[UncleMeat]

> These historians of science that technologists avoid consulting in your estimation, are they going to refute the dark ages?

Largely yes. The term "the dark ages" was developed by Petrarch, a man who was so obsessed with the Romans that he had himself crowned with laurels to signify his inheritance of Rome. And this is also largely unrelated to history of science, since "the dark ages" (as expressed by both Petrarch and pre-20th century historians) does not refer to loss of scientific knowledge.

> Not having records being categorized metaphorically as darkness, and more records as "Enlightenment" is pretty high regard for a word used the same way in the contemporary context as something an accountant or dentist keeps in a filing cabinet.

But Petrarch was hundreds of years before the Enlightenment and would have hated it. He believed that the Romans were the peak of civilization ever. It was not possible to top them. The idea that modern humans could improve upon what they did would have been anathema to Petrarch and most Renaissance thinkers.

But most importantly, these historians of science would take issue with Blow's conclusions from specific examples. He lists a few "lost" technologies and then concluded methods to prevent technological loss that are entirely unrelated to the examples he lists. At most, all they demonstrate is that it is possible for some things to go unrecorded.

[ziaddotcom]

I think you've just committed a sort of armchair dilettante history off the top of the dome with lack of reference to a scholarly source of History you accused Jonathan of doing.

meheleventyone has demonstrated how easily even just referencing the article I myself posted could undermine my argument.

[UncleMeat]

> I think you've just committed a sort of armchair dilettante history off the top of the dome with lack of reference to a scholarly source of History you accused Jonathan of doing.

I'm not a historian. But my wife is. And she ranted for a while after the first ten minutes of this talk for precisely this reason. I could have provided more scholarly sources. It is an internet forum - I didn't think people would call me names if I didn't. That historians of science don't like the term "The Dark Ages" isn't exactly cutting edge scholarship.

[ziaddotcom]

I honestly don't see how you can't see how the text in you provided response to Jonathans talk, which he obviously put a lot of time and research in, no matter how misguided and poorly executed in your or your wife's estimation, wouldn't be massively hypocritical.

[UncleMeat]

> which he obviously put a lot of time and research in

I don't believe that he did put a lot of research into the historical background. It is possible I am wrong. The reason I believe this is because at least one historian I trust who works in an adjacent subfield went on a big rant about these being classic misconceptions.

I believe that Blow is very smart and quite knowledgeable about software. I also believe that a lot of engineers believe that they can make huge claims about the nature of history without consulting professionals. These errors are often harmless but the are also often harmful, either causing us to draw false conclusions about the past or today.

Like you say below, Blow would have been better off skipping the first 10m of his talk.

[ziaddotcom]

The use of the phrase "a lot" by me in this context isn't really helping. I should have at least said "for a powerpoint."

Unfortunately as far as I can tell, we don't have a circuit of public intellectuals, who happen to be historians, giving well thought through talks to lay people. We have ted talks on a good day, and those are often filled with dumb things said by smart people who should know better.

You and I haven't even touched with a ten foot pole the other side of the coin of that "Western History" implies. I won't attempt to in this thread either.

[ziaddotcom]

The Jstor article that wikipedia cites as evidence of Petrarch "being the first to develop the concept of 'the dark ages'"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707236?seq=1

The same wikipedia article says that Petrarch noted for initiating the Italian Renaissance by way of rediscovering letters of Cicero who happens to have died in 43bc. He is then credited with founding Renaissance Humanism in the context of the above.

The above claims seem some plausible given the summary texts that mention Petrarch given by the page on Humanism given by the Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/humanism.html

One recontextualization of the concept of the dark ages of the type implied by UncleMeat (my interpretation what was implied, not UncleMeats) is given by this publication by The University of Michigan.

https://www.press.umich.edu/15299

This is all very interesting, but I'd like to point out absolutely none of it seems to automatically leave the dilettante historian like myself from coming away with the impression that knowledge, scientific or otherwise, has not been lost in a meaningful way and thus throughout history did not necessitate some obsessed persons to resuscitate it.