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Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

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Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#81

Post by ggm »

WalterBright wrote: post #63

These attempts to rewrite history to fit a narrative happen all the time. For example, I see constant attempts to deny that the Wrights' 1903 Flyer was the first powered, controlled flight. The evidence presented is always a pile of fanciful conjecture. This rewrite occurs with modern events, too. For example, the narrative on the 737MAX crashes. I've posted about it here many times. On a recent trip, I ran into a 73…

The Wright brothers story is well worth reading up on. The director of the Smithsonian refused to believe them, and championed an alternate "first powered flight" for a long time. This is why at least one Wright flyer wound up in the Science Museum in London. It only got fixed after he died/retired.

The lack of history on display in the Air & Space Museum on this, is quite interesting: it's like the whole "tell the truth, the whole truth" thing completely passed them by (Admittedly I was last there 15 years ago, it may be fixed now)

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#82

Post by ggm »

10g1k wrote: post #53

Australia's most famous historian, Charles Clark (called himself Manning Clark to be special) admitted before he died that he made things up, because he was more interested in telling a story fitting his own ideas, rather than reporting facts. They still name roads and such after the guy.

This is an exceptionally hot take. Manning was Charles Manning Hope Clark. You can verify this easily. His status in Australian history is mixed, because of the strong left/right axis of history as a field in Australia. Manning Clark was unquestionably of the left. The Australian, and its tame philosopher-historian Gerard Henderson makes much of this, and Manning Clark being awarded an order of Lenin for history by the Soviets. Guess what? The Australian, Keith Windschuttle and others reject Aboriginal "black armband" history, working class history, and dislike Manning Clark immensely. They are unquestionably of the right (side)

I suspect you're partisan in this war. "making things up" has been part of what Historians do since Thucydides. We don't call it making things up but any time you see the word "infer" you can go there. History is complicated. Even documents don't tell the whole story. Do you think Cabinet Minutes record verbatim what everyone said?

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#83

Post by [deleted] »

ggm wrote: post #81
WalterBright wrote: post #63

These attempts to rewrite history to fit a narrative happen all the time. For example, I see constant attempts to deny that the Wrights' 1903 Flyer was the first powered, controlled flight. The evidence presented is always a pile of fanciful conjecture. This rewrite occurs with modern events, too. For example, the narrative on the 737MAX crashes. I've posted about it here many times. On a recent trip, I ran into a 73…

The Wright brothers story is well worth reading up on. The director of the Smithsonian refused to believe them, and championed an alternate "first powered flight" for a long time. This is why at least one Wright flyer wound up in the Science Museum in London. It only got fixed after he died/retired. The lack of history on display in the Air & Space Museum on this, is quite interesting: it's like the whole "tell the t…

[deleted]

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#84

Post by cpitman »

ggm wrote: post #81
WalterBright wrote: post #63

These attempts to rewrite history to fit a narrative happen all the time. For example, I see constant attempts to deny that the Wrights' 1903 Flyer was the first powered, controlled flight. The evidence presented is always a pile of fanciful conjecture. This rewrite occurs with modern events, too. For example, the narrative on the 737MAX crashes. I've posted about it here many times. On a recent trip, I ran into a 73…

The Wright brothers story is well worth reading up on. The director of the Smithsonian refused to believe them, and championed an alternate "first powered flight" for a long time. This is why at least one Wright flyer wound up in the Science Museum in London. It only got fixed after he died/retired. The lack of history on display in the Air & Space Museum on this, is quite interesting: it's like the whole "tell the t…

Air and Space has been undergoing a massive renovation, and reopened the first half last year. That includes a very good Wright brothers exhibit, easily better (IMO) than the one at Kitty Hawk.

Beyond that, all the new exhibits are great. Highly recommended for anyone that has not been back since they reopened!

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#85

Post by harry8 »

rectang wrote: post #19

I would find this piece more convincing if it had sampled stories from different sources in service of its thesis rather than focusing on a single work the author finds particularly galling, as there is no shortage of fictional narratives anywhere — look no further than US state-approved high-school history textbooks. Given the narrowness of the material cited, this piece seems to me like unequal application of skept…

Anytime school textbooks are mentioned I feel the urge to refer anyone who'll listen to the relevant chapter of "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman" Feynman is popular around here and rightly so.

Blatant corruption from top to bottom is the norm, it would seem.

