Civilizations

[Leif]

These findings in Lynn’s latest book have profound geopolitical significance. They imply it may simply not be possible to transmit Western-style democratic and economic systems to the populations of Latin America and Moslem North Africa and the Middle East, let alone sub-Saharan Africa. They mean that the world’s long-term problems will stem from its populations' capabilities—much deeper and more intractable than any "Clash of Civilizations"-style competition between different political concepts. . . .

Curious. Did the Greeks migrate north every winter?

[Fade the Butcher]

Curious. Did the Greeks migrate north every winter?

Greece was overrun and colonized by barbarians from the north.

[Leif]

Greece was overrun and colonized by barbarians from the north.

Were the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Mayan civilizations all products of Aryan genetic influence?

[Fade the Butcher]

Were the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Mayan civilizations all products of Aryan genetic influence?

No, I don't recall suggesting that either.

[Leif]

Perhaps I should rephrase my question.

Why are there peoples in warm climates that produce more civilization than those in colder climates?

[Fade the Butcher]

Perhaps I should rephrase my question. Why are there peoples in warm climates that produce more civilization than those in colder climates?

I'm not following you here. The global south is chronically underdeveloped compared to the global north.

[Leif]

I'm not following you here. The global south is chronically underdeveloped compared to the global north.

Why did civilization with writing, architecture, and other intellectual activities not start first near the polar regions, if according to this research colder climates are conducive to intelligence?

[Fade the Butcher]

Why did civilization with writing, architecture, and other intellectual activities not start first near the polar regions, if according to this research colder climates are conducive to intelligence?

I think you are trying to falsely equate civilization with intelligence. The rise of civilization had more to do with the advent of agriculture than anything else.

[Leif]

I think you are trying to falsely equate civilization with intelligence. The rise of civilization had more to do with the advent of agriculture than anything else.

Why would less intelligent peoples invent agriculture before genetically smarter peoples?

[Fade the Butcher]

Why would less intelligent peoples invent agriculture before genetically smarter peoples?

Some regions as opposed to others happened to be blessed with plant and animal species that could be more easily domesticated. The important question is why these populations lost their lead. Also, I will point out that the simplest innovations require the least intelligence.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Some regions as opposed to others happened to be blessed with plant and animal species that could be more easily domesticated. The important question is why these populations lost their lead.

You mean, why does a civilization die after thousands of years of existing?

I can't seem to find these Vikings on any modern map. It seems they've been replaced with peoples using a Latin alphabet, worshiping a Jewish God, and practicing Greek democracy.

Can you help me find these Nordic rune reading UFO builders on my Atlas?

[Fade the Butcher]

You mean, why does a civilization die after thousands of years of existing?

No, I asked why the early centers of civilization, areas like Egypt of Mesopotamia pointed out by Ymir above, lost their lead to latecomers like Japan and Northern Europe.

I can't seem to find these Vikings on any modern map.

You can't find Sweden, Denmark, and Norway on a map?

It seems they've been replaced with peoples using a Latin alphabet, worshiping a Jewish God, and practicing Greek democracy.

1.) I was unaware that Scandinavians practiced direct democracy.
2.) Scandinavians are hardly the most religious people on earth.
3.) The alphabet is one of the most primitive of innovations.

Can you help me find these Nordic rune reading UFO builders on my Atlas?

Ah yes. Haven't we heard this before? What was it last time? I believe it was something to the effect that those who doubt that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction are equivilant to people who believe in UFOs.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

Fade...C´mon...you were the first one mocking the Uber Nords about the third world conditions in Sweden up to the XIX Century. And I recall you also arguing against these Uber waves of Nordics gifting Greece with civilization.

While I believe myself that the glacial age DID change through adaptation what we now call "westerners" to their higher IQ, again, those Nord lands were ice covered at that time. It would be safe to say it was the Med basin/ Ukraine which produced and exported northwards/westwards at the end of the glacial age these improved IQ folks. Same thing with the far east.

[Leif]

Some regions as opposed to others happened to be blessed with plant and animal species that could be more easily domesticated. The important question is why these populations lost their lead. Also, I will point out that the simplest innovations require the least intelligence.

Wait a second - you're telling me that environment can actually facilitate intelligence and productivity? Does this mean certain minorities might not need to be "processed and deleted" after all?

Given the article Fade posted about human beings still evolving, we can only assume that the simmering Alabaman savannah is boiling his brain to mush while northern Alberta's -50c winters will give my descendants IQs of two million.

False. The new Mexican Rome will conquer your Northern ubermen.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

Norse economies where not slave based? Why this sudden change of tune Fade? Not long ago you were deriding them, now they are the pinacle of european civilization?

Question being is if inteligence is largely gene based, when would these positive mutations have happened so as to affect such a broad and wide spectrum of population? I would think at a time of low population (where these positive mutations might have spread the most) and in an area where live was possible at that time, while still harsh. Most of central/north europe was an ice block then. We know more or less where these "safe-heavens" were and from where these populations spread to north and west when the ice receded. I find this stonewalling of a few words is hurting one´s argument.

[Fade the Butcher]

Norse economies where not slave based?

The economy of Scandinavia is not slave based, Ebusitanus. Thus, Scandinavia is not a "clone" of the Mediterranean. Of course, Italy and Spain don't practice slavery either.

Why this sudden change of tune Fade?

I haven't changed my tune. You are just misunderstanding what I am saying.

Not long ago you were deriding them, now they are the pinacle of european civilization?

No, I was criticizing the idiots who idolize the Vikings and decry Christianity. I wasn't attacking Scandinavians as Scandinavians. BTW, I don't consider myself a fan of Roman slavery either.

Question being is if inteligence is largely gene based, when would these positive mutations have happened so as to affect such a broad and wide spectrum of population? I would think at a time of low population (where these positive mutations might have spread the most) and in an area where live was possible at that time, while still harsh.

Nicholas Wade had an article about this the other day in the NY Times. I believe Trig posted it in the science forum. The article said something to the effect that this was strongly related to the rise of agriculture and demographic expansion.

Most of central/north europe was an ice block then.We know more or less where these "safe-heavens" were and from where these populations spread to north and west when the ice receded. I find this stonewalling of a few words is hurting one´s argument.

Of course. The ancestors of modern Scandinavians migrated there. I don't recall Rushton suggesting otherwise.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Civilization hasn't ceased to exist in Northern Europe. The Japanese and Chinese are also amongst the most intelligent populations in the world.


Civilization hasn't ceased to exist in Northern Europe because we have progressed beyond the stage of invasion and annihilation. Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, 'losing the lead' to China and Japan. It will sit there, much like Sparta did, becoming more or less a cultural theme park while the future is determined by forces beyond the continent.


This is absurd. Europe's success is attributable to the fact that modern science arose there and nowhere else. This was a development that occurred centuries after the decline of Greece and Rome.


Its a development caused by the ideas of Roman governance and Greek logic. European nations have had a long haul trying to establish grandeur and glory equal to that of the Empire.


The corpse of the Roman Empire lived on in Byzantium.


Officially, sure. And it looked every bit as zombie like.


Northern Europe is one of the most civilized regions on earth.


That word 'civilized' is interesting. Where does it come from? Where does the very NATURE of the word civilization originate? :p

I'm sure its from a northern forest....I can't put my finger on it though. Can you help me out? Is it Swedish?


Interesting. I didn't know Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had slave based economies.


Well then, I suppose we're forced to conclude that you're arguing out of ignorance. :p


Sulla probably also believes that the common law is a Roman innovation.


Its interesting you mention it, as Scandinavia again uses an evolved form of Roman law for their legal system, NOT common law. :p

Are laws also primitive innovations?

Strange to find yet another Roman institution in the hands of the modern world. Its almost as though that civilization provided us with the framework in which we CREATED the modern world, eh?


This is nonresponsive.


One moment Fade's praising the heavens with the outlaw of dildos, the next he's erecting a golden idol to honor a people who have pioneered the field of sex changes.


Many significant innovations have come out of Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.


Yes. They stood on the shoulders of giants. Its very noble.


OTOH, the alphabet is one of the most primitive of innovations and requires the least intelligence.


Thats actually so ridiculous as to be funny. CREATING an alphabet takes less intelligence than writing in it. Fascinating.

Well, while Fade would have us believe that people have been technologically primitive historically because they're stupid, those of us who know better are aware that ALL of our technological progress has been built on a foundation created by them.

Fade finds the individual who, without physics theory or geology training or 2,000 years of collected data, invented a technique to smelt metal to be lacking in comparison to the team of engineers who studied and university to build a rocket based on the designs and input of hundreds of people.


There is quite a difference between say simple arithmetic and calculus.


Yes. Its more impressive for someone to CREATE a system of 'simple arithmatic' than someone who can DO calculus.

Thats one of the major differences.


This is false.

You're very lucky the archives of the Phora have been lost.

[Sulla the Dictator]

(Drums his fingers on the desk, then with a sigh of exasperation, a thud echos through the room as the Chronicles of Fade are reopened)

What was this pre-Christian culture in Northern Europe? To name just one example, the reason we have so few fucking records and literature from the thousands of years of Celtic history before the birth of Christ was because the Druids placed a religious proscription upon committing their knowledge to writing, not because of Christianity. It was only after the Celts began to convert and the religious proscription went away that we begin to see a written Celtic literature. The Celts were certainly more advanced and urban than the Germans at the time as well. I won't even speculate as to what level of barbarism the Scandinavians were living in. Then again, I suppose the Cimbri and the Teutones might point us in the right direction.


--Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&page=2&highlight=Rome

This is amusing. You claim here that Northern Europe has "lost the lead" to China and Japan. I'm assuming here that you are of the view that the Japanese and Chinese are publishing significantly more scientific papers than Northern Europeans. Is that what you are saying?


Why don't you pick a yardstick, Fade, and then we'll start measuring. Now its 'scientific papers' that define a vital civilization?

Did civilization begin with the creation of the Nobel prize? :rolleyes:


Interesting. Why didn't modern science emerge in the Roman Empire or its direct successor, Byzantium?


Why didn't....modern science.....start in the...Classical world. Thats your question.


This is laughable. I have pointed out to you numerous times in the past that the Romans are hardly notable for their accomplishments in science and technology. Scientific knowledge actually declined somewhat during the Roman era in many fields such as mathematics.


Actually you're wrong. The Romans ARE well known for their accomplishments in technology. "Science" is a modern phenomenon. The Romans were quite adept at engineering and technology.


Why didn't modern science emerge in Byzantium? Byzantium was the direct successor of the Roman Empire and sat upon the greatest collection of classical Greek manuscripts in existence throughout all of the Middle Ages.


Byzantium is garbage. Faux Roman.


Certainly not from the Romans.


I'll give you the opportunity to retract or clarify your statement about the origin of the word civilization.


You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the Romans "laid the foundation" for the rise of modern science.


Actually I'm aware of the fact that the Romans laid the foundation for Western Civilization, in all that entails. Your insipid, rather feeble effort to focus on ONE aspect of that civilization exposes your argument as the superficial creature it is.


This is nonsense. Roman civilization all but collapsed during the fifth and sixth centuries and urban life did not begin to revive in Europe until the middle of the tenth century. The civilization of the High Middle Ages differed from Antiquity in all sorts of radical ways: the absence of slavery, the institutionalization of learning in the universities, the rise of the corporation, mechanization etc. I pointed out in the other thread that Roman dislike of science positively retarded Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was the recovery of Greek scientific texts that sparked the revival of learning in the High Middle Ages


LOL Since I referred to Roman GOVERNMENT and Greek LOGIC being the father and mother of modern science, Fade just argued my point.

Of course, since his position shifts like the sands, its no surprise that even he forgets what side of an issue he's on.


The Roman economy was based on slavery.


So what? They wern't 'bark eaters', as you used to refer to your new Gods.


I was actually referring to an example closer to home, the United States.


Of course. You don't have a leg to stand on arguing your new Nordic Hellstar worldview, so you want to change the subject. Who cares about the US? I've pointed out that your cold weather Viking God Kings are aping Roman culture as we speak. :p

Until recently Fade wasn't such a big fan.

Tell us what is "white" about the pagan and heathen religions Fredrik Haerne. Either do that or shut the fuck up and go back to your corner. North Africa was more a part of the Roman World than Scandinavia which the Romans associated with the savagery of the Cimbri and Teutones.

--Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&highlight=Rome



It depends on the law.


Lets look at the Chronicles of Fade to see the nature of PRE Roman law.

I am actually reading at the moment about pre-Christian Germanic law. Its actually quite interesting. Quite sophisticated, listen to this:


The leaders of Germanic court would not have known how to assess the evidence even if it were presented to them. This left two methods of proof: the ordeal, involving divine decision, and compurgation, involving the swearing of oaths.

