druids' knowledge of astronomy?

On 14/02/2013 15:17, Davoud wrote:
Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

Davoud:
I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

Martin Brown:
That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.

Being able to predict the date and time of eclipses had *very* high
status...

You define scientist your way, I define it my way, which seems to be a
bit more flexible than your way. Ancients who were accurately
predicting eclipses, whether they were shamans or priests or
forerunners, were scientists in my view. Some of these people were
aware of what causes eclipses, some knew to within considerable
precision the circumference of the Earth. I call the methods they used
to measure and deduce, "science."

They and their descendants upto at least Newton and perhaps a bit later
would have described themselves as natural philosophers. They observed
what happened and tried to explain it within the frameworks available.

Empirical experimentalism wasn't as highly prized as received wisdom and
as a result Aristotle's false claims that in humans males had more teeth
than females and heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones survived
unchallenged until the enlightenment and the forerunners of modern
scientific experimentalists like Galileo and Tycho started actually
testing them systematically.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 14/02/2013 11:44, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
"Martin Brown" wrote in message ...

On 13/02/2013 01:24, Davoud wrote:
Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.
================================================== ======

Amazing... the forerunners of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism


The Greek antikythera mechanism was about 2000 years old.

We were discussing the culture that built Stone Henge which is more like
4-5000 years old and left no written record. I agree with you that the
wet British climate is not conducive to finding any even if there was
something at the time. But we can hope one day an archeologist will
stumble upon something.

In the meantime various experimental archeologists have tried their hand
at doing the various stages to quarry and erect a monolith using the
best guess at technologies of the stoneage.

were dressed in leotards and clubbed women over the head
before dragging them off to their caves... right, Brown?
Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes were not scientists... right, Brown?
Scientists have white lab coats, pocket protectors and thick glasses...
right, Brown?

No. They were philosophers, mathematicians and natural philosophers and
that is pretty much how they would have seen themselves at the time.
Archimedes was also a very impressive inventor and engineer as well.

The first experimental scientists as we would recognise the term were
the likes of Galileo and Tycho who no longer took the word of Aristotle
as an absolute truth. They did experiments to try and break the status
quo. Prior to that the onus was learning all existing knowledge and then
finding new things to add to the body of knowledge.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message ...

On 14/02/2013 11:44, Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway wrote:
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

On 13/02/2013 01:24, Davoud wrote:
Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.
================================================== ======

Amazing... the forerunners of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism


The Greek antikythera mechanism was about 2000 years old.

We were discussing the culture that built Stone Henge which is more like
4-5000 years old and left no written record. I agree with you that the
wet British climate is not conducive to finding any even if there was
something at the time. But we can hope one day an archeologist will
stumble upon something.

In the meantime various experimental archeologists have tried their hand
at doing the various stages to quarry and erect a monolith using the
best guess at technologies of the stoneage.


================================================== ==
The "stoneage" is at least 40,000 years old, an ice age has come and gone
since men and women created European cave art. The whole of Egyptian,
Hittite
and Babylonian civilisations have come and gone in a tenth of "the
stoneage". For all we know whole cities the size of St Petersburg, Berlin,
London, Paris, Oslo
etc. could have been buried and completely destroyed by mile high glaciers
while the Sahara was a garden of Eden. Whole civilisations come and gone,
lost
forever. The North American Aborigines that we call "Indians" had a
stone-age culture until 150 years ago. Zimbabwe is an ancient city in
Africa, Ankhor Wat
an ancient city in Asia. What "archaeologists" know of culture is only the
most recent past, nothing of 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 years ago. Yes, we
know Phil
Harding likes flint knapping to fashion arrowheads and Mick Aston is
thrilled by the foundations of Saxon chapels, but their actual knowledge is
archeo-fiction
rather than fact. Hill forts to keep out invading tribes, or to keep out
invading bear, wolf and auroch, dangerous animals now extinct but once
extant in Britain?
I'm sorry, but I don't buy your theory of no writing 4-5000 years ago, or of
solar eclipses terrifying anyone except Mick Aston, gung-ho on his religious
beliefs.



were dressed in leotards and clubbed women over the head
before dragging them off to their caves... right, Brown?
Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes were not scientists... right, Brown?
Scientists have white lab coats, pocket protectors and thick glasses...
right, Brown?

No. They were philosophers, mathematicians and natural philosophers and
that is pretty much how they would have seen themselves at the time.
Archimedes was also a very impressive inventor and engineer as well.

==============================================
And their predecessors were illiterate louts with no writing who hid
cowering under the straw mattress when the Moon hid the Sun?


The first experimental scientists as we would recognise the term were
the likes of Galileo and Tycho who no longer took the word of Aristotle
as an absolute truth. They did experiments to try and break the status
quo. Prior to that the onus was learning all existing knowledge and then
finding new things to add to the body of knowledge.

==================================================
What you are describing is 2000 year old Roman culture, heavy with
conquest and religion, light on mathematics. Greek mathematics
was shelved and forgotten, Arabian and Indian mathematics not
understood. Roman Catholicism has NEVER been interested in finding
new things to add to the body of knowledge, and that is the culture
we've inherited. The builders of Stonehenge were scientists and
intelligent enough to write.

-- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of
Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway.
When the fools chicken farmer Wilson and Van de faggot present an argument I
cannot laugh at I'll retire from usenet.