

  • Gerr.... Copernicus was a mediocre scientist at best. His model of heliocentrism still asserted that planets moved in circles, and thus he himself had to add epicycles to his model. If you're to mention him, you should really, really have added Kepler, because he's the one who actually did a lot of work to fix all the theoretical problems with Copernicus' model. Galileo, though as you say, basically provided the irrefutable evidence that geocentrism is false.

  • @WizardofCalculus I take it you didn't watch part 2 (I need to put a link up at the beginning of part 3). I talk about the problems with Copernicus' model and mention both Kepler and Brahe were necessary to correct his mistakes.

  • adccording to lord sagan (PBUH), anaximander was one of the first guys to speculate on the concept of evolution

  • @theeyeisblind Yeah, I mentioned that in my first video in the series.

  • "my name is dar-win, not dar-loose!" Wait, what?! What is that from. Looks awesome!

  • @Disthron It's from a hilarious Dana Carvey sketch, here's a link:

    watch?v=Odsuv8x67dk

    It's freakin' awesome xD.

  • Finding the Higgs-Boson is tantamount to the discovery of DNA. Great series. Thanks for taking the time to make it.

  • E pur si muove!

  • Phlogiston would be a good name for a midwestern suburb.

  • This is a wonderful series. There is a suggestion that our Members of Parliament should have some basic scientific training (after allowing state funding for homoeopathy!). They could do no better, for a start, than watching these videos.

  • @tenneral "after allowing state funding for homoeopathy"

    Seriously?! Send them to C0nc0rdance's channel!

  • Newton lived to be 84??? Thats's pretty impressive for a man who grew up in the 17th century,

  • @Sykotix1 Yeah, especially given that he lived through at least two outbreaks of plague.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed

    Celibacy is what did it. Stay celibate and you'll live a long life. Or at least it will seem like a long life as you contemplate how much fun you've missed.

  • I think that Theodosius Dobzhansky was from Ukraine not Poland.

  • @pimpolinka69 Indeed he was, thanks for the correction, I'll post an annotation.

  • Didn't Newton have a cat named Pussy?

  • @volbla I don't recall ever hearing that. But it may very well be.

  • @SisyphusRedeemed I think my math/physics teachers once told me. No idea where he heard that though.

  • PHLOGISTON BITCHES!Q

  • Your description of the Galileo case is not entirely accurate:

    1) Galileo didn't make heliocentrism "undeniable". In fact, he hardly brought anything new to the table. He was a PR expert, that's all.

    2) Geocentrism at the time could actually better account for the data. That only changed with Kepler and and only after Newton was it "undeniable". Galileo was actually on the fringes of science back then.

  • @thalamay (cont.)

    3) Galileo wasn't sentenced for his views on heliocentrism, but for disobeying orders and mocking the Pope. Being burned at the stake was at no point considered.

    Having said all that, Galileo was of course still right and even if he wasn't punishing someone for expressing his opinion is very barbaric from our modern point of view. So I don't want to excuse anything the church did, I just want to put it in context.

  • @thalamay He mocked the pope's defense of Aristotelian astronomy, which may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but he was prosecuted for promoting Copernicanism.

  • @kamijk

    Well, depends on how you look at it. Galileo previously had given an oath where he assured to never again promote heliocentrism in public.

    He then got a license to publish a book, listing all the pros and cons for both heliocentrism and geocentrism without taking one side. Instead he published his famous dialogue, clearly taking the side of heliocentrism and ridiculing the pope, having the idiot use the pope's words verbatim. So he got punished for disobedience and breaking his oath.

  • @thalamay Breaking an oath he was forced into, about heliocentrism. Seems lie heliocentrism is the cause of his troubles to me.

  • @thalamay Yeah, perfect accuracy is really hard when condensing 3,000 years of scientific history into a half-hour (it's really hard with a book length treatment, even.) I wasn't interested in getting all the details right, because I couldn't. My goal was to draw a rough narrative that was at least close to accurate and also managed to tie together a coherent through-line. Like you said, whether Galileo was persecuted for breaking his oath or for heliocentrism depends on how you look at it.

  • Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution! Tell THAT to a creationist! Oh wait! Their skulls are to thick for any relevant factual information to penetrate... :(

  • Christ, why can't I edit my posts.... :(

    There should at least be a window of time for edits...bastards.

    Oh, and to onlywhenprovoked, Newton was maniacally Christian, and heretical at times, to boot.

  • What you need to do, Sisyphus, is start listing the info of those little track snippets that play inconsistently at the beginnings and/or ends of your vids. I feel like this isn't the first time you've intrigued me with something I hadn't heard, and was unable to hear more.

  • @Strivingtoknow You mean the music? Sometimes I list it, other times I forget. This time the closing music was "The Space in Between" by How to Destroy Angels (Trent Reznor's new band!)

  • * raises hand

    what was newtons reason for the vow of celibacy ?

  • @onlywhenprovoked They were religious, primarily. He held to a VERY unorthodox version of Christianity.

  • "We have more proof for evolution than gravity"

    Do you have a source for that. I don't doubt it, but I would like something to cite then I throw it in their face.

  • @idkwhenidie I'm sure I read/heard that somewhere, but I honestly can't remember where. But it's not hard to back up: google 'proof of relativity', take a quick look at the major pieces of support, then compare that with the supporting evidence of evolution (such as in Dawkins' "Greatest Show on Earth"). It's really not even close.

  • I am loving this series Sisyphus! Could listen to this for hours...

  • A great choice of subject,just wondering what we may expect as a follow up.

  • Awesome series so far!

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