In proof by ordeal the odds were weighted heavily against the defendent. In the ordeal of hot iron the defendent was required to grasp a red hot piece of metal. His hand was then bandaged, and if after three days the burns were on the way to being healed, the defendent was innocent, otherwise he was guilty. The ordeal of hot water worked similarly: The defendent was made to put his arm into a caldron of boiling water and lift a stone from the bottom; his arm was then bandaged and in three days it was inspected to decide his guilt or innocence. The ordeal of cold water was a favorite in England, where there were numerous rivers and brooks. The defendent was tied hand and foot and thrown into water; if he sank he was innocent, and if he floated he was guilty, on the premise that water, a divine element, would not receive a guilty person.


Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York, 1994), p.97


--The Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&highlight=Rome


Modernity is Antiquity! Thus spoke Sulla. :p


ROFL tell us the names of the major cities, urban settlements, philosophers, poets, scientists, and empires of Northern Europe, Scandinavia in particular prior to 1 A.D., before the "sick religion hanging around" came to be.

--Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&page=2&highlight=Rome


I never said I approved of such things. I simply pointed out that Scandinavians are amongst the most secular people on earth.


Hmmm.....what does Fade think of non-Christian Scandinavians?

that's right. You can't name any. That's because the glorious heathenism of people like Fredrik Haerne the bark eater and its consequental tribalism was a colossal failure that kept Northern Europe in ignorance and slavery for centuries. Even in the darkest part of the Dark Ages we at least had the Venerable Bede and Alcuin which does not even include the philosophers and scientists of the later Middle Ages. The Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire of Otto the Great were an ENORMOUS advancement over what had previously existed in Northern Europe. If the early Middle Ages are described as the "Dark Ages," what do you suppose we should call the several thousand years of Northern European history prior to the birth of Christ?

--Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&highlight=Rome


Not really. As I have pointed out before, the earliest innovations were the easiest and required the least amount of intelligence: the wheel, the alphabet, agriculture, iron working, simple arithmetic, government and so on. They were the "low hanging fruit," so to speak, which is why they were independently invented in so many areas. OTOH, significant breakthroughs in science today require significantly more intelligence.


Wrong. The earliest innovations are the hardest because they are done without precident. They are created FROM SCRATCH. They're innovative. They're the deffinition of 'thinking outside the box'. Fade used to have a deep respect for language, and a scorn for those who lacked it.

ROFL you know we do actually have records of such things because some level of civilization did exist at the time. We have no such records in Northern Europe during the glory days of heathenism for civilization did not exist there.

--Chronicles of Fade
http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=318&page=2&highlight=Rome

Tell me. What do YOU have anything to do with the information that was stored in the Library of Alexandria? Are you an Egyptian? Are you Greek? A Levantine perhaps? ROFL what did heathen Northern Europe produce that was stored in the Library of Alexandria? Strategies as to how to catch rats?

http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=410&highlight=Rome


The alphabet and writing emerged in several different regions because it was one of the easiest and most obvious innovations. The alphabet cannot be compared to calculus.


What are these old ways? Tribalism? Human Sacrifice? Slavery? The enforced illiteracy of the Druids? Tell us more about the glories and heathen accomplishments of Northern Europe from 2000 B.C. to 1 A.D. LOL Magog here would actually prefer to live amongst the wandering Quadi and Hunnic slaves of prehistory than the German Christians of the First Reich

http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=410&highlight=Rome

[Fade the Butcher]

(Drums his fingers on the desk, then with a sigh of exasperation, a thud echos through the room as the Chronicles of Fade are reopened)

Once again, Sulla chooses to my ignore my arguments and responds with various selective quotes from unrelated discussions ripped out of their context. His goal, of course, is to misrepresent my actual positions.

What was this pre-Christian culture in Northern Europe? To name just one example, the reason we have so few fucking records and literature from the thousands of years of Celtic history before the birth of Christ was because the Druids placed a religious proscription upon committing their knowledge to writing, not because of Christianity. It was only after the Celts began to convert and the religious proscription went away that we begin to see a written Celtic literature. The Celts were certainly more advanced and urban than the Germans at the time as well. I won't even speculate as to what level of barbarism the Scandinavians were living in. Then again, I suppose the Cimbri and the Teutones might point us in the right direction.


I don't say anything in this passage about Northern Europeans being biologically inferior to Southern Europeans. I simply point out that the prohibition of writing amongst the Druids has a lot to do with why so few written records survive from the period. As for prehistoric Scandinavians, they didn't live in cities, but so what? I haven't changed my position on that issue in the slightest.

Why don't you pick a yardstick, Fade, and then we'll start measuring. Now its 'scientific papers' that define a vital civilization?

You claim that Northern Europe has lost its lead to China and Japan. I simply asked you to clarify your argument. If you are trying to say that Northern Europe has lots its scientific edge, then you are simply ignorant and don't know what you are talking about as usual. Western Europeans still publish far and away more scientific papers than the Chinese.

Did civilization begin with the creation of the Nobel prize? :rolleyes:

The vast majority of the most significant innovations in human history (and the most intellectually demanding ones too) have come out of Western Europe in the last several hundred years or so.

Why didn't....modern science.....start in the...Classical world. Thats your question.

Modern science has its origins in the High Middle Ages, not Antiquity. Of course, Sulla would know this if he was even slightly familar with the subject. Byzantium was the direct successor of the Roman Empire and was if anything probably more retarded because of this.

Actually you're wrong. The Romans ARE well known for their accomplishments in technology.

This is nonsense. I have discredited this lie numerous times in the past by quoting multiple sources. In fact, technology didn't change that much at all throughout the entire Roman era.

"Science" is a modern phenomenon.

True. Classical science, however, was pioneered by the Greeks. Scientific knowledge actually deteriorated somewhat in many areas under the Romans. Throughout the Roman era, the language of science remained Greek. The most notable figures of the period like Galen and Ptolemy were Greeks, not Romans.

The Romans were quite adept at engineering and technology.

See above.

Byzantium is garbage. Faux Roman.

Sulla dodges the question. The so-called "foundation of modernity" established by the Romans didn't survive in the West. It did survive, however, in what evolved into Byzantium. So, why didn't modern science emerge in Byzantium? Better yet, why didn't modern science merge in Antiquity itself? Sulla can't answer these questions because he knows next to nothing about the subject. OTOH, I have spent a considerable amount of time researching the matter.

I'll give you the opportunity to retract or clarify your statement about the origin of the word civilization.

Civilization means nothing more than settled urban life, living in cities, and this can hardly be attributed to the Romans who were themselves latecomers to civilization. Finally, civilization should not be falsely equated with either intelligence or modern science.

Actually I'm aware of the fact that the Romans laid the foundation for Western Civilization, in all that entails.

This is nonsense. I have already pointed out to you that modern science didn't emerge until a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire and it wasn't even present in embryonic form until the High Middle Ages. The foundations of Western civilization was also laid during the Middle Ages, not Antiquity. The West is not the Classical world.

Your insipid, rather feeble effort to focus on ONE aspect of that civilization exposes your argument as the superficial creature it is.

1.) You are largely ignorant of the history of Medieval Europe.
2.) You are largely ignorant of the history of science too.
3.) Thus, I suggest you retreat to your Holocaust discussions.

LOL Since I referred to Roman GOVERNMENT and Greek LOGIC being the father and mother of modern science, Fade just argued my point.

This just goes to show how that Sulla doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

1.) The Roman Empire collapsed in the West during the fifth and sixth centuries. The administrative apparatus of the Empire completely collapsed, as did urban life which didn't begin to revive until half a millenium later. The Roman form of government lived on in Byzantium and the various other Early Medieval theocratic monarchies of the West.
2.) Sulla doesn't know much about Aristotlean natural philosophy either. Classical Greek science is a deductive enterprise whereas modern science is based upon the inductive scientific method.
3.) Medieval Scholasticism was the successor of this sort of thinking. Sulla is ignorant of the fact that the origins of modern science begin with thinkers like Medieval thinkers like Bacon, Buridan, Oresme, and Ockham who were critics of Aristotlean natural philosophy. In any case, modern science didn't completely emerge until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe.

Of course, since his position shifts like the sands, its no surprise that even he forgets what side of an issue he's on.

I suspect we will see more straw man attempts to distort my actual positions from Sulla coming up.

So what? They wern't 'bark eaters', as you used to refer to your new Gods.

Another straw man.

Of course. You don't have a leg to stand on arguing your new Nordic Hellstar worldview, so you want to change the subject.

Yet another dishonest misrepresentation.

Who cares about the US? I've pointed out that your cold weather Viking God Kings are aping Roman culture as we speak.

The Romans were slave owners who were hardly notable for their accomplishments in either science or technology. I have already pointed out to you that their utter lack of interest in science was one of the biggest retarding factors upon Early Medieval Europe. The decline of science in Europe began with the Romans.

Until recently Fade wasn't such a big fan.

Tell us what is "white" about the pagan and heathen religions Fredrik Haerne. Either do that or shut the fuck up and go back to your corner. North Africa was more a part of the Roman World than Scandinavia which the Romans associated with the savagery of the Cimbri and Teutones.[/quote]

Once again, Sulla takes selective quotes out of unreleated conversations in order to distort my actual positions.

1.) I haven't endorsed paganism, slavery, or the Vikings in this thread.
2.) I was criticizing an idiot who idolizes the Vikings and hates Christianity in that conversation.
3.) North Africa was obviously more of a part of the Roman world than Northern Europe. I have never suggested otherwise.
4.) The Cimbri and Teutones were uncivilized.

Lets look at the Chronicles of Fade to see the nature of PRE Roman law.

Sulla is once again engaging in selective quotation. I had another discussion about this matter over at Stormfront and cited the same author in that debate.

I am actually reading at the moment about pre-Christian Germanic law. Its actually quite interesting. Quite sophisticated, listen to this:

The leaders of Germanic court would not have known how to assess the evidence even if it were presented to them. This left two methods of proof: the ordeal, involving divine decision, and compurgation, involving the swearing of oaths.

In proof by ordeal the odds were weighted heavily against the defendent. In the ordeal of hot iron the defendent was required to grasp a red hot piece of metal. His hand was then bandaged, and if after three days the burns were on the way to being healed, the defendent was innocent, otherwise he was guilty. The ordeal of hot water worked similarly: The defendent was made to put his arm into a caldron of boiling water and lift a stone from the bottom; his arm was then bandaged and in three days it was inspected to decide his guilt or innocence. The ordeal of cold water was a favorite in England, where there were numerous rivers and brooks. The defendent was tied hand and foot and thrown into water; if he sank he was innocent, and if he floated he was guilty, on the premise that water, a divine element, would not receive a guilty person.

Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York, 1994), p.97


1.) I haven't defended trial by ordeals in this discussion.
2.) I don't see what this has to do with this conversation. Once again, what is your point?
3.) The common law did grow out of Germanic legal customs, as Cantor goes on to point out. I pointed this out years ago in various debates on Stormfront and The Phora.
4.) The Romans also endorsed torture as a valid method of extracting evidence from the accused.
5.) In any case, no modern European country has a legal system that is a clone of the Roman legal system.

ROFL tell us the names of the major cities, urban settlements, philosophers, poets, scientists, and empires of Northern Europe, Scandinavia in particular prior to 1 A.D., before the "sick religion hanging around" came to be.

Sulla does the same thing here. He uses selective quotes taken out of their context to try to dishonestly suggest that I have changed my position on all sorts of issues when this is not the case. The point I was making in that debate is that the paganism that Haerne worships was not congenial to the development of civilization in Northern Europe. I haven't changed my opinion on that either. Also, Northern Europe was uncivilized before in the first century AD. I haven't denied that either.

Hmmm.....what does Fade think of non-Christian Scandinavians?

I don't believe prehistoric Scandinavians accomplished much. Of course, Sulla is simply attempting to build up a straw man argument with selective quotes.

that's right. You can't name any. That's because the glorious heathenism of people like Fredrik Haerne the bark eater and its consequental tribalism was a colossal failure that kept Northern Europe in ignorance and slavery for centuries. Even in the darkest part of the Dark Ages we at least had the Venerable Bede and Alcuin which does not even include the philosophers and scientists of the later Middle Ages. The Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire of Otto the Great were an ENORMOUS advancement over what had previously existed in Northern Europe. If the early Middle Ages are described as the "Dark Ages," what do you suppose we should call the several thousand years of Northern European history prior to the birth of Christ?

The Carolingians and Ottonians were obviously an advance over the petty war bands and tribal chiefs that they replaced.

Wrong. The earliest innovations are the hardest because they are done without precident.

This is nonsense. Calculus was without precedent when it was pioneered. Calculus is far more advanced than simple arithmetic.

They are created FROM SCRATCH. They're innovative.

Sulla is saying here that it takes more intelligence to develop the wheel than string theory. That's absurd. It's beyond laughable, really.

They're the deffinition of 'thinking outside the box'. Fade used to have a deep respect for language, and a scorn for those who lacked it.

I never said that literacy wasn't a significant advancement. Then again, I have pointed out to your in previous debates that neither civilization, science, or literacy can be attributed to the Romans. Also, I have pointed out that literacy was one of the easiest innovations that required the least intelligence.

ROFL you know we do actually have records of such things because some level of civilization did exist at the time. We have no such records in Northern Europe during the glory days of heathenism for civilization did not exist there.

