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> A few ideas:
>
> - A lot of the "science hero" worshipping in the mid-XIXth to mid-XXth
> century was somehow propagandistic.
Seems reasonable.
> - Much of the modern science is anonymous
> and just too abstract to make sense to the general public unless it's
> pretty (fractals, astronomy) or made controversial by non-scientific
> pressure (genetics, climate science).
That's probably a large part of the problem, yes.
Still, how many people have even the vaguest idea what Relativity is
about? None the less everybody knows who Einstein was, even if they have
no idea why he was so important.
> - World-altering breakthroughs are harder to find today and progress
> seems more incremental.
This is probably the big one.
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> Or Carl Sagan, for that matter.
Who?
> Or Dr Hubble.
I've heard of the Hubble Telescope, but I wasn't aware it's actually
named after somebody...
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4be7bfd2$1@news.povray.org...
>> Or Carl Sagan, for that matter.
>
> Who?
>
>> Or Dr Hubble.
>
> I've heard of the Hubble Telescope, but I wasn't aware it's actually named
> after somebody...
Oh he just discovered other galaxies existence, red shift and universe
expansion!
It is not as if he deserved fame ;-)
Marc
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>>> Or Dr Hubble.
>> I've heard of the Hubble Telescope, but I wasn't aware it's actually named
>> after somebody...
>
> Oh he just discovered other galaxies existence, red shift and universe
> expansion!
> It is not as if he deserved fame ;-)
I'm not debating whether he deserved fame, but whether he *got* it. ;-)
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4be7fadf$1@news.povray.org...
>>>> Or Dr Hubble.
>>> I've heard of the Hubble Telescope, but I wasn't aware it's actually
>>> named after somebody...
>>
>> Oh he just discovered other galaxies existence, red shift and universe
>> expansion!
>> It is not as if he deserved fame ;-)
>
> I'm not debating whether he deserved fame, but whether he *got* it. ;-)
Good point but at least YOU deserve blame ;-)
Marc
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Invisible wrote:
>> Or Carl Sagan, for that matter.
>
> Who?
Judging who is famous or not by whether *you* have heard of him is kind of
silly, don't you think?
>> Or Dr Hubble.
>
> I've heard of the Hubble Telescope,
Well, there ya go then.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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Darren New wrote:
> Judging who is famous or not by whether *you* have heard of him is kind
> of silly, don't you think?
Well how else am I going to judge it? By whether 100 random strangers on
the street have heard of him? Newsflash: I don't have access to that data.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Mon, 10 May 2010 09:09:14 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> Richard Dawkins? Seriously, other than writing a book, what has this
>>> guy ever done?
>>
>> Read the bio and then let's talk about what he's ever done. ;-)
>
> Ask some random person "what did Einstein do?" and they'll be like
> "uh... I don't know. He was a genius, right?"
>
> Ask some random person "who is Einstein?" and they'll instantly know he
> was a world-famous scientist.
>
> Ask somebody who Richard Dawkins is and see how many of them actually
> have any clue. (I've only heard of him because I read the book he
> wrote.)
Well, again, he's written several, so which did you read?
But in my circles, Richard Dawkins is quite well know. So's Jane
Goodall, for that matter.
Jim
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On Sun, 09 May 2010 19:55:29 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Sun, 09 May 2010 10:31:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>
>>> But name just *one* scientist
>>> who's alive today who has done anything so world-alteringly
>>> significant that almost every man, women and child in the Western
>>> world knows their name.
>>
>> Stephen Hawking.
>
> Or Carl Sagan, for that matter. Or Dr Hubble.
Yes, I was thinking of Carl Sagan last night as an answer to that
question.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson also came to mind, but he may be better known inside
the US rather than outside it.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 May 2010 22:35:02 -0400, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 09 May 2010 19:55:29 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 09 May 2010 10:31:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>>
>>>> But name just *one* scientist
>>>> who's alive today who has done anything so world-alteringly
>>>> significant that almost every man, women and child in the Western
>>>> world knows their name.
>>>
>>> Stephen Hawking.
>>
>> Or Carl Sagan, for that matter. Or Dr Hubble.
>
> Yes, I was thinking of Carl Sagan last night as an answer to that
> question.
>
> Neil DeGrasse Tyson also came to mind, but he may be better known inside
> the US rather than outside it.
>
> Jim
Another that came to mind was Vint Cerf. Another would be Sir Tim
Berners-Lee. I think a fair number of people could guess where both of
them made their contributions, all it would take is a little "cerfing" of
the internet to find out.
Jim
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