January 2012
20 posts
“Linguistic science is a step in the self-realization of man.”
– Leonard Bloomfield
“A scribe whose hand matches the mouth, he is truly a scribe.”
– Sumerian inscription
“The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a...”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“In the face of the Communist challenge we must examine honestly the weaknesses...”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., How Should A Christian View Communism?
As well as remembering all that he did, today is about recognizing what remains to be done.
“Criticism may be said to continue the work of natural selection on a nongenetic...”
– Karl Popper, Unended Quest
“I think that the demand for a theory of successful thinking cannot be satisfied,...”
– Karl Popper, Unended Quest
“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of...”
– Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944
“A previously identified linguist who, when asked, “How many languages do you...”
– SpecGram—How Linguistics Got Her Groove Back—Gunnr Guðr Entgegenlächeln (via chryselephantine)
December 2011
10 posts
neunzehn-dreiundneunzig asked: Hi! Theancientworld brought me here. I'm currently studying my first classical philology year in the University Autonomous of Barcelona. Do you think that this kind of studies will disappear soon? How do you see our future? People always say to me that my degree is useless or that I won't have any job offers when I graduate...
carriedawayy asked: Are you studying at the American school of classical studies in athens??
“As the great classicist Moses Finley often liked to say, in the ancient world,...”
– David Graeber (via azspot)
“We typically react quickly very to any departures from the expected sequences...”
– John Ingram, Neurolinguistics, 2007
November 2011
6 posts
Above the Clouds, Gangstarr
“Due to the extensive coverage of the site and the variety of the methods...”
– In two days I’ll be explaining this and fifty other similar paragraphs to a group of professional archaeologists. Step 1: Find out if these are even real things. Step 2: Get one of those Indiana Jones hats.
“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
– Max Weinreich (kinda)
October 2011
1 post
September 2011
17 posts
“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be forever a child.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero (via azspot)
Some of the things I've done in my first week at...
Examined 5,000 year old skulls excavated near Marathon.
Observed some protests at Syntagma Square.
Read from Schliemann’s diaries, including the entry in which he describes the discovery of the golden burial masks from Grave Shaft A at Mycenae.
Handled an edition of Homer’s Iliad from 1488 worth more than I’ll probably make in my lifetime.
Went inside the Temple of Hephaestus...
“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity...”
– F.D.R.
“To these questions, I answer with complete confidence, that, in my opinion, the...”
– Einstein (1933 183)
“In 1957 some of us put forward a partially complete theory of the weak force in...”
– Murray Gell-Mann in a talk on beauty and truth in physics.
This came to mind after writing about inquiry and the scientific method the other day. Gell-Mann discusses why it is that a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right. By elegant he means one that “can be expressed...
linocut asked: do you get frustrated with the terminology wars of those who write about scientific method? are the methods the only thing through which we can understand whatever it is that is under examination? my favourite scientific progress metaphor is that of a constantly sinking ship kept afloat by continuously bucketing out the water (where was that quote?)
What is Naturalism? →
New York Times Op-Ed by Timothy Williamson
The scientific spirit is as relevant in mathematics, history, philosophy and elsewhere as in natural science. Where experimentation is the likeliest way to answer a question correctly, the scientific spirit calls for the experiments to be done; where other methods — mathematical proof, archival research, philosophical reasoning — are more relevant it...
Infinity is always just beginning
In this TED talk, David Deutsch describes the course of human discovery as a long period of stagnation and then a sudden explosion of learning in the period we call the scientific revolution. There’s not much doubt about the advancements made during this period and into the present, but I question his characterization. For Deutsch, the key was willingness to overthrow authority in the light...