I haven't changed my position on this issue at all. Thus, I don't see why you felt it so pertinent to this discussion.

Tell me. What do YOU have anything to do with the information that was stored in the Library of Alexandria? Are you an Egyptian? Are you Greek? A Levantine perhaps? ROFL what did heathen Northern Europe produce that was stored in the Library of Alexandria? Strategies as to how to catch rats?

Another redundant quotation taken out of its context. Where do I suggest in this passage that Northern Europeans are biologically inferior to Southern Europeans? Nowhere, of course. I was simply pointing out that civilization came late to Northern Europe and that the heathens Haerne and other VNNers glorify were hardly notable for their accomplishments in science.

What are these old ways? Tribalism? Human Sacrifice? Slavery? The enforced illiteracy of the Druids? Tell us more about the glories and heathen accomplishments of Northern Europe from 2000 B.C. to 1 A.D. LOL Magog here would actually prefer to live amongst the wandering Quadi and Hunnic slaves of prehistory than the German Christians of the First Reich

1.) Germany was obviously more advanced in 1000 AD than it was in 1 AD.
2.) The Romans also practiced slavery. On the contrary, slavery died out in Medieval Germany.
3.) Civilization is obviously more sophisticated than tribalism.

Sulla never responded to the following rebuttals of his position.

The alphabet and writing emerged in several different regions because it was one of the easiest and most obvious innovations. The alphabet cannot be compared to calculus.

Not really. As I have pointed out before, the earliest innovations were the easiest and required the least amount of intelligence: the wheel, the alphabet, agriculture, iron working, simple arithmetic, government and so on. They were the "low hanging fruit," so to speak, which is why they were independently invented in so many areas. OTOH, significant breakthroughs in science today require significantly more intelligence.

It depends on the law.

I never said I approved of such things. I simply pointed out that Scandinavians are amongst the most secular people on earth.

[Fade the Butcher]

Wait a second - you're telling me that environment can actually facilitate intelligence and productivity?

Of course. If you were familiar with the hereditarian model of intelligence, then you would already know this.

Does this mean certain minorities might not need to be "processed and deleted" after all?

This doesn't follow.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

This is nonsense. I have discredited this lie numerous times in the past by quoting multiple sources. In fact, technology didn't change that much at all throughout the entire Roman era

Instead of throwing personal attacks regarding "knowledge" about this issue you would be better served placing those texts up once again since we lost most of your positions regarding how primitive romans seems to have been in the last crashes.

This thread, split and all is still in highbrow and I would really like to read this interesting exchange minus the needless name calling if that would be not to much to ask.

[Fade the Butcher]

Instead of throwing personal attacks regarding "knowledge" about this issue you would be better served placing those texts up once again since we lost most of your positions regarding how primitive romans seems to have been in the last crashes.This thread, split and all is still in highbrow and I would really like to read this interesting exchange minus the needless name calling if that would be not to much to ask.

I have addressed the matter at least half a dozen times now in previous versions of The Phora. The Romans are simply not notable for their accomplishments in science and technology. See Thomas S. Burns' Rome and the Barbarians. Charles Murray also touches upon the subject in Human Accomplishment.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

Yes, I´m aware you did that, but we have sadly no record of those posts anymore. IIRC Sulla was not even present when you argued this and thus I would say its only fair to present this info when a new debate like this one on this new incarnation is showing such promise.

Of course, just a friendly sugestion.

[Fade the Butcher]

Yes, I´m aware you did that, but we have sadly no record of those posts anymore. IIRC Sulla was not even present when you argued this and thus I would say its only fair to present this info when a new debate like this one on this new incarnation is showing such promise.Of course, just a friendly sugestion.

I have had this debate with Sulla several times now here at The Phora.

[Dan Dare]

Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, 'losing the lead' to China and Japan.

I'm wondering whether Sulla can explain for us how this handover of the 'civilisational baton' from Northern Europe to East Asia has manifested itself.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Once again, Sulla chooses to my ignore my arguments and responds with various selective quotes from unrelated discussions ripped out of their context. His goal, of course, is to misrepresent my actual positions.


Actually I chose to expose yet another radical shift in your views. You used to practically be a Nordicist, praising the 'beauty of Northern European peoples' in comparison to the decadent Romans and Greeks.

Then, of course, they were savage bark eaters playing dice games to decide who rapes who, and throwing knives at their slaves when they wern't playing with their own wastes.

Now they're UFO builders again. In a few months, they'll be rooting through the ground looking for grubs to eat again. And then they'll be the founders of Atlantis. Then they'll be the furtive forest dwellers running from fire. And on and on.

Roman marble stands after 2,000 years for the reader to touch and see, while your shifting image of Northern Europe has all the substance of a mirage.


I don't say anything in this passage about Northern Europeans being biologically inferior to Southern Europeans.


"Bark eaters". "Heathen savages".


I simply point out that the prohibition of writing amongst the Druids has a lot to do with why so few written records survive from the period.


You mock them for it. You find their LACK of reading and writing to be the object of ridicule.


As for prehistoric Scandinavians, they didn't live in cities, but so what? I haven't changed my position on that issue in the slightest.


LOL They're 'prehistoric' because of their inability to create what you call 'a primitive innovation', a written langauge. :p

They are LOCALLY prehistoric. The people you're referring to are the contemporaries of the Romans, who are setting up the metes and bounds of the world we live in today.


You claim that Northern Europe has lost its lead to China and Japan. I simply asked you to clarify your argument. If you are trying to say that Northern Europe has lots its scientific edge, then you are simply ignorant and don't know what you are talking about as usual.


Of course. Well now that you've been debunked, we're going to change how we measure 'edge' or 'leadership'. Now its publishing scientific PAPERS! Thats leadership.


Western Europeans still publish far and away more scientific papers than the Chinese.


:rofl:

Impressive! Scientific PAPERS you say!

And now its WESTERN Europeans! Whenever Fade needs something, he seems to always go back to the borders of the Empire.


The vast majority of the most significant innovations in human history (and the most intellectually demanding ones too) have come out of Western Europe in the last several hundred years or so.


WESTERN Europe, eh? Northern Europe has become an uncomfortable topic, I see.

Which nation fascinates you more? Gau...I mean France? Or Britanni...err, the UK?


Modern science has its origins in the High Middle Ages, not Antiquity.


Medieval Europe has its origins in Rome. The Church has its origins in Rome.

None the less, Fade would like to now have a debate about a different issue. I have said that Rome as well as Greece are responsible for creating the foundations of the modern world. In response to his Nordic superman crap. Now its "Lets compare the science of modern America to Roman technology" rubbish. Typical.

Fade would have the gallery believe that Medieval Europe sprang from Zeus's skull fully formed. Of course, Fade's knowledge of the issue and perspective is limited by his infatuation with whatever he's reading at the time.

I don't blame him. He's taken a position which he CANNOT DEFEND. I wouldn't want to compare contemporary Northern Europeans to Rome either.


Of course, Sulla would know this if he was even slightly familar with the subject.


You know what I've always wondered? What language does science use to classify organisms and objects? I'm assuming its a Northern European language. It doesn't sound as though it comes from the Mediteranean.

Can you help me out? Is it Finnish? Icelandic?

Whats with this Western infatuation of Rome, anyway? Why does it permeate so many facets of life? It was a silly little place compared to the massive asteroid metal cities of the North, after all. :p


Byzantium was the direct successor of the Roman Empire and was if anything probably more retarded because of this.


:rolleyes: Byzantium was a worthless relic of a civilization that had already died.

Even in its relatively corpse like state, it towered over most of Europe in culture and civilization for centuries. :p


This is nonsense. I have discredited this lie numerous times in the past by quoting multiple sources.


Blah blah blah. You've been wiser in the past not to mention any of this to me. One must ask why you're making such a mistake now.


In fact, technology didn't change that much at all throughout the entire Roman era.


Compared to what? The 20th century? :p


True. Classical science, however, was pioneered by the Greeks.


Who I credited, and who are not Northern Europeans.

Fade's admiration for Northern Europe seems to depend on when they were ROMANIZED. :p


Scientific knowledge actually deteriorated somewhat in many areas under the Romans. Throughout the Roman era, the language of science remained Greek.


The language of science has been Greek, Latin, French, and English. Only one of those are not on the Mediteranean, and ALL of them fell under the borders of the Empire.

These have also been the languages of literature. And law. And government. And armies. And medicine. And philosophy. And biology.


The most notable figures of the period like Galen and Ptolemy were Greeks, not Romans.


I'm sorry, who are "Greeks" and who were "Romans" at the time of Galen?


Sulla dodges the question. The so-called "foundation of modernity" established by the Romans didn't survive in the West.


Its not that surprising to see your level of arrogance combined with your degree of ignorance. Knowing little about the issue other than gleaned "Gotcha" rebuttals from whatever cliff notes of the book that has 'changed your view' this week, you make even more declarative statements that will certainly embarss you in the future.

Fade confuses government oversight with civilization. He never addresses any points whenever we've discussed this in the past.

Western Europeans SPEAK Roman languages. They write in a Roman alphabet. They still erect "Neo-classical" structures. They were held together by the Roman Church. They adopted Roman institutions. They called themselves Dukes and knights. They vied to be "Kings of the Romans" or "Emperors". They adopted Roman law.

They created "Roman Empires" and "Republics", and wrote to each other in Latin. Their God's representative on Earth adopted the title of "Pontifex Maximus", a position formerly held by Caesar.

They considered their HIGHEST form of achievement to be tied to their CLOSEST emulation to their idea of the Classical world!

Even hundreds of years later, their REVOLUTIONARIES spoke about 'proletariats'. Their replacements took the names of "Consuls" and "Senates" and "People's Assemblies". Their stalwarts called themselves "Kaisers and Czars".

And thats the tip of the iceburg. Thats just off of the top of my head.


OTOH, I have spent a considerable amount of time researching the matter.


Wrong. You've spent a lot of time combing cliff notes for evidence of conclusions you already have. Thats what you always do in these situations. Thats why no matter what ideology you support at a given time, you always come to the same conclusions about policy. Its a cafeteria belief system.

No one with even a CURSORY knowledge of Western history would deny Roman influence.

I have read more than a dozen texts on the Republic and the Empire. I have yet to read a single one that supports your 'premise', such as it is. A generous word for it, since as usual, your 'premise' is just rejectionism. Reactionary. Non-productive.


Civilization means nothing more than settled urban life, living in cities, and this can hardly be attributed to the Romans who were themselves latecomers to civilization.


Where does the word civilization originate, Fade?

And you're wrong....again. The Northern Europeans under discussion attributed the idea of civilization to Rome, specifically. They didn't consider high civilization to be "Egyptians" or "Athenians" or "Babylonians".

Their model was Rome. I don't know where you're getting this garbage.


Finally, civilization should not be falsely equated with either intelligence or modern science.


Another Fade shift. How many times has Fade ridiculed Northern Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans for lacking cities on previous versions of the Phora?

Even your allies have to roll their eyes at this new shift. Its so transparent.


This is nonsense. I have already pointed out to you that modern science didn't emerge until a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire and it wasn't even present in embryonic form until the High Middle Ages.


I never claimed that Rome CREATED modern science. What are you babbling about?


The foundations of Western civilization was also laid during the Middle Ages, not Antiquity. The West is not the Classical world.


The modern world credits its origins with the Englightenment. The Englightenment cites the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a movement to recreate the Classical world, not celebrate the Medieval one.

Though Rome served as the foundation for BOTH, in fact.


1.) You are largely ignorant of the history of Medieval Europe.
2.) You are largely ignorant of the history of science too.


This coming from the guy who wants to compare the technology and progress of 14th century Germans to 1st century Romans. Laughable.


This just goes to show how that Sulla doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

1.) The Roman Empire collapsed in the West during the fifth and sixth centuries. The administrative apparatus of the Empire completely collapsed, as did urban life which didn't begin to revive until half a millenium later.


An example of Fade's ignorance. Anyone READING my posts knows full well that I'm not TALKING about Government oversight by a Roman Empire going on until now, the modern age.

Of course, Fade's not an imbecile. So we have to assume that he's arguing against a straw man because thats his only option.


The Roman form of government lived on in Byzantium and the various other Early Medieval theocratic monarchies of the West.


Rome, by virtue of being a real state serving as the model for COUNTLESS others, had a great deal of longevity. And as such, various points in its history serve as models for a VARIETY of societies.

So here Fade ACKNOWLEDGES nations emulate Rome, implying that it stops. As a citizen (Where does that word come from?) of the United States of America, with its two executives, Senate, and Plebian Assem....I mean House of Representatives, I know full well that it doesn't stop.


2.) Sulla doesn't know much about Aristotlean natural philosophy either.


Fade's expertise seems to lie in boring me.


I suspect we will see more straw man attempts to distort my actual positions from Sulla coming up.


Fade the Butcher doesn't like having his previous positions exposed. Fade believes in Nordic God Kings for the moment. Not long ago, he believed they were bark eating savages.


The Romans were slave owners


The Classical world was full of slave owners. Stupid critique.


who were hardly notable for their accomplishments in either science or technology.