Feynman also loathed psychology and gave it as an example of "Cargo-cult science." Last I heard every single first year psych texbook contained the Stanford prison experiment as an example without mentioning how it was total rubbish. Is that /still/ true in 2023? Textbooks are weird.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#86

Post by Almondsetat »

ggm wrote: post #82
10g1k wrote: post #53

Australia's most famous historian, Charles Clark (called himself Manning Clark to be special) admitted before he died that he made things up, because he was more interested in telling a story fitting his own ideas, rather than reporting facts. They still name roads and such after the guy.

This is an exceptionally hot take. Manning was Charles Manning Hope Clark. You can verify this easily. His status in Australian history is mixed, because of the strong left/right axis of history as a field in Australia. Manning Clark was unquestionably of the left. The Australian, and its tame philosopher-historian Gerard Henderson makes much of this, and Manning Clark being awarded an order of Lenin for history by t…

>"making things up" has been part of what Historians do since Thucydides

historians up until quite recently had nothing to do with the modern academic profession. they were paid writers who made tons of stuff up to sing praises to whomever would pay them.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#87

Post by cameldrv »

WalterBright wrote: post #63

These attempts to rewrite history to fit a narrative happen all the time. For example, I see constant attempts to deny that the Wrights' 1903 Flyer was the first powered, controlled flight. The evidence presented is always a pile of fanciful conjecture. This rewrite occurs with modern events, too. For example, the narrative on the 737MAX crashes. I've posted about it here many times. On a recent trip, I ran into a 73…

As far as is publicly known, the failure has occurred three times, and has led to two crashes. It is possible to recover from if you know what you're looking for and you act promptly. However, Boeing did not tell pilots what to look for.

The pilots did not diagnose it as stab trim runaway because it's not stab trim runaway. When MCAS is malfunctioning in this way, it engages nose down trim for 9.3 seconds, and then pauses for 5 seconds. A runaway trim is where you have a stuck trim microswitch or relay or some sort of short circuit. You're expecting a continuous trim input. The confusing thing about MCAS is that it appears to resolve itself, but then waits 5 seconds and comes right back.

By the way, the wheels going clack clack is a normal thing at that phase of flight. The 737 has something called Speed Trim and another thing called Mach Trim that automatically adjust the trim as the speed of the aircraft changes. In the initial climbout, this will be running constantly.

Both the speed trim and mach trim systems are documented in the 737 manual and pilots are required to know how they work to get a type rating. The workings of MCAS were deleted from the manual before it was released because Boeing was concerned that the FAA would require more training on the system, which would cause Boeing to have to pay a contractual penalty to Southwest Airlines.

edit:

Also, Boeing's own test pilots failed to respond promptly to this failure in the simulator: https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/aircraft-propulsion/b...

It's very easy as a pilot to say that you would do a better job and something like this would never happen to you. The earth is pockmarked with the smoking holes of these people's airplanes.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#88

Post by ggm »

cpitman wrote: post #84
ggm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wright brothers story is well worth reading up on. The director of the Smithsonian refused to believe them, and championed an alternate "first powered flight" for a long time. This is why at least one Wright flyer wound up in the Science Museum in London. It only got fixed after he died/retired. The lack of history on display in the Air & Space Museum on this, is quite interesting: it's like the whole "tell the t…

Air and Space has been undergoing a massive renovation, and reopened the first half last year. That includes a very good Wright brothers exhibit, easily better (IMO) than the one at Kitty Hawk. Beyond that, all the new exhibits are great. Highly recommended for anyone that has not been back since they reopened!

A visualisation I particularly like, is that the first flight on record they made would fit inside the length of a Jumbo Jet. It really brought home how "one small step, one giant leap" can work out.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#89

Post by _gabe_ »

rectang wrote: post #42
next_xibalba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> look no further than US state-approved high-school history textbooks. Care to practice what you preach? Which textbooks, specifically? How are they ahistorical?

Here's an article which compares meta-narratives in Texas vs. California: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-c... Fights over textbook content are ancient and written about constantly. Since these battles are more heavily scrutinized outright falsehoods won't be found easily — rather meta-narratives are achieved by omission or emphasis. I would not argue that these meta-narratives are "ahistor…

> I would not argue that these meta-narratives are "ahistorical", though

That seems to be what you were claiming though in your original comment:

> as there is no shortage of fictional narratives anywhere — look no further than US state-approved high-school history textbooks.

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