From the summary it seems that Parsons was more one of the people involved in early rocketry rather than a central and driving figure. It is possible that this is much ado about nothing - the author of the book (as well as the person writing about the book) is using Parson's colorful personal life as titillation and is playing up their connection with the rocketry program to sell the book (Otherwise it's just a story about another eccentric bohemian in Pasadena).
Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
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Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was a title Crowley took for himself, as he enjoyed being a notorious figure. His actual behavior, though, amounted to little more than being a sex maniac and saying blasphemous things during a much more socially conservative era. His 'autohagiography' makes for entertaining reading if you can get past the turgid Victorian prose. As for Parsons, the Wired article is being a bit clickbaity. In the last paragraph:…
I agree, and I'd even upgrade your "a bit clickbaity" to "very clickbaity". I happen to work at JPL, and elements of the Parsons story are generally known to people at the lab. I just don't think they're that interesting. Certainly, complaining that the oddball philosophy of one of the four founders is not featured in the lab tour is ridiculous. People come on the lab tour to see robots and rockets, not to talk about…
You and others have a good point about the title. We've edited it to take out the linkbait.
Great comment, too!
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, there's a certain thread of the skeptic movement that attacks anything that isn't "scientific" enough. It's basically a kind of fundamentalism. Fundie positivism?
Scientism?
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#44Has nobody here read "Gravity's Rainbow"?
Love and rockets, indeed.
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#451000$ around 1940 are about 17000$ today. I don't know what the point of converting them to today's British pounds is.
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#46"Day science employs reasoning that meshes like gears… One admires its majestic arrangement like a da Vinci painting or a Bach fugue. One walks about it as in a French formal garden…
Night science, on the other hand, wanders blindly. It hesitates, stumbles, falls back, sweats, wakes with a start. Doubting everything… It is a workshop of the possible… where thought proceeds along sensuous paths, tortuous streets, most often blind alleys."
Francois Jacob[1], The Statue Within.
Science and technology as an activity involves questioning, and finding new ways of doing things. I imagine these activities are bound to attract people on the edge of things a little. Having said that, Aleister Crowley was not the kind of person you'd want to be involved closely with from what I can see.
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#47There are two different forms of scientific history. The history of science as used for future scientific development lives in academic papers, journals, conferences, and similar; those are preserved as a record of historical development progress. That history is, when functioning correctly, blind to outside issues like this. On the other hand, there's scientific history as captured by news and popular culture, which…
>You can complain about outside politics affecting science, but far too often, people like this will bring their politics into their science
This seems incredibly one sided. By removing him, you've already brought politics into science. You're wrong, this isn't about politics in science, it's about "the right" politics or "the approved" politics in science.
You have a point, but it's very defeatist. You're essentially saying "people can get turned off by opposing views. To remedy this, we'll make sure they don't hear any opposing views". The remedy is to expose people to more opposing views, not shelter them.
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#48In today's atheistic science culture I'm not even sure who is offended by this.
No, they worship the same god after all, "Nothingness".
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#49>> "When you think about scientists, you don't think of them as necessarily being fun or having a creative side..." Jeez, speak for yourself.
Really! They don't watch 3rd Rock?
Re: Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry
#50I think people here were too quick to buy the OP theory that JP was "written out of NASA's history". Quoting the first comment on the article:
"Parsons was mentioned frequently in a recent JPL-produced documentary on the early days of the space age and the founding of the Lab. And, his name sits on engraved plaque in a central area of JPL that commemorates all the members of the "suicide squad" involved in the first rocket test firing. I suppose your headline makes sense seeing as he died several years before NASA was founded so he may not be in a NASA history book. But wrong to say he's written out of JPL's early history."
Blame someone of our present time for some misbehave must generate more clicks than just pointing out how prejudice harmed someone's carreer on government decades ago, which seems to be the real story here. Good that the HN title was edited for a less sensationalist one.