Anyone reading a book about Rome, particularly about Roman life, knows this to be laughably absurd. Roman architecture, for example, is seen by EVERY historian I've ever read as one of the greatest technical achievements in human history.

Structures across Europe built 2,000 years ago are 'hardly notable'. Fade is....a bit silly.


Tell us what is "white" about the pagan and heathen religions Fredrik Haerne. Either do that or shut the fuck up and go back to your corner. North Africa was more a part of the Roman World than Scandinavia which the Romans associated with the savagery of the Cimbri and Teutones.

Once again, Sulla takes selective quotes out of unreleated conversations in order to distort my actual positions.

1.) I haven't endorsed paganism, slavery, or the Vikings in this thread.
2.) I was criticizing an idiot who idolizes the Vikings and hates Christianity in that conversation.
3.) North Africa was obviously more of a part of the Roman world than Northern Europe. I have never suggested otherwise.
4.) The Cimbri and Teutones were uncivilized.


Fade's been trying to change the subject to Rome for a while now, but here we are back to the original issue, Nordic superiority. Well where is it? Fade's examples are all ROMANIZED. He doesn't even consider them white until they're writing in Latin. :p




Sulla is once again engaging in selective quotation. I had another discussion about this matter over at Stormfront and cited the same author in that debate.


1.) I haven't defended trial by ordeals in this discussion.
2.) I don't see what this has to do with this conversation. Once again, what is your point?


My point is that this is a non-Roman legal system compared to the Roman legal system that their CURRENT laws evolved from.


3.) The common law did grow out of Germanic legal customs, as Cantor goes on to point out. I pointed this out years ago in various debates on Stormfront and The Phora.


Who cares? Fade tried to suggest that Scandinavia followed common law. It doesn't. Now Fade still wants to talk about common law, which is irrelevant.


4.) The Romans also endorsed torture as a valid method of extracting evidence from the accused.


Another comparison showing ignorance. Romans believed in torturing slaves for testimony because they were seen as untrustworthy. That isn't a trial of ordeal, which is a laughably primitive concept.


5.) In any case, no modern European country has a legal system that is a clone of the Roman legal system.


Civil law, practiced by the nations in question, is an evolution of Roman law, which they DID previously copy.


Sulla does the same thing here. He uses selective quotes taken out of their context to try to dishonestly suggest that I have changed my position on all sorts of issues when this is not the case. The point I was making in that debate is that the paganism that Haerne worships was not congenial to the development of civilization in Northern Europe. I haven't changed my opinion on that either. Also, Northern Europe was uncivilized before in the first century AD. I haven't denied that either.


"'Winters are good for your genes' only when your God, your language, and your institutions for government and thought have been given to you by the "Hot blooded Latinates and Leventines". :p


I don't believe prehistoric Scandinavians accomplished much. Of course, Sulla is simply attempting to build up a straw man argument with selective quotes.


Fade would have us believe that Scandinavians and Romans are roughly equal in accomplishments. Of course, his knowledge of the subject is rather sketchy.


The Carolingians and Ottonians were obviously an advance over the petty war bands and tribal chiefs that they replaced.


Huh. Where did they crown the Carolingians?


This is nonsense. Calculus was without precedent when it was pioneered. Calculus is far more advanced than simple arithmetic.


(Sigh) Are you unable to grasp the importance of inventing FUNDAMENTAL elements of society or science?

Are you also unable to grasp the fact that complex thought, theory, and technique are BASED on those difficult first steps?


Sulla is saying here that it takes more intelligence to develop the wheel than string theory. That's absurd. It's beyond laughable, really.


Actually I'm trying to teach you that it takes more ingenuity to create the wheel than to build a new type of car. You see, Fade believes that each new model of car is a marvel, rather than just a variance of a previous model of car.

Fade thinks that the fellow who invented the wheel was a lackwit who should have had the idea sooner.

Undoubtedly, Fade would have come up with the idea the second they needed to cart off a mammoth corpse.


I never said that literacy wasn't a significant advancement.


Sure you did. Literacy is obviously less important than if a city has a written laguage or doesn't. And Fade considers writing to be a primitive and simple innovation.

Child's play. Fade doesn't have much esteem for 7,500 out of the past 8,000 years of human history.


Then again, I have pointed out to your in previous debates that neither civilization, science, or literacy can be attributed to the Romans.


Western and Northern European civilization and literacy can be attributed to the Romans. Quite certainly.

As to this stupid 'science' argument, I'm not going to indulge you. Read the post or don't reply to it, Fade. I said that Rome and Greece created the foundations for what we consider science today. That is ONE aspect in which these two cultures are responsible for creating the foundation of Western Civilization.

Now, if you're going to reply to my post, reply to what I said. Otherwise what you're doing is a monologue, not a reply.


Also, I have pointed out that literacy was one of the easiest innovations that required the least intelligence.


LMAO Thats idiotic.

It takes a great deal of intelligence and innovation to create a written language. Especially to link characters to sounds, and string them into words.

The beauty and elegance of the Latin language is why it SURVIVED, to this day.

If its so easy, your bark eating friends shouldn't have had much of a problem. They had winters, after all.


I haven't changed my position on this issue at all. Thus, I don't see why you felt it so pertinent to this discussion.


You used to find them lacking. Now they're God's gift to Western civilization.


1.) Germany was obviously more advanced in 1000 AD than it was in 1 AD.


Rome was obviously more advanced in 1 AD than Germany.

We can see that as Germany continues to look at Rome in 1000 AD the way the survivors in some post-nuclear war sci-fi movie view the "Ancients".


2.) The Romans also practiced slavery. On the contrary, slavery died out in Medieval Germany.


Germans practiced slavery longer than the Roman Empire. And then there were serfs.

Also, a Roman "slave" is not a German slave. A Roman slave could be a popular athletic idol for the city as a whole. It could be a mine worker. It could be a rich man. It could be a gardener. It could be a maid. It could be a street sweeper. It could be a farm worker. It could be a nurse.

A German slave was rape bait if it wasn't a laborer whose life was a regular game of Russian roulette each time his owner and his fur wearing buddies got drunk.

The suggestion that they're the same institutions fits the absurd nature of the rest of your claims.


Sulla never responded to the following rebuttals of his position.

The alphabet and writing emerged in several different regions because it was one of the easiest and most obvious innovations. The alphabet cannot be compared to calculus.

Not really. As I have pointed out before, the earliest innovations were the easiest and required the least amount of intelligence: the wheel, the alphabet, agriculture, iron working, simple arithmetic, government and so on. They were the "low hanging fruit," so to speak, which is why they were independently invented in so many areas. OTOH, significant breakthroughs in science today require significantly more intelligence.

It depends on the law.

I never said I approved of such things. I simply pointed out that Scandinavians are amongst the most secular people on earth.


These things are irrelevant and have been replied to elsewhere in your post.

[Dan Dare]

Ah good, Sulla's back. Time for a *bump*


Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, 'losing the lead' to China and Japan.

I'm wondering whether Sulla can explain for us how this handover of the 'civilisational baton' from Northern Europe to East Asia has manifested itself.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Ah good, Sulla's back. Time for a *bump*

Role in world affairs. The difference between who is influenced and who is influencing.

[Dan Dare]

Please amplify for us the areas in which China and Japan are playing a leading role in world affairs.

We will take their role as leading sources of 'stuff in the Mall' as a given for the moment.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Please amplify for us the areas in which China and Japan are playing a leading role in world affairs.

We will take their role as leading sources of 'stuff in the Mall' as a given for the moment.

LOL I didn't say that China and Japan were the leaders of world affairs. I said they were ahead of Northern Europe.

Is that denied by you?

[Dan Dare]

Yes, of course.

Please explain the rationale for your declamatory statement above that Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, [and is] 'losing the lead' to China and Japan.

[Micaelis]

It appears that the argument for Northern European apotheosis stems more from vanity than actual facts. It is a type of argument that belongs on a forum like TNP where such attitudes are not so readily questioned. Glad to see the Phora maintain some dignity here.

[Dan Dare]

Do you have an alternative proposition?

[Fade the Butcher]

Actually I chose to expose yet another radical shift in your views.

Sulla was actually doing nothing more than ripping highly selective statements that I have made in the past out of their context in order to construct various straw man arguments that my views have radically changed on all sorts of topics. The whole point of this was to avoid responding to my points because he is grossly ignorant of the subject under discussion as we shall see. I refuted all of that crap in my last reply.

You used to practically be a Nordicist, praising the 'beauty of Northern European peoples' in comparison to the decadent Romans and Greeks.

This is another straw man. I have never been a Nordicist. In fact, HELLSTAR got pissed off and created AryanDawn several years ago because of this. You seem to have forgotten that. Loki is a Nordicist. The Nordish Portal is a Nordicist website. The Phora has never been a Nordicist website.

Then, of course, they were savage bark eaters playing dice games to decide who rapes who, and throwing knives at their slaves when they wern't playing with their own wastes.

This is a gross mischaracterization of my position. I was criticizing Frederik Haerne in that debate for glorifying primitive pagan customs and savagely attacking Christianity. I never said in that discussion that Scandinavians were biologically inferior. I also spent some time criticizing slavery amongst the Vikings, but it hardly follows that the Romans were any better in this respect, as they were slaveowners too.

Now they're UFO builders again. In a few months, they'll be rooting through the ground looking for grubs to eat again. And then they'll be the founders of Atlantis. Then they'll be the furtive forest dwellers running from fire. And on and on.

In 2003, Sulla was saying that people who did not believe Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction were the equivilant of UFO conspiracy enthusiasts.

Roman marble stands after 2,000 years for the reader to touch and see, while your shifting image of Northern Europe has all the substance of a mirage.

The Romans are not notable for their accomplishments in science and technology. I pointed out in my last response that scientific accomplishment in many fields actually declined during the Roman age. Greek was the language of science throughout the Roman era. Sulla claims that the Romans laid the so-called "foundation" of Western civilization through spreading Latin throughout Western Europe. He doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about. This actually created a linguistic divide that retarded the progress of science for almost a thousand years. Romance speakers lost knowledge of Greek science and science didn't revive until the High Middle Ages when Western Europeans began to learn Greek.

"Bark eaters". "Heathen savages".

Christian Germany and Christian Scandinavia were far more advanced in 1200 AD than they were in 1 AD. This is the only point I was making in that discussion. Nowhere in that discussion did I say Germanic peoples are racially inferior. This is nothing more than a straw man; a figment of your imagination.

You mock them for it. You find their LACK of reading and writing to be the object of ridicule.

This is false. In fact, I used to post about how much I admired the Druids several years ago. The Druids proscribed writing because they believed that texts were actually a form of intellectual weakness. If you can always look something up in a book, then why bother committing its content to memory?

LOL They're 'prehistoric' because of their inability to create what you call 'a primitive innovation', a written langauge. :p

This is false. I have pointed out numerous times in the past that the Celts rejected literacy, not because they were unaware of it or incapable of creating a written language, but because they believed codified knowledge could fall into the hands of their enemies or would discourage learning. This sort of lackadaisal attitude towards learning, for example, can easily be seen amongst the Romans.

They are LOCALLY prehistoric. The people you're referring to are the contemporaries of the Romans, who are setting up the metes and bounds of the world we live in today.

This is also false. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century and urban life did not revive until the tenth century. The foundation of Western civilization was laid in the Middle Ages, not Antiquity, as any quick glance at a map of Europe today reveals.

Of course. Well now that you've been debunked, we're going to change how we measure 'edge' or 'leadership'. Now its publishing scientific PAPERS! Thats leadership. Impressive! Scientific PAPERS you say! And now its WESTERN Europeans! Whenever Fade needs something, he seems to always go back to the borders of the Empire.


Sulla claimed that Northern Europe has lost its edge to Japan and China. Unfortunately, Sulla's ignorance won't wash here on The Phora with Deconstructionist around. :p

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig05-30.gif

WESTERN Europe, eh? Northern Europe has become an uncomfortable topic, I see.

Sulla constructs another straw man. People of Northern European ancestry have made all sorts of contributions to science over the past several hundred years. No reasonable person denies this.

Which nation fascinates you more? Gau...I mean France? Or Britanni...err, the UK?

France and Britain have obviously both made enormous contributions to science. OTOH, science stagnated and declined during the Roman Empire.

Medieval Europe has its origins in Rome.

The Middle Ages are not continuous with the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire collapsed in the West and was replaced by the Germanic kingdoms that evolved into modern European nation-states.

The Church has its origins in Rome.

Sulla seems to have forgotten that Jesus Christ himself was crucified by the Romans. The origins of Christianity can be traced back to Palestine, not Rome.

None the less, Fade would like to now have a debate about a different issue.

The decline of science began long before the Dark Ages. The encyclopedists of Early Medieval Europe were the inheritors of the Roman legacy, notably, their lack of curiosity about the natural world.

I have said that Rome as well as Greece are responsible for creating the foundations of the modern world.

Modernity is not Antiquity. Once again, Sulla knows absolutely nothing about the subject. For example, modern science began with the rejection of classical science, with the repudiation of Aristotle's physics and Ptolemy's astronomy.

