"Supermyth" - whew.
Tempest in a teapot, it seems to me.
Almost nobody cites original sources when they write papers these days - they cite more recent papers that they assume cite earlier references correctly. No library can have all the relevant books and journal articles from the 1920s, or whatever. Citations are sometimes wrong - film at 11.
Popeye and spinach isn't a topic of serious scientific controversy. ;-)
Darwin's genius wasn't being the first to coming up with the idea of evolution out of thin air - it was in presenting an iron-clad case for it.
We now know that iron isn't a good thing for men to have in their diet (especially not in excess). It's been excluded from men's multivitamins for decades (since it was found, e.g., that dangerous arterial plaques often had excess iron).
Etc., etc.
This column strikes me a bit like the Freakonomics stuff regarding fighting climate change (in which some economist and a reporter (both named Steven/Stephen) pick some topic and show that the experts aren't right via some simplistic arguments (which naturally turn out to be wrong)). Contrarianism is fine and important to some extent, but "supermyth" - really??
Thanks for the pointer. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Almost nobody cites original sources when they write papers these days - they cite more recent papers that they assume cite earlier references correctly. No library can have all the relevant books and journal articles from the 1920s, or whatever. Citations are sometimes wrong - film at 11.
Popeye and spinach isn't a topic of serious scientific controversy. ;-)
Darwin's genius wasn't being the first to coming up with the idea of evolution out of thin air - it was in presenting an iron-clad case for it.
The genius of Darwin (left), the way in which he suddenly turned all of biology upside down in 1859 with the publication of the Origin of Species, can sometimes give the misleading impression that the theory of evolution sprang from his forehead fully formed without any precedent in scientific history. But as earlier chapters in this history have shown, the raw material for Darwin's theory had been known for decades. Geologists and paleontologists had made a compelling case that life had been on Earth for a long time, that it had changed over that time, and that many species had become extinct. At the same time, embryologists and other naturalists studying living animals in the early 1800s had discovered, sometimes unwittingly, much of the best evidence for Darwin's theory.
We now know that iron isn't a good thing for men to have in their diet (especially not in excess). It's been excluded from men's multivitamins for decades (since it was found, e.g., that dangerous arterial plaques often had excess iron).
Etc., etc.
This column strikes me a bit like the Freakonomics stuff regarding fighting climate change (in which some economist and a reporter (both named Steven/Stephen) pick some topic and show that the experts aren't right via some simplistic arguments (which naturally turn out to be wrong)). Contrarianism is fine and important to some extent, but "supermyth" - really??
Thanks for the pointer. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
