Peace, DB, peace.

man, i just posted a long-ass reply in that babysitter thread and someone closed it. what the heck?

You implied that science becomes important foremost in the 20th century, and although I can't claim that the Enlightenment and the 20th century are equivalent, we can certainly see the Enlightenment project as profundly anti-religious. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment considered religion, at best, harmless superstition. The Enlightenment writers and thinkers also begin to accumulate, classify, and store information on a scale never before seen. Linnaeus outlines his taxonomy near the beginning of the century. During the 18th century, we see such works as Diderot's Encyclopedia (in many ways a heretical work) and Johnson's Dictionary. The British Museum is opened in 1759. The Bibliothèque nationale de France opens to the public in 1692. These are in many ways all the result of scientific thinking. And some of these writers, Voltaire, for example, would face prison as the result of their ideas.

The above is simply one way in which the Enlighenment represents a substantial break from the Renaissance. Of course, when the 19th century strolls by, many thinkers will reject this scientific achievement. And in the 21st century, I give you Sarah Palin.

I thought you locked it. You seemed pissed.

I am pissed. I'm mad as hell

no, i didn't lock it. It was another mod. lol

Livin's babysitter closed that thread. She'd had enough.

So, your definition of science is anything which is "anti-religion"? Simply because something is a reaction against religion doesn't automatically make it science IMO. False binary.

If you people would stop moving posts (without asking the OP), stop floating threads, and stop closing them up it would be appreciated by one Ohioan

+ And one Minnesotan transplanted to NYC who's having a religious crisis RIGHT NOW

What's "floating threads"? How do I do that?

The daycare thread needed to be closed up. Your last line was perfect and summed up exactly why it needed to be closed and shouldn't have been turned into a whole new thread.

I move no more creating of a new thread without the express approval of the original poster.

Holy cow, did David Sklansky's ego leap into your mouth one day when you forgot to cover while yawning?

I'm not big on taking human volition out of the equation that way and know for a fact that things don't work that way. People pursue many things in life, including what they like most. Which it would be absurd to think is only math and/or science.

Could you have won any of four Nobel prizes if you had only wanted to, and were cooler with getting up early in the morning?

Color me amazed ...

Seems to me Britain beat Spain substantially due to science (longer range and quicker to reload cannons and far better boats).

Hobby, is your definition of science something with moving parts?

I used the phrase "scientific thinking" for a reason.

He was probably doing you a favor. *LOL*

Agree in part. This should only be done if the original poster agrees to have his post as the Opening Post.

My policy has been this

1) ask the OP if he minds using his post as the opening to a new thread and give him an idea what Title you are planning on using...
2) if OP doesn't like this idea, then start a thread using myself, another poster who has agreed, or another mod as an OP
3) explain why the thread is being moved and that the original poster does not want to participate and not to bash him.

Yes, is true. Britain held power so long because it utilised new technologies and ideas better than those pesky euros, be it the arrow/longbow, the higher gun:crew ratio in ships and better training, better rifles and intense, modern drilling at rifle etc. And it started in Elizabethan times, when entire forests were stripped to make boats.

I didn't have the energy to get into a longer argument with HH, tbh.

Nah, I'm just tooling about. I figured if I really went over the top, everyone would know I'm horsing about. But my bad, internet is bad at subtlety.

If you guys would start new threads instead of filling this NC thread up with content...

Well, I think you should start new threads. But you're all scared to death of starting threads. Which is insane. You guys just wanna hide out here in this one thread.

AFAIK agriculture and irrigation both entail the use of science, as do the pyramids. The effects on society and even the survival and flourishing of the human species, as regards the first two, were pivotal, and the last one did kinda make an impact ...

Heck, if you look at the old artists, back then many of them had to be engineers. A church might have been able to pay for a vaulted ceiling, or a huge bell up in a high tower, but how do you design the ceiling to not fall down, and how do you get the bell all the way up there? In many cases, it was up to the artist to figure it out. That kind of staff was not kept on hand by churches or noblemen, and in many cases the engineering was invented by artists on the spot.

If it needs a new thread, it will get split into a new thread.

However, I agree with Kioshk, new threads are better than not knowing and just posting in here.

Indeed. Da Vinci, for example, is pretty much the first clear modern engineer (though engineers were never that cowed into archaic forms the way pre-empirical scientists were using the Aristotlean methods, as thinking a problem through only gets you so far - engineers actually have to make it happen).

We post in here thinking that we are chatting with friends.

And England got damn ****ing lucky that there were uncharacteristic storms at the time that decimated the Spanish Armada sent to invade England when Elizabeth was on the throne. Let's not forget that, shall we?

Spanish Armada

indeed, that's exactly what it's for imo. And sometimes threads do need splitting because a topic becomes the only topic in the room. But sometimes, if you want to really get into a subject deep (rather than just chit-chat), you should really start a thread, not sound it out in here.

I think us mods balance it pretty well actually.

As Elizabeth proportedly said, 'If God is with us, who can be against us?'


Eh it wasn't just the storms - it was ******ed Spanish tactics like anchoring up like a set of ducks at a shooting gallery. And if they'd have got too close, they'd be floating home on matchwood.

It just shows English brilliance really, if the weather is your friend, let your friend kill the enemy...