In response to his Nordic superman crap. Now its "Lets compare the science of modern America to Roman technology" rubbish. Typical.

You keep asserting that the foundation of the modern world was laid by the Romans. How did you arrive at this absurd conclusion? Explain.

Fade would have the gallery believe that Medieval Europe sprang from Zeus's skull fully formed.

Another straw man. I pointed out in my last response that the Roman disdain for science was inherited by their successors in the Dark Ages and this retarded the progress of science in Europe for hundreds of years.

Of course, Fade's knowledge of the issue and perspective is limited by his infatuation with whatever he's reading at the time.

This is another spurious accusation. I haven't repudiated everything I was saying in December simply because I am talking about different things in March. I simply have a variety of interests.

I don't blame him. He's taken a position which he CANNOT DEFEND. I wouldn't want to compare contemporary Northern Europeans to Rome either.

This is nonresponsive. I asserted that modern science has its origins in the Middle Ages, not Antiquity. Sulla doesn't want to discuss the subject in any detail because he knows next to nothing about it.

You know what I've always wondered?

Let me guess. You still haven't figured out why the U.S. hasn't found Saddam Hussein's WMD? :p

What language does science use to classify organisms and objects?

Latin. A few points.

1.) Latin is a dead language.
2.) Modernity began with the repudiation of Latin and the celebration of vernacular languages.
3.) The use of Latin to make taxonomic classifications has no substantive significance.
4.) Taxonomy as we know it today didn't emerge until well into the modern age.
5.) The Swede, Carl Linnaeus, founded modern taxonomy.
6.) What language did you use in your response to my previous response? Oh yeah. English. That's a Germanic language. :p

[Fade the Butcher]

I'm assuming its a Northern European language.

Latin is a dead language.

It doesn't sound as though it comes from the Mediteranean.

Nope. Modern taxonomy was founded by Carl Linnaeus, a Swede. Aristotle's classification system was severely flawed and was repudiated for that reason.

Can you help me out? Is it Finnish? Icelandic?

See above. The use of Latin in taxonomy has no functional significance. We could just as easily use Japanese.

Whats with this Western infatuation of Rome, anyway?

It's a bizarre obsession.

Why does it permeate so many facets of life? It was a silly little place compared to the massive asteroid metal cities of the North, after all.

More scientific and technological progress has been made in Germany in the past hundred years than was made in the entire Roman era.

Byzantium was a worthless relic of a civilization that had already died.

This is false. The Roman Empire never really collapsed. It survived as Byzantium for a thousand years after the western provinces were lost.

Even in its relatively corpse like state, it towered over most of Europe in culture and civilization for centuries.

Byzantium was a joke, but seeing as how Byzantium was Rome's legacy, this is in no way surprising. If Byzantium had never existed, then humanity would not have been substantially diminised in any real way.

Blah blah blah. You've been wiser in the past not to mention any of this to me. One must ask why you're making such a mistake now.

We have had this debate numerous times. I cited Charles Murray and Thomas S. Burns along with several other authors to illustrate that the Romans were scientific and technological midgets.

Compared to what? The 20th century?

No. Charles Murray plots this out in Human Accomplishment.

Who I credited, and who are not Northern Europeans.

LOL.

Sulla seems to have forgotten that virtually all of that was specious nonsense or otherwise primitive. Science didn't begin in earnest until the Middle Ages. It didn't mature until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Fade's admiration for Northern Europe seems to depend on when they were ROMANIZED.

I hate to break it to you, but the Western Roman Empire collapsed and an interlude of hundreds of years separates the revival of civilization in Western Europe from Antiquity.

The language of science has been Greek, Latin, French, and English.

1.) The Romans themselves contributed practically nothing to science. Science remained a Greek project throughout the Roman era.

2.) You seem to be confusing classical science with modern science. The Greeks got virtually everything wrong and their errors weren't swept away until deference to their authority began to erode in the Late Middle Ages.

3.) English is a Germanic language.

[quot]Only one of those are not on the Mediteranean, and ALL of them fell under the borders of the Empire.[/quote]

I have already pointed out to you several times now that science either stagnated or declined during the Roman era.

These have also been the languages of literature. And law. And government.

1.) English is America's language. English is a Germanic language.
2.) America's legal system has its origins in Germanic law, not Roman law.
3.) America's system of government has its origins in the Germanic tradition of elective kingship, not the Roman tradition of theocratic monarchy.

And armies.

English is the language of our military.

And medicine. And philosophy. And biology.

The Romans virtually nothing to any of these fields.

I'm sorry, who are "Greeks" and who were "Romans" at the time of Galen?

Greek speakers and Latin speakers.

[Fade the Butcher]

Its not that surprising to see your level of arrogance combined with your degree of ignorance.

By all means, enlighten us.

Knowing little about the issue other than gleaned "Gotcha" rebuttals from whatever cliff notes of the book that has 'changed your view' this week, you make even more declarative statements that will certainly embarss you in the future.

Please embarrass me.

Fade confuses government oversight with civilization. He never addresses any points whenever we've discussed this in the past.

Roman civilization collapsed in the fifth century and civilization did not revive in Western Europe until the tenth century. That's a fact.

Western Europeans SPEAK Roman languages.

Latin is a dead language. Western Europeans also SPEAK Germanic languages. We are SPEAKING a Germanic language at this moment.

They write in a Roman alphabet.

The alphabet is not a Roman innovation. The vast majority of Europeans were illiterate well into modern times.

They still erect "Neo-classical" structures.

Medieval Europeans are actually famous for their beautiful Gothic Cathedrals.

They were held together by the Roman Church.

The Romans crucified Jesus Christ. Christianity has its origins in Palestine, not Rome. The center of the world for Medieval Europeans was Jerusalem, not Rome.

They adopted Roman institutions.

What institutions are these? Theocratic monarchy? Slavery? Those were prevelant in the Dark Ages, but Western Europeans later evolved a quite different social system.

They called themselves Dukes and knights.

The mounted knight of the Middle Ages was more of a successor of the Huns than the Romans.

They vied to be "Kings of the Romans" or "Emperors".

This is laughable. Charlemagne preferred to call himself King of the Franks and Lombards. The German Emperor was also elected according to the Germanic custom of elective monarchy.

They adopted Roman law.

The administrative apparatus of the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century throughout the West and in Italy itself after the Lombards took over. The revival of Roman law was a later development and the European legal systems that exist today are significantly different. The English-speaking countries never adopted Roman law.

They created "Roman Empires" and "Republics", and wrote to each other in Latin.

Voltaire once famously said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. That's an understatement. The German-speaking Holy Roman Empire with its tradition of elective monarchy and bizarre conglomeration of bishoporics, free cities, and other territories hardly resembled the Roman Empire. The various republics of Italy were also republics in name only.

Their God's representative on Earth adopted the title of "Pontifex Maximus", a position formerly held by Caesar.

The Pope is actually considered to be the successor of St. Peter, not Caeser.

They considered their HIGHEST form of achievement to be tied to their CLOSEST emulation to their idea of the Classical world!

This was actually a retarding influence upon Medieval Europe and was more prevelant in the Dark Ages than it was in later centuries. Western Europe progressed as it broke out of the Greco-Roman mold, not the other way around.

Even hundreds of years later, their REVOLUTIONARIES spoke about 'proletariats'.

As a degraded working class to be overcome.

Their replacements took the names of "Consuls" and "Senates" and "People's Assemblies".

There isn't a single Western country today that is governed by a theocratic monarch. That sort of thing fell out of fashion in the Middle Ages when bureaucratic monarchy and representative government made their first appearance.

Their stalwarts called themselves "Kaisers and Czars".

The German Kaiser was an elected monarch.

And thats the tip of the iceburg. Thats just off of the top of my head.

I hope you will do much better in your next response.

Wrong. You've spent a lot of time combing cliff notes for evidence of conclusions you already have. Thats what you always do in these situations.

Watch this. Give us the name of a prominent historian of science who says the Romans were notable for their scientific accomplishments.

Thats why no matter what ideology you support at a given time, you always come to the same conclusions about policy. Its a cafeteria belief system.

Sulla can't seem to make up his mind. I'm a fanatical dogmatic ideologue on the one hand, but my views also shift likes the sands on the other.

No one with even a CURSORY knowledge of Western history would deny Roman influence.

I never denied that the Romans were influential. They certainly were. Their greatest legacy was retarding science for almost a thousand years.

I have read more than a dozen texts on the Republic and the Empire. I have yet to read a single one that supports your 'premise', such as it is.

Have you read Thomas S. Burns' Rome and the Barbarians?

A generous word for it, since as usual, your 'premise' is just rejectionism. Reactionary. Non-productive.

I'm a reactionary now. :p

[Donny the Punk]

Rome had never a monarch since the rape of Lucrece. What civilisation are you on about?

[WFHermans]

Rome had never a monarch since the rape of Lucrece. What civilisation are you on about?
1. Learn english
2. Learn history

Return then.

[Fade the Butcher]

Where does the word civilization originate, Fade?

The etymology of the word is irrelevant. "Civilization" goes back thousands of years before the Romans. The Romans themselves were latecomers to "civilization."

And you're wrong....again. The Northern Europeans under discussion attributed the idea of civilization to Rome, specifically. They didn't consider high civilization to be "Egyptians" or "Athenians" or "Babylonians".

The Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and so on were practicing "civilization" thousands of years before the Romans. Rome did not "civilize" Northern Europe either. That's ridiculous. The Romans never managed to conquer Germany, still less Northern Europe, and their handiwork in Britain was oblierated by the Anglo-Saxons who evolved into the English.

Their model was Rome. I don't know where you're getting this garbage.

Nonsense.

1.) The Romans did not conquer or civilize Northern Europe.
2.) Northern Europeans conquered the Roman Empire.
3.) The foundation of civilization was laid in Northern Europe during the High Middle Ages by Northern Europeans themselves.
4.) Your notion that Northern Europe is somehow modeled upon Rome is laughable.

- Northern Europeans are Protestant Christians.
- Northern European countries are liberal democracies, not theocratic monarchies.
- Northern European traditions like equality before the law, individual rights, and elective kingship grew out of indigenous Northern European customs.
- Northern Europeans speak Germanic languages.
- The diet of Northern Europeans significantly differs from Southern Europeans still to this day.
- Northern European economies are not based upon slavery.

Another Fade shift. How many times has Fade ridiculed Northern Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans for lacking cities on previous versions of the Phora?

Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world today, but no one regards that as being in anyway significant, as it is nothing more than a human ant heap. Byzantium is another example. The world would not be much worse off if Byzantium had never existed.

Even your allies have to roll their eyes at this new shift. Its so transparent.

Where have I ever made the argument that living in cities is somehow an end-in-itself? You are also distorting my argument. I have pointed out on numerous occasions in the past that I grew up in a rural area in myself and have always had an ambivilant attitude at best towards cities.

Even your allies have to roll their eyes at this new shift. Its so transparent.

What of significance did the Romans accomplish in science?

The modern world credits its origins with the Englightenment.

That's absurd. Modernity began during the fifteenth century.

The Englightenment cites the Renaissance.

The Enlightenment was inspired by the Scientific Revolution.

The Renaissance was a movement to recreate the Classical world, not celebrate the Medieval one.

The literari of the Renaissance were humanists, not engineers, who were largely ignorant of the history of science and technology.

This coming from the guy who wants to compare the technology and progress of 14th century Germans to 1st century Romans. Laughable.

I actually picked up this argument from Thomas S. Burns. He pointed out that science and technology stagnated and declined during the Roman era. The Romans simply extended preexisting Mediterranean technology throughout Western Europe.

Though Rome served as the foundation for BOTH, in fact.

This is nonsense. The Romans never conquered Germany. The Germans conquered Rome.

An example of Fade's ignorance. Anyone READING my posts knows full well that I'm not TALKING about Government oversight by a Roman Empire going on until now, the modern age.

The foundation of Modernity was laid during the Middle Ages, not Antiquity. The cities and universities of Western Europe grew out of their MEDIEVAL antecedents.

Of course, Fade's not an imbecile. So we have to assume that he's arguing against a straw man because thats his only option.

According to Sulla, the Romans founded Oxford University. The Romans civilized Scotland and Scandinavia.

Rome, by virtue of being a real state serving as the model for COUNTLESS others, had a great deal of longevity.

Rome lived on as Byzantium. The Roman Empire in the West collapsed and was replaced by the GERMANIC KINGDOMS that evolved into the modern nation-states of the West.

And as such, various points in its history serve as models for a VARIETY of societies.

According to Sulla, the liberal democracies of the West with their free market economies are modeled upon Roman theocratic monarchy and slavery.

So here Fade ACKNOWLEDGES nations emulate Rome, implying that it stops.

Yes. I pointed out that Rome lived on as Byzantium for a thousand more years after the loss of the western provinces.

As a citizen (Where does that word come from?) of the United States of America, with its two executives, Senate, and Plebian Assem....I mean House of Representatives, I know full well that it doesn't stop.

