Comments by "Lawrence D’Oliveiro" (@lawrencedoliveiro9104) on "Biographics" channel.

  1. That’s incredible. Because witchcraft accusations are so notoriously based on circular reasoning, which simply ignores any attempt at refutation.
    20
  2. Tyson has a bit more brash approach, more suited I suppose to today’s generation, who most likely see Sagan as a bit stuffy by comparison. (Me, I appreciate them both.)
    12
  3. No coincidence that the Christians use the term “Lucifer” (light-bearer) as a synonym for “devil”. Religious thinking can never stand to have too much light shed on it.
    7
  4. 16:17 Also he was never able to come up with a mechanism by which organisms could evolve. The nature of genetics (and mutation) was not unravelled until later. Many at the time considered this a weakness in his argument.
    6
  5. 16:27 Well, considering that the Bible had at least two different, contradictory accounts of the Creation, this shouldn’t have come as a big surprise, should it?
    4
  6. Fun fact, it was Cecilia Payne who worked out what the stars were made of. Before her, people assumed, just from looking at the spectral data, that they had similar compositions to the planets. She was the one who realized they were predominantly made of hydrogen and helium.
    4
  7. Algebras that didn’t talk your ear off. You ask them questions, and they only answer in grunts and monosyllables.
    4
  8. 12:45 A line between the Sun and the planet traces out equal areas in equal times. Or, in other words, angular momentum is conserved. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
    4
  9. Interesting that those who try to point to religious people who were scientists always overlook the fact that their scientific discoveries were invariably achieved in spite of, not because of, their religious beliefs.
    3
  10. If Christians did not fear the light, then why would they treat the name “light-bearer”⸸ as a label for hate and fear? ⸸“Lucifer”
    3
  11. 16:22 The Venetians used telescopes as a strategic weapon. Whoever was first to identify approaching ships coming back with trade goods from overseas ports had an advantage in bidding for those goods. This advantage translated into real money.
    3
  12.  @Creativethinker12  The beginnings of systematic curiosity about the world (what we would describe as “science”) originated in pagan Greece. And were ignored and pretty much forgotten when Christianity took over. Instead, the Greek teachings were continued by the Islamic world, and were only rediscovered in Europe after Europe realized that there was more to the world than Christianity would allow.
    3
  13.  @fredball4894  “But when I see or hear of things like this I can only tell you what I know. It is real.” If it is real, it can be studied scientifically. Science is, by definition, the study of what is real. And one of the things we discover in science is that reality does not divide itself into compartments, like “natural” and “supernatural”. There is just one reality.
    3
  14. 12:51 Kepler’s Third Law is just a restatement of the inverse-square law of the gravitational force.
    3
  15. Actually, it was the Arabs that kept learning alive during the Dark Ages in the Christian world. You know, back when Christians were still burning people at the stake for trying to claim that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe?
    2
  16. Whatever god he worshipped had no problem with committing crimes against humanity like slavery.
    2
  17.  @ecec4642  No, circular reasoning is using an assumption that your prejudices are correct in order to argue that they are correct. For example, if your “supernatural” phenomenon does not have to follow any scientific laws, then there is no reason why it has to confine itself to one small corner of reality. The fact that it is so confined indicates that it does follow laws, which can be studied scientifically. In other words, in a universe where miracles are possible, then everything has to be a miracle.
    2
  18. Let me add somebody else to that list: Jacob Bronowski.
    2
  19. He would have liked that.
    2
  20. 15:22 It would have helped that Carson also had a science background.
    1
  21. 15:33 Shea-Wilson is fiction. Entertaining fiction, cheerfully leading you down endless rabbit holes and trapping you in wheels within wheels, but fiction, nonetheless. JFK and John Dillinger still alive and working undercover? Nazi zombies resurrected by occult rites taking the guise of a rock music festival? A conspiracy so convoluted, it deliberately creates different factions of itself to contend against each other, just to add to the smokescreen?
    1
  22. I guess that means even Christians can be good people too.
    1
  23. I thought it was supposed to be the “word of God”. But clearly not...
    1
  24. 3:17 Who gave his name to De Morgan’s Theorems, an important part of the theory of computer logic. Or indeed, logic in general.
    1
  25. 12:32 So if the aliens ever invent a Heart Of Gold starship with its Infinite Improbability Drive, their running into one of these probes is a virtual cert, then.
    1
  26. 2:04 Because the Brits had abolished slavery by this time. Something a certain set of former colonies continued to cling desperately to.
    1
  27. Marie Curie of course everyone has heard of. But what about Lise Meitner, Cecilia Payne, Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Levitt ...
    1
  28. And who probably, shall we say, “tweaked” his evidence just a little bit.
    1
  29. Definitely Venus. Actually, you can almost see the phases of Venus with the naked eye. When it’s about closest to Earth, and biggest and brightest, it also looks distinctly not-round.
    1
  30. 2:34 Great way to learn to type! (Speaking from experience.)
    1
  31. Also of note is a music group called the KLF, which keeps making reference to the Illuminati (actually, to the Shea-Wilson novel about them) in its songs. Even the initials “KLF” stand for “Kallisti Liberation Front”. (All hail to the goddess Eris!)
    1
  32. 5:05 Beagle captain and also later a Governor of New Zealand. Which is we we have streets in various towns named after him.
    1
  33. 14:04 1858.
    1
  34. 13:04 “god particle” was a bowdlerization of “goddamned particle”. As in “goddamned hard to find”, I guess.
    1
  35. 6:29 “Icosa”, not “isoca”.
    1
  36. The telescope lets you see more stars because its wider aperture gathers more light than your unaided eye can.
    1
  37. 5:39 Brother-in-law.
    1
  38. 12:41 A point Kurt Gödel also understood very well.
    1
  39. Worth mentioning Jacob Bronowski’s classic 1973 documentary series on the history of science, The Ascent Of Man . May seem a bit old now, but he’s still fascinating as a presenter. Episode 6 dealt in part with Galileo. Bronowski visits the actual room where Galileo was tried--it had been turned into a post office by that time. He was also granted access to the secret Vatican archive where a remarkable series of historical documents are kept, including the (in)famous divorce application by Henry VIII of England, the refusal of which led to the foundation of the Church of England. While the trial of Galileo took place in 1633, the dossier collected on him by the Inquisition starts as far back as 1611. There was also claimed to be a document (never produced at the trial) which was supposed to prohibit him from teaching geocentrism. Bronowski found that document in the archive, and it was at best an unfinished draft which was rejected, or at worst, a complete forgery. As part of Galileo’s sentence, besides the recantation and the house arrest, he was also to be shown the instruments of torture. You can imagine the effect on a scholar, a man unused to physical abuses, such a display would have.
    1
  40. Or, you could just watch Ken Russell’s Gothic , then walk around looking stunned for a couple of days.
    1
  41. The whole dropping-weights-from-the-tower thing can be done entirely as a thought experiment.
    1
  42. 3:18 But you didn’t know that when you were 7, did you? I probably didn’t, either.
    1
  43. 20:19 I never laughed.
    1
  44. 16:50 The Moon had mountains. How did he know? Because they cast shadows, depending on the angle of the Sun.
    1
  45. 17:57 So just about a third of the votes, yet they were voted into power? Why does that sound familiar ...
    1
  46. 7:30 He of the (in)famous “Drake equation” (q.v.).
    1
  47. 3:38 Fun fact, three quarters of all animal species are beetles.
    1