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The purge of German science in 1933

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Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#181

Post by radu_floricica »

Tainnor wrote: post #121
perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

It was the same thing in mathematics. For example, when Edmund Landau defined pi as "twice the value of the unique zero of cos in the interval [0, 2]" (a very common definition) instead of geometrically, this was attacked as being "un-German" (even though you can obviously go from the geometric to the analytic definition and vice versa). https://institucional.us.es/blogimus/en/2017/03/pi-and-the-n...

The disease is independent of context. It's about taking a political club and using it to hit anybody you don't like. And we're far from being immune to it even now.

The correct reaction is to identify people using this particular pattern and penalize them regardless of political or cultural affiliation. Especially if they're in your own tribe - you're the one in the best position to censure them.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#182

Post by guappa »

enasterosophes wrote: post #20
perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

The Nazis weren't unique in dismissing categories of research on ideological grounds. The USSR label of "bourgeois pseudoscience" [1] was applied to various fields like evolutionary biology. We aren't immune to it now. In the software world, remember that Ballmer called Linux a cancer, and in general there is a meme amongst capitalist software developers that the GPL is a cancerous or infectious license. In academia,…

> remember that Ballmer called Linux a cancer, and in general there is a meme amongst capitalist software developers that the GPL is a cancerous or infectious license

And google and apple are spending millions of dollars to reimplement GNU software because they want to escape the GPLv3 license.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#183

Post by atq2119 »

Anotheroneagain wrote: post #127
xyzelement wrote: post #6

It occurs to me that anti-semitism is a disease that ultimately destroys its host. If Germany "simply" wanted to win WW2, it should have cultivated its Jewish scientists (and by the way, 100K Jewish soldiers served their country in WW1) instead of eradicating them as per this article. Not to mention, diverting scarce wartime resources towards the program of concentration camps and ethnic extermination is not just pur…

That is, ironically, racist, as it sort of implies that jews are somehow the only ones capable of doing science.

It's really not. It leaves open the possibility that others could fill in the gaps, given enough time. Their wasn't enough time, and path dependence matters.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#184

Post by nforgerit »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #175

And 1945. Double whammy. Germany never made a comeback. The anti-science culture revolution of the 1970s cemented this. It's cool to be bad in science in schools since then, every celebrity boasts about how bad they were in mathematics etc.

German here. It's actually true that you see a lot of "public intellectuals" that publicly tell how bad they were at math.

I only realized that when Merkel as chancellor back in Covid times, after numerous meetings with other politicians and non-scientists, found herself explaining exponential growth on a press conference with her fingers.

Not sure about the 1970s hypothesis, though.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#185

Post by mmaniac »

perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

Quantum physics and relativity were a radical departure from classical mechanics and remain very counter-intuitive for laypeople so it's not hard to see how contemporary persons with ulterior motives and little interest in scientific inquiry would fixate on those.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#186

Post by Anotheroneagain »

atq2119 wrote: post #183
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is, ironically, racist, as it sort of implies that jews are somehow the only ones capable of doing science.

It's really not. It leaves open the possibility that others could fill in the gaps, given enough time . Their wasn't enough time, and path dependence matters.

It doesn't seem like Germany suffered any setbacks in this regard. In fact it seems that this dispute was a major cause of antisemitism, rather than its result.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#187

Post by Tainnor »

radu_floricica wrote: post #181
Tainnor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the same thing in mathematics. For example, when Edmund Landau defined pi as "twice the value of the unique zero of cos in the interval [0, 2]" (a very common definition) instead of geometrically, this was attacked as being "un-German" (even though you can obviously go from the geometric to the analytic definition and vice versa). https://institucional.us.es/blogimus/en/2017/03/pi-and-the-n...

The disease is independent of context. It's about taking a political club and using it to hit anybody you don't like. And we're far from being immune to it even now. The correct reaction is to identify people using this particular pattern and penalize them regardless of political or cultural affiliation. Especially if they're in your own tribe - you're the one in the best position to censure them.

[flagged]

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#188

Post by Tainnor »

soperj wrote: post #143
Tainnor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the same thing in mathematics. For example, when Edmund Landau defined pi as "twice the value of the unique zero of cos in the interval [0, 2]" (a very common definition) instead of geometrically, this was attacked as being "un-German" (even though you can obviously go from the geometric to the analytic definition and vice versa). https://institucional.us.es/blogimus/en/2017/03/pi-and-the-n...

Haven't multiple states done the same thing? (trying to redefine pi)

Not the same thing. Twice the unique zero of cos in [0, 2] is provably equal to the circumference of a circle of diameter 1. It's not equal to 3.2 or whatever the Indiana Pi Bill was trying to legislate.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#189

Post by Tainnor »

graycat wrote: post #136
Tainnor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hitler and Germany could'a stopped there and likely been okay. If Hitler had been Franco or Mussolini, then maybe. But racism and especially anti-semitism were integral parts of Nazi ideology. It wasn't principally about wealth or strategic objectives as we might recognise them. They really believed that the races of the earth were in a big struggle for resources and that if the "Aryan race" didn't exterminate or s…

> but he was "nuts" way before he ever came into power. I agree, sure, but strictly, literally that doesn't conflict with what I wrote -- i.e., I didn't claim he was not nuts before 1933 or before he became a dictator! I considered being clear and explicit on this point but omitted such to make the main points shorter and simpler. And I part way addressed this issue by noting that with constraints a nut might not loo…

Hitler was certainly brilliant in certain ways, e.g. as a public speaker he must have been very persuasive. I don't think that changes anything about how utterly insane his (and his fellow Nazis') ideology was, though.

There are "effective" dictators who manage to have a stable, if brutal reign, and then there's Nazi-ism which at its very core is such a destructive ideology that it can't really even sustain itself in the long run.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#190

Post by carlosjobim »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #104
carlosjobim wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end it seems both "sides" were wrong on this. The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid, but they also didn't kill them.

> The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid What do you mean by this? The vaccines absolutely decreased the likelihood of getting and the severity of Covid.

I meant exactly what I wrote, almost everybody who took the vaccines contracted covid.
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