The United States was founded by English colonial settlers in the aftermath of their revolt against their sovereign, King George III of England, who was accused of denying them their traditional rights as Englishmen. The U.S. Congress was modeled after the dual chambered British Parliament with its House of Lords and House of Commons; the origins of representative government itself can be traced back to the English Middle Ages. The American legal system was based upon the common law and remains so today. The American system of government is based upon the fundamental premise that law resides in the folk, not the will of the sovereign, and thus the people in their sovereign capacity have the right to dismiss their leaders which, I might add, is an idea of obviously Germanic vintage.

[Donny the Punk]

1. Learn english
2. Learn history

Return then.
1. My mellifluousness on these forums is unmatched. :p
2. You can name a king of Classical Rome after L. Tarquinius Superbus?

[Fade the Butcher]

Fade's expertise seems to lie in boring me.

This is nonresponsive. You honestly don't know what the hell you are talking about. I still have no idea why you try to participate in these discussions.

Fade the Butcher doesn't like having his previous positions exposed.

I have no idea how Sulla arrived at the conclusion that these are my previous positions.

Fade believes in Nordic God Kings for the moment. Not long ago, he believed they were bark eating savages.

This is a straw man.

The Classical world was full of slave owners. Stupid critique.

You brought up my criticism of Viking participation in the slave trade. The Romans were hardly any better in this respect.

Anyone reading a book about Rome, particularly about Roman life, knows this to be laughably absurd.

You can start with Rome and the Barbarians by Thomas S. Burns.

Roman architecture, for example, is seen by EVERY historian I've ever read as one of the greatest technical achievements in human history. Structures across Europe built 2,000 years ago are 'hardly notable'. Fade is....a bit silly.

Neither science or technology changed much across the entire expanse of Roman history.

Fade's been trying to change the subject to Rome for a while now, but here we are back to the original issue, Nordic superiority.

Sulla actually is setting up a straw man, as I haven't endorsed Nordicism anywhere in this thread or at any other forum. Also, Sulla was the one who brought up the whole issue of Rome, not me.

Well where is it? Fade's examples are all ROMANIZED.

The Roman Empire never extended across Northern Europe.

He doesn't even consider them white until they're writing in Latin.

This is another straw man. I was denying the assertion that the Vikings of all people were somehow White Nationalists.

My point is that this is a non-Roman legal system compared to the Roman legal system that their CURRENT laws evolved from.

What country in Western Europe today is using the Roman legal system?

Who cares? Fade tried to suggest that Scandinavia followed common law. It doesn't. Now Fade still wants to talk about common law, which is irrelevant.

Scandinavians 1.) elect their leaders, 2.) codify their individual rights and liberties, 3.) practice representative government, 4.) invest their parliaments with the right to pass laws, 5.) and base their legal system upon the equality of all citizens. According to Sulla, Scandinavians have modeled their societies upon the Roman Empire. :p

Another comparison showing ignorance. Romans believed in torturing slaves for testimony because they were seen as untrustworthy. That isn't a trial of ordeal, which is a laughably primitive concept.

The ordeal was also based upon the theory that the accused could not be trusted and that some sort of test, say, tying their hands behind their backs and tossing them into a stream to see if they would float could decide their guilt or innocence. The jury system was a Carolingian innovation, btw.

Civil law, practiced by the nations in question, is an evolution of Roman law, which they DID previously copy.

What country today in Europe is using the Roman legal system? What legal system in Europe today is continuous with the Roman Empire?

Fade would have us believe that Scandinavians and Romans are roughly equal in accomplishments. Of course, his knowledge of the subject is rather sketchy.

Actually, I would argue that Scandinavians have accomplished more than the Romans ever did.

Huh. Where did they crown the Carolingians?

In Paris.

(Sigh) Are you unable to grasp the importance of inventing FUNDAMENTAL elements of society or science?

The wheel is a fundamental invention, but the automobile is an infinitely more complex one. It is far less obvious. Inventing the wheel was much easier and required less intelligence. Kamandi understands this. How difficult is it for you to grasp?

Are you also unable to grasp the fact that complex thought, theory, and technique are BASED on those difficult first steps?

There is a chasm separating the invention of the wheel from string theory, Sulla.

Actually I'm trying to teach you that it takes more ingenuity to create the wheel than to build a new type of car.

Sulla believes it takes more intelligence to invent the wheel than the automobile. I can only laugh at this one.

You see, Fade believes that each new model of car is a marvel, rather than just a variance of a previous model of car.

This is a straw man.

Fade thinks that the fellow who invented the wheel was a lackwit who should have had the idea sooner. Undoubtedly, Fade would have come up with the idea the second they needed to cart off a mammoth corpse.

The wheel is a far more obvious invention. So was fire. So was the alphabet. So was government. So was primitive arithmetic. These things were independently invented in several locations.

Sure you did. Literacy is obviously less important than if a city has a written laguage or doesn't. And Fade considers writing to be a primitive and simple innovation.

I didn't say literacy was an insignificant accomplishment. I said it was one of the easiest ones. This is why literacy arose in so many different locations. Agriculture is another example. Both agriculture and government arose independently in the New World along with writings and arithmetic.

Child's play. Fade doesn't have much esteem for 7,500 out of the past 8,000 years of human history.

Nothing much of real significance happened in the world prior to the twelfth century.

Western and Northern European civilization and literacy can be attributed to the Romans. Quite certainly.

*sigh*

The majority of Europeans did not become literate until well into the modern age. The Romans never civilized or conquered Northern Europe. Roman civilization collapsed in Western Europe true.

As to this stupid 'science' argument, I'm not going to indulge you. Read the post or don't reply to it, Fade.

That would be a good idea. You don't know much about the subject, after all.

I said that Rome and Greece created the foundations for what we consider science today. That is ONE aspect in which these two cultures are responsible for creating the foundation of Western Civilization.

This is nonsense. First, science stagnated and declined during the Roman era and the Romans themselves contributed practically nothing to science. Second, the foundation of modern science was laid by late medieval and early modern thinkers who explicitly REJECTED classical science.

Now, if you're going to reply to my post, reply to what I said. Otherwise what you're doing is a monologue, not a reply.

No problem. Classical science is based upon deductive rationalism whereas modern science is based upon inductive empiricism and mathematics.

[Fade the Butcher]

You used to find them lacking. Now they're God's gift to Western civilization.

This is a straw man.

LMAO Thats idiotic. These things are irrelevant and have been replied to elsewhere in your post.

The most obvious innovations are the ones that require the least intelligence. I pointed out above that metal working, agriculture, government, literacy, primitive arithmetic, astronomy and so on all arose in multiple locations.

It takes a great deal of intelligence and innovation to create a written language. Especially to link characters to sounds, and string them into words.

The Romans didn't independently invent the alphabet or literacy.

The beauty and elegance of the Latin language is why it SURVIVED, to this day.

Latin is a dead language.

If its so easy, your bark eating friends shouldn't have had much of a problem. They had winters, after all.

The Romans didn't invent government, metal working, agriculture, or literacy either.

Rome was obviously more advanced in 1 AD than Germany.

Of course. But where was Rome in 1000 BC?

We can see that as Germany continues to look at Rome in 1000 AD the way the survivors in some post-nuclear war sci-fi movie view the "Ancients".

What can we attribute to the Romans that is supposed to be so great?

Germans practiced slavery longer than the Roman Empire. And then there were serfs.

This is false.

Also, a Roman "slave" is not a German slave. A Roman slave could be a popular athletic idol for the city as a whole. It could be a mine worker. It could be a rich man. It could be a gardener. It could be a maid. It could be a street sweeper. It could be a farm worker. It could be a nurse.

The Roman master had the absolute right to kill his slave.

A German slave was rape bait if it wasn't a laborer whose life was a regular game of Russian roulette each time his owner and his fur wearing buddies got drunk.

Sulla seems to be ignorant of the fact that production in the Germanic world during Antiquity wasn't based upon slavery. The Germans and Celts tended to be free peasants, farmers and herdsmen, who put up ferocious resistance to Roman conquest and slavery.

The suggestion that they're the same institutions fits the absurd nature of the rest of your claims.

Roman slavery was far more degrading, cruel, and widespread than Germanic slavery ever was.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Fade hopes that the length of his post will hide its lack of substance. I invite the gallery to actually read what he's saying.

I've ordered the book you source. We'll see what it says. Then I'll be back in this thread.

[Micaelis]

John Calvin (more appropriately, Jean Chauvin), the man foremost responsible for the bourgeois capitalist revolution, was a Frenchman and therefore Latin European. The steam engine itself was first formulated in Alexandria during the Roman Empire, though it didn't have any use due to the fact that its economy was slave-based. That is pretty much the reason why there were no major developments in utilisable technology for economic purposes. That isn't to say that the framework for most of what occured during the industrial revolution was not already laid by Mediterranean civilisations that preceded it.

[Dan Dare]

... That isn't to say that the framework for most of what occured during the industrial revolution was not already laid by Mediterranean civilisations that preceded it.

Is the proposition then that the Northern Europeans built their civilisation on the framework bequeathed by earlier Mediterranean civilisations?

To use your two examples, is it your contention that the Reformation would not have occured, or the Anglo-Dutch mercantile empires would not have arisen in the 16C and 17C, without the influence of Calvinism, and that Newcomen and Watt based their steam engine designs on Alexandrian formulations?

And btw, Calvin/Chauvin was born in Picardy, one of the most northerly and least 'Latin' regions of France and educated in Paris and Orleans, not especially Latin places either..

[Dan Dare]

... Then I'll be back in this thread.

I trust that on his return Sulla will also be able to do provide some evidence to support his earlier declamation that "...Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, [and is] 'losing the lead' to China and Japan."

[Micaelis]

What is so unhealthy about Nords inhereting a prominent portion of civilisation from Mediterraneans? Why do you look upon such a thing with disgust? :confused: It appears as though your conception of what "is" Nordic, driven most certainly by Nordicism and the orgasms had at TNP, is skewed.

[Dan Dare]

What is so unhealthy about Nords inhereting a prominent portion of civilisation from Mediterraneans? Why do you look upon such a thing with disgust? :confused: It appears as though your conception of what "is" Nordic, driven most certainly by Nordicism and the orgasms had at TNP, is skewed.

I'm afraid you are miscontruing my argument. It is not that Northern Europe has created the only great civilisation ever known in recorded history, rather that the civilisation that we are able to enjoy today, and the one to which the majority of the world's population now aspires to, is that created by the "Nords".

It would be extremely crass to deny the contribution of the Greco-Roman heritage to Western Civilisation which is way I am not attempting to do so.

[Micaelis]

The majority of the world's population aspires to Northern European culture, or you are attributing such an aspiration to the majority of the world's population? The latter is most certainly the case. Understanding your Nordic-driven sexuality, this comes as no surprise.

I do not doubt that Northern Europe has developed a different ethnos than that of Latin Europe. This was pretty much always the case, not to say that particular elements weren't deferred between them. Attemping to form a judgment of superiority of one over the other is where you are going wrong.

[Ambrosio Spinola]

Oh, hey...lets not turn this thread into a Med-Nord pissing contest, ok? If you are eager for one please start your own thread folks.

[Fade the Butcher]

*sigh*

Here we go again.

Central Events in Technology

-400 China/Egypt
First known use of the abacus

-270 Greece
Sostrates builds the first known lighthouse, the Pharos of Alexandria

-245 Levant
First known glass blowing.

-200 Asia Minor
First known use of parchment

1 China
Chinese engineers invent the sternpost rudder, enabling efficient steering of large vessels.

100 China
First known use of paper for writing (earlier versions had been used for packing and other purposes)

250 China
First gunpowder (date uncertain)

300 China
First known use of stirrups.

984 China
Chinese engineers invent locks for canals.

1045 China
Bi Sheng invents movable type, reinvented in Germany by Gutenberg in Germany, 1440.

1502 Germany
Peter Henlein invents the mainspring in a pocket watch (and invents the pocket watch itself).

1556 Germany
Georgius Agricola's De re Metallaca is for centuries the best text in mining.

1589 England
William Lee invents the stocking frame, the basis for all subsequent knitting and lace-making machines.

1603 England
Hugh Platt discovers coke, essential to steel production.

1622 England
William Oughtred invents the slide rule by repositioning Gunter's scales.

1642 France
Blaise Pascal invents a calculating machine, the Pascaline, that can handle up to nine digit numbers.

1656 Netherlands
Christiaan Huygens invents the pendelum escapement and thereby invents the pendelum clock.

1679 France
Denis Papin invents the pressure cooker.

1690 France
Denis Papin invents the atmospheric engine, pioneering many design principles of the steam engine.

1693 Germany
Gottfried von Leibniz invents an improved calculator for multiplication and division.

1698 England
Thomas Savory invents the Miner's Friend, a practical atmospheric steam engine without a piston.

1699 England
Jethro Tull invents the modern seed drill.

1709 England
Abraham Darby successfully uses coke in iron smelting.

1712 England
Thomas Newcomen uses steam to push a piston.

1731 England
John Hadley invents the reflecting octant, precursor of the modern sextant, which follows in 1757.

1733 England
John Kay invents flying shuttle, an important step toward automatic weaving.

1740 England
Benjamin Huntsman develops the crucible method for making homogeneous steel (Sheffield steel), with high tensile strength.

1742 USA
Benjamin Franklin invents the Franklin stove, a major improvement in heating efficiency.

1750 USA
Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning rod.

1764 England
James Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny, which does the work of 30 spinning wheels.

1764 Scotland
James Watt invents the condenser, employing latent heat to improve the efficiency of the steam engine, the first of several improvements that create the modern steam engine.

1765 England
John Harrison completes 40 years of refinement of an accurate ship's chronometer, enabling the determination of longitude and revolutionizing navigational techniques.

1769 England
Richard Arkwright invents the water frame, a waterwheel driven device that powers multiple spinning machines and a foundation of the modern factory system.

1770 England
Richard Arkwright, Samuel Need, and Jedediah Strutt open a water-driven mill at Cromford, the start of the factory system.

1776 England
John Wilkinson invents the first precision boring machine, essential for the manufacture of cylinders for steam engines.

1779 England
Abraham Duffy III and John Wilkinson build an all-iron bridge at Coalbrookdale.

1781 Scotland
James Watt invents a governor for a steam engine and uses a sun-and-planet gear to use a steam engine to drive a wheel.

1782 Scotland/England
James Watt and Johnathan Hornblower invent a double-acting steam engine in which steam is admitted alternatively on both sides of the piston.

1783 France
L.S. Lenormand, Jean Blanchard, and Andre Gernerin invent the first parachute capable of carrying a human.

1783 France
The Montgolfier brothers conduct the first manned flight of a hot air balloon.

1785 France
Claude Berthollet invents chemical bleach (chlorine and potash).

1785 USA
Oliver Evans invents an elevator to move grain, automating the process and requiring only two workers.

1787 USA
John Fitch invents a working steamboat.

1793 USA
Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, revolutionizing the economics of cotton production.

1795 France
Nicolas Appert discovers that food can be preserved by heating, leading to the invention of canned food.

1796 Bohemia
Aloys Senefelder invents lithography.

1800 Italy
Alessandro Volta invents the voltaic cell, the first battery.

1804 England
Richard Trevithick uses a steam locomotive on rails to pull iron from an ironworks to th Glamorgan canal.

1805 France
Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents punch cards to create patterns with the Jacquard loom, the first nonalphabetic means of storing information.

1807 USA
Robert Fulton builds the first commercially successful steamboat

1814 England
George Stephenson invents a practical steam locomotive.

1815 Scotland
John McAdam invents the modern paved road.

1820 USA/Scotland
Cyrus McCormick, Obed Hussey, and Patrick Bell invent independent versions of the mechanical reaper in the course of the decades.

1822 France
Joseph Niepce creates the first permanent photograph.

1824 England Joseph Aspdin invents Portland cement.

1825 England
Stephenson beings the first rail service using a steam locomotive.

1831 England
Michael Faraday invents the electric generator.

1831 USA
Joseph Henry invents a practical electric motor.

1833 England
Charles Babbage designs an "analytic engine," programmed by punch cards, that is the conceptual origin of the computer.

1835 USA
Samuel Colt invents the colt revolver.

1836 England
John Daniell invents the Daniell Cell, the first modern battery.

1830 USA/England
William Cooke, Charles Wheatstone, and Samuel Morse independently invent the telegraph in the course of the decade.

1839 England
William Grove invents the fuel cell, producing electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen.

1839 France
Louis Daguerre invents the camera and plates that made photography practical.

1839 Scotland
Kirkpatrick Macmillan invents the first true bicycle.

1839 USA
Charles Goodyear invents vulcanization, revolutionizing the utility of rubber.

1841 England
William Fox-Talbot invents a photographic negative that permits unlimited paper positives.

1842 John Lawes invents the first chemical fertilizer.

1843 England
Isambard Brunel builds a propeller-driven, iron, transatlantic liner.

1843 England
John Lawes founds the Rothamsted Experimental Station for improving agricultural production, introducing rigorous experimental producedures and field trials.

1844 USA
Samuel Morse creates the first functioning telegraph line, from Washington to Baltimore.

1845 Germany
Christian Shonbein invents nitrocellulose, or gun cotton.

1846 USA
Elis Howe invents a two-thread, lock-stitch sewing machine.

1847 Italy
Ascanio Sobrero prepares nitroglycerine.

1851 USA
Issac Singer invents an improved sewing machine with treadle and lock stitch.

1852 France
Henri Giffard conducts the first successful flight of a powered airship (a steam powered dirigible).

1852 France
Jean Foucault invents a gyroscope that can be used as a substitute for the magnetic compass.

1852 USA Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator.

[Micaelis]

Your "central events" are constructed to give the hypothetical result. In statistics we call this self-bias, Fade.

[Fade the Butcher]

1853 England
Abraham Gesner and James Young invent kerosene.

1853 England
George Cayley invents a glider that accomplishes the first unpowered, manned flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle.

1854 France/Germany
Robert Bunsen and Henri St.-Claire Deville develop an electrolytic process for obtaining metallic aluminum from sodium aluminum chloride.

1856 England/USA
Henry Bessemer and William Kelly invent the Bessemer process for manufacturing steel.

1856 England
William Perkin invents a synthetic dye (mauve), founding the synthetic organic chemical industry.

1859 France
Gaston Plante invents the rechargable storage battery.

1859 USA
Edwin Drake drills the first successful oil well, in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

1859 USA
George Pullman invents he sleeping car.

1860 France
Jean Lenoir invents a practical internal combustion engine.[/b]

1861 France
Eugene Meyer and Pierre Michaux invent the chain-driven bicycle.

1865 England
Alexander Parkes creates laboratory samples of celluloid.

1865 USA
Linus Yale invents the pin-tumbler cylinder lock.

1866 Sweden
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.

1866 USA
Cyrus Field lays the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable.

1867 France
Georges Leclanche invents the forerunner of an easily manufactured dry cell battery.

1867 USA
Carlos Glidden and Christopher Sholes invent the first commercially practical typewriter.

1868 USA
George Westinghouse invents an automatic air brake for railroad cars.

1869 Belgium
Zenobe Gramme and Ernst Siemens develop and manufacture a DC dynamo.

1869 France
Ferdinand de Lesseps supervises the design and construction of the Suez Canal.

1869 USA
John Hyatt invents a commercially successful plastic (celluloid)

1876 Germany
Nikolaus Otto invents the four-stroke cycle basic to modern combustion engines.

1876 USA
Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray independently invent the telephone.

1877 USA
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

1878 England/USA
Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan independently invent the carbon filament incandescent bulb.

1880 USA
Herman Hollerith invents the first workable electromechanical calculator, used to automate tabulation of the 1890 U.S. Census.

1883 France
Louis de Chardonnet invents the first synthetic fabric, rayon.

1883 USA
Nikola Tesla invents a motor using alternating current.

1884 England
Charles Parsons invents a successful steam turbine.

1884 USA
Lewis Watterman invents the free-flowing fountain pen.

1884 USA
Ottmar Mergenthaler invents the linotype machine.

1885 Germany
Carl Benz invents the first true automobile.

1885 USA
William Stanley invents a transformer for shifting voltage and amperage.

1886 France/USA
Charles Hall and Paul Heroult invent an inexpensive method for extracting aluminum.

1887 Scotland
John Dunlop invents the pneumatic rubber tire.

1888 USA
George Eastman invents the Kodak camera.

1889 England
Frederick Abel and James Dewar invent cordite, leading to smokeless gunpowder.

1889 USA
Thomas Edison invents the motion picture camera.

1891 USA
Edward Acheson invents carborundum, the first industrial abrasive.

1892 Germany
Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel engine.

1900 Germany
Ferdinand Zeppelin begins the first airline, using rigid airships.

1901 Italy
Guglielmo Marconi broadcasts radio waves from England to Newfoundland.

1903 USA
The Wright brothers' airplane achieves the first successful powered flight by a heavier-than-air machine.

1904 USA
John Fleming invents the rectifier, the first radio tube.

1906 USA
Lee De Forest invents the amplifier vacuum tube.

1908 Germany
Fritz Haber invents a process, later perfected by Carl Bosch, for mass production of nitrates, which in term permits mass production of fertilizers (and explosives)

1908 USA
Henry Ford invents the assembly line.

1909 USA/Scotland
Leo Baekeland and James Swiburne independently invent a thermosetting plastic.

1911 Switzerland
Jacques Brandenberge invents cellophane.

1911 USA/Germany
Elmer Sperry and Hermann Anschultz-Kampfer independently invent the gyrocompass.

1911 USA
Charles Kettering invents and electric starter for cars.

1912 Germany
Friedrich Bergius invents a process to produce gasoline from coal hydrogenation.

1914 USA
The Panama Canal is completed.

1917 USA
Clarence Birdseye and Charles Seabrook invent a technique for quick-freezing foods, founding the frozen food industry.

1918 USA
Edwin Armstrong invents the superheterodyne receiver, making home radio receivers possible.

1921 USA
Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents tetraethyl lead, an anti-knock compound for gasoline.

1923 USA
Vladimir Zworykin invents the iconoscope, the precursor of the television tube.

1926 USA
Robert Goddard invents the liquid-fuel rocket.

1926 USA
Samuel Warner introduces a motion picture system that integrates sound into the film.

1927 USA
Charles Lindbergh pilots the first nonstop flight from the United States to continental Europe.

1928 Germany
Fritz Pfleumer invents magnetic recording of sound.

1929 USA
Edwin Armstrong invents frequency modulation (FM), a method of transmitting radio waves without static; perfected in 1933.

1930 England
Frank Whittle invents the jet engine.

1930 USA
Thomas Midgley, Jr. discovers freon, the refrigerator.

1930 USA
Vannevar Bush invents a machine capable of solving differential equations.

1931 USA
Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

1932 USA
Edwin Land invents a synthetic substance that will polarize light, leading to the first synthetic light-polarizing film.

1935 Scotland
Robert Watson-Watt invents a way to display radio wave information on a cathode ray tube, enabling the development of radar.

1936 USA/Germany
Igor Sikorsky and Heinrich Foch independently invent a successful helicopter.

1938 USA
Roy Plunkett invents teflon.

1938 USA
The Biro brothers invent the first workable ballpoint pin.

1939 Germany
Hans Ohain designers the first successful jet plane.

1939 Switzerland
Paul Muller discovers the insecticidal properties of DDT.

1940 USA
George Stibitz invents the Complex Number Calculator, the first machine to service more than one terminal and to be used via a remote location.

1943 France
Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invent the aqualung.

1945 England
Arthur Clarke conceptualizes the use of satellites for global communication.

1946 USA
ENIAC, the first entirely electronic computer, developed by John Eckert, John Mauchly, Arthur Burks, and John von Neumann, becomes fully operational.

1946 USA
Arthur Burks, John von Neumann, and Hermann Goldstine's "Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument" provides the conceptual foundation for computer development in the coming decades.

1947 USA
Charles Yeager pilots the first supersonic flight.

1947 USA
Edwin Land, Howard Rogers, and William McCune invent the Polaroid camera.

1948 USA
John Bardeen, Walter Houser, and William Shockley invent the transistor.

1948 USA
Peter Goldmark invents the long-playing record.

1950 England
Alan Turing creates the Turing test, establishing a criterion for judging artificial intelligence.

[Fade the Butcher]

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/SMALL/GPN-2000-001131.jpg

[Fade the Butcher]

In addition to putting a man on the moon (without a doubt the greatest technological accomplishment in human history), there was also the discovery of DNA, the creation of the internet, and the deciphering of the human genome.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Why is this guy posting pictures of the moon landing?

[Sulla the Dictator]

"Rome's lack of a lunar lander shows what a primitive civilization it was."

--Fade the Butcher

[Fade the Butcher]

"Rome's lack of a lunar lander shows what a primitive civilization it was."

--Fade the Butcher

Where did I ever say that?

[Dan Dare]

*bump*

I trust that on his return Sulla will also be able to do provide some evidence to support his earlier declamation that "...Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, [and is] 'losing the lead' to China and Japan."

I'm beginning to get the impression that Sulla is dodging the column on this one.

[Donny the Punk]

If WFHerman has no answer, can someone tell me what Fade is talking about regarding Roman monarchy?

[Fade the Butcher]

I'm beginning to get the impression that Sulla is dodging the column on this one.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig05-30.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-05.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-08.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-09.gif

[Kodos]

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig05-30.gif

Just because they don't want to publicize their research so "barbarian foreigners" can use it against them doesn't mean it isn't happening?

[Sulla the Dictator]

*bump*
I'm beginning to get the impression that Sulla is dodging the column on this one.

LOL I don't care about your question Dan. I'm dealing with Fade's post.

[Fade the Butcher]

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-10.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-12.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-13.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-31.gif

[Fade the Butcher]

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-32.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-30.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig00-04.gif

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig02-34.gif

[Petr]

Byzantium is another example. The world would not be much worse off if Byzantium had never existed.
...except that Muslims would have overrun Europe if not for it.


Petr

[Sulla the Dictator]

Fade's got a lot of ego to protect. It doesn't take a huge post to debunk all these lists.

The original point was that China and Japan have surpassed Northern Europe in world leadership.

Fade's charts are about "The European Union" or "The United States" or "Western Europe".

Pretty transparent. He's wasting your time.

[Fade the Butcher]

Belief in Pseudoscience

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c7/c7s2.htm#c7s2l5

Although S&T are held in high esteem throughout the modern world, pseudoscientific beliefs continue to thrive, coexisting alongside society's professed respect for science and the scientific process. The science community and those whose job it is to communicate information about science to the public have been particularly concerned about the public's susceptibility to pseudoscientific or unproven claims that could adversely affect their health, safety, and pocketbooks (NIST 2002).

Pseudoscience has been defined as "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility" (Shermer 1997, p. 33).[31] In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (Shermer 1997, p. 17).

Belief in pseudoscience is relatively widespread.[32] For example, at least a quarter of the U.S. population believes in astrology, i.e., that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives. Although the majority (56 percent) of those queried in the 2001 NSF survey said that astrology is "not at all scientific," 9 percent said it is "very scientific" and 31 percent thought it is "sort of scientific" (figure 7-8 and appendix table 7-5 ).

Belief in astrology is more prevalent in Europe, where 53 percent of those surveyed thought it is "rather scientific" and only a minority (39 percent) said it is not at all scientific (European Commission 2001). Europeans were more likely to say that astrology is scientific than to say the same about economics: only 42 percent of those surveyed thought that economics was scientific. Disciplines most likely to be considered scientific by Europeans were medicine (93 percent), physics (90 percent), biology (88 percent), astronomy (78 percent), mathematics (72 percent), and psychology (65 percent). History (33 percent) was at the bottom of the list. (Comparable U.S. data on the various disciplines do not exist.)

In the United States, skepticism about astrology is strongly related to level of education: 74 percent of college graduates said that astrology is "not at all scientific," compared with 45 percent of those with less than a high school education and 52 percent of those who had completed high school but not college. In Europe, however, respondents with college degrees were just as likely as others to claim that astrology is scientific.

Europeans were more likely than Americans to agree that "some numbers are particularly lucky for some people." The percentages were 46 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

Surveys conducted by NSF and other organizations suggest that at least half of the U.S. public believes in the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP), and a sizable minority believes in unidentified flying objects and that aliens have landed on Earth. In the 2001 NSF survey, 60 percent of respondents agreed that "some people possess psychic powers or ESP," and 30 percent agreed that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations."

Surveys even show increasing belief in pseudoscience (Newport and Strausberg 2001). Of the 13 paranormal phenomena included in a periodically administered Gallup survey, belief in 8 increased significantly between 1990 and 2001, and belief in only 1 (devil possession) declined. Belief in four of the phenomena (haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead, and witches) had double-digit percentage point increases between 1990 and 2001[33] (figure 7-9 ).

[Fade the Butcher]

Fade's got a lot of ego to protect. It doesn't take a huge post to debunk all these lists. The original point was that China and Japan have surpassed Northern Europe in world leadership.

Where is your evidence?

Fade's charts are about "The European Union" or "The United States" or "Western Europe". Pretty transparent. He's wasting your time.

Finland. Norway. Sweden.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig02-34.gif

[Fade the Butcher]

Understanding Scientific Terms and Concepts

Neither Americans nor Europeans got high marks in a 2001 quiz designed to test their knowledge of science. Both groups were asked 13 questions. On average, Americans answered 8.2 questions correctly, compared with 7.8 for Europeans.[22] Americans scored higher than Europeans on seven of the questions (figure 7-6 ).

Response to one of the questions, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals," may reflect religious beliefs rather than actual knowledge about science. In the United States, 53 percent of respondents answered "true" to that statement in 2001, the highest level ever recorded by the NSF survey. (Before 2001, no more than 45 percent of respondents answered "true.") The 2001 result represented a major change from past surveys and brought the United States more in line with other industrialized countries about the question of evolution.

During most of the 20th century, probably the most contentious issue related to the teaching of science has been whether and how evolution is to be taught in U.S. public school classrooms.[23] The controversy has continued in the new millennium, erupting in Ohio, Georgia, Texas, and elsewhere. Contention about this issue also surfaced in England in 2001. (See sidebar, "More Than a Century After Darwin, Evolution Still Under Attack in Science Classrooms.")

Neither the U.S. survey nor the Eurobarometer has shown much change in the public's level of knowledge about science, with one exception: the number of people who know that antibiotics do not kill viruses has been increasing. In 2001, for the first time, a majority (51 percent) of U.S. respondents answered this question correctly, up from 40 percent in 1995. In Europe, 40 percent of respondents answered the question correctly in 2001, compared with only 27 percent in 1992.[24]

The promising trend in knowledge about antibiotics and viruses suggests that a public health campaign to educate the public about the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics has been working. This problem has been the subject of widespread media coverage,[25] and whenever the main culprit—the overprescribing of antibiotics—is mentioned, so is the fact that antibiotics are ineffective in killing viruses. In addition, parents of young children, especially those prone to ear infections, have been warned by their pediatricians about this problem.[26] However, the message still has not reached a large segment of the population, in both the United States and Europe.

Americans apparently are also becoming more familiar with the terminology of genetics. In a 2001 NSF survey, 45 percent of respondents were able to define DNA. The percentage of correct responses to this survey question increased in the late 1990s, a trend that probably reflected the heavy media coverage of DNA use in forensics and medical research. More recently, a 2003 Harris poll found that 60 percent of adults in the United States selected the correct answer when asked "what is DNA?" (the genetic code for living cells), and two-thirds chose the right answer when asked "what does DNA stand for?" (deoxyribonucleic acid) (KSERO Corporation 2003).

Surveys also indicate that the American public lacks an appreciation of basic statistical concepts and terminology. If statistics were confined to academic journals and textbooks, this finding would be of limited interest. But daily newspapers and even television newscasts rely on tables and charts to illustrate all kinds of trends. (See sidebar, "Understanding Statistics.")

Understanding the Scientific Process

NSF surveys have asked respondents to explain in their own words what it means to study something scientifically. Based on their answers, it is possible to conclude that most Americans (two-thirds in 2001) do not have a firm grasp of what is meant by the scientific process.[27] This lack of understanding may explain why a substantial portion of the population believes in various forms of pseudoscience. (See discussion of "Belief in Pseudoscience" in this chapter.)

In 2001, both the NSF survey and the Eurobarometer asked respondents questions designed to test their knowledge of how an experiment is conducted and their understanding of probability-two important aspects of scientific literacy.[28] Only 43 percent of Americans and 37 percent of Europeans answered the experiment question correctly. Both groups did better with probability: 57 percent of Americans and 69 percent of Europeans answered that question correctly.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Where is your evidence?


This is an irrelevant discussion I'm no longer interested in. I've ordered your source. When it arrives, we'll see what it says.

Because you know, I doubt that any historian of the period would suggest that Rome was a retarding influence on Western civilization. I've certainly never read any such thing in any book I've read about Rome or the Classical world.

We'll see what your source actually says. This segue attempt by you isn't going to work.


Finland. Norway. Sweden.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/graphics/fig02-34.gif

Oh. Before it was about invention, construction, and influence. Then it was about SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. Now its about college enrollment. And NOT just college enrollment, by the way, but college enrollment skewed towards smaller populations.

Fade's ever shifting measuring stick.

[Sulla the Dictator]

By the way, the consequence of Fade's chart (If we accept his laughably stupid premise that college enrollment=technological leadership), Finland is a greater contributor to technology than the United States.

Where does this guy stand on even THIS issue? He's changed his view three times on THIS issue alone in THIS thread.

[Fade the Butcher]

This is an irrelevant discussion I'm no longer interested in. I've ordered your source. When it arrives, we'll see what it says.

It's a good book. I will check it out of the library and trascribe the relevant passages for you. I might have the passage transcribed on some other forum, but I haven't bothered to check.

Because you know, I doubt that any historian of the period would suggest that Rome was a retarding influence on Western civilization. I've certainly never read any such thing in any book I've read about Rome or the Classical world.

We had this discussion a month or so ago. This passage was taken out of Lindberg's book. Lindberg went on to explain in his book that the decline of science began with the Romans.

"But the Roman themselves had had little interest in mathematics beyond its practical applications to business and surveying. Roman thinkers who wished to learn the theoretical mathematics of Euclid, Archimedes, or Apollonius did so in the same way they learned the philosophy of Plato or Aristotle -- in the original Greek from Greek teachers. But Greek theoretical mathematics received no reinforcement from native Roman intellectual traditions, with the result that those few Romans who learned the subject made no contributions to it. Greek habits of mathematical thought made little or no impact on Roman culture, and Greek mathematics remained in Greek down to the end of the Empire."

We'll see what your source actually says. This segue attempt by you isn't going to work.

We have had this conversation a half dozen times now.

Oh. Before it was about invention, construction, and influence. Then it was about SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. Now its about college enrollment. And NOT just college enrollment, by the way, but college enrollment scewed towards smaller populations. Fade's ever shifting measuring stick.

You said that China and Japan had surpassed Northern Europe.

[Fade the Butcher]

By the way, the consequence of Fade's chart (If we accept his laughably stupid premise that college enrollment=technological leadership), Finland is a greater contributor to technology than the United States.

This is another straw man.

Where does this guy stand on even THIS issue? He's changed his view three times on THIS issue alone in THIS thread.

Sulla is simply misrepresenting my positions. I dealt with this in my last response. It should be noted that Sulla lost interest in the coversation afterwards.

[Petr]

"But the Roman themselves had had little interest in mathematics beyond its practical applications to business and surveying. Roman thinkers who wished to learn the theoretical mathematics of Euclid, Archimedes, or Apollonius did so in the same way they learned the philosophy of Plato or Aristotle -- in the original Greek from Greek teachers. But Greek theoretical mathematics received no reinforcement from native Roman intellectual traditions, with the result that those few Romans who learned the subject made no contributions to it. Greek habits of mathematical thought made little or no impact on Roman culture, and Greek mathematics remained in Greek down to the end of the Empire."
Btw, Theodore Roosevelt agreed with this idea of infertility of Latin culture:

http://thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1526&highlight=theodore+roosevelt

"Note 2 Some of his antipathies appeal to the present writer; I much enjoy his irrelevant and hearty denunciation of the folly of treating the comparatively trivial Latin literature as of such peculiar importance as to entitle it to be grouped in grotesque association with the magnificent Greek literature under the unmeaning title of "classic."


Petr

[Dan Dare]

LOL I don't care about your question Dan. ....

Well I can see that, as can every person in the gallery.

It appears you are disowning your earlier declamation that that "...Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, [and is] 'losing the lead' to China and Japan."

I don't blame you actually. If I'd made a daft remark like that I'd want to bury it too.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Well I can see that, as can every person in the gallery.

It appears you are disowning your earlier declamation that that "...Northern Europe has ceased being a leader amongst civilizations, [and is] 'losing the lead' to China and Japan."

I don't blame you actually. If I'd made a daft remark like that I'd want to bury it too.

Sure, whatever puppy. I've got bigger fish to fry in this thread and I'm not going to let it get side tracked with your two line questionaires.

[Sulla the Dictator]

It's a good book. I will check it out of the library and trascribe the relevant passages for you. I might have the passage transcribed on some other forum, but I haven't bothered to check.


Oh, so you don't even own it. Thats interesting. Not surprising though.


We had this discussion a month or so ago. This passage was taken out of Lindberg's book. Lindberg went on to explain in his book that the decline of science began with the Romans.


Yeah, sure. I doubt that the book you cite is of the premise you claim it is. We'll see though.


We have had this conversation a half dozen times now.


Last time I practical impregnated you with a dozen sources about the Renaissance and the Classical world.

Apparently you've forgotten about that wild ride.


You said that China and Japan had surpassed Northern Europe.

And they have. And thats what you want to talk about NOW, instead of the 4or 5 pages of lies and idiocies you posted in this thread about Rome.

[Dan Dare]

Sure, whatever puppy. I've got bigger fish to fry in this thread and I'm not going to let it get side tracked with your two line questionaires.

As you wish.

[Fade the Butcher]

Oh, so you don't even own it. Thats interesting. Not surprising though.

I don't own most of the books (or articles, for that matter) that I read. I simply check them out of the university library.

Yeah, sure. I doubt that the book you cite is of the premise you claim it is. We'll see though.

No problem.

Last time I practical impregnated you with a dozen sources about the Renaissance and the Classical world.Apparently you've forgotten about that wild ride.

I don't recall this.


And they have.

How?

And thats what you want to talk about NOW, instead of the 4or 5 pages of lies and idiocies you posted in this thread about Rome.

Actually, I responded to your claims. We are still waiting on your rebuttal, though.

[Sulla the Dictator]

Actually, I responded to your claims. We are still waiting on your rebuttal, though.

You'll have it. When all depends on the mail.