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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: RE: Physics and Intuition
Message-ID: <1294@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Oct-83 00:37:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1294
Posted: Wed Oct 19 00:37:28 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Oct-83 11:10:30 EDT
References: <2367@ncsu.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 48

I have just finished reading a rather interesting book. it is called
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light -- Mythology, Sexuality and the
Origins of Culture. It is by William Irwin Thompson.

It is interesting, and it makes a few good points. I think that Thompson
never understood Sociobiology when he first came across it and so I find
that the Chapter entitled "Hominization" rips through Sociobiology
and unfortunately blames Wilson for Thompson's lack of understanding, but
then I *like* Sociobiology, and may be strongly biased that way.

Otherwise it is a pretty good read. It has a plethora of points to make,
but the one that seems relavant to this discussion is:

	"Perhaps such overly confident [note, this follows an attack
	of Sociobiology which I personally find unfounded] and inflated
	feelings of power and importance are expressions of the ambition
	and emotional motivation that a scientist needs to maintain himself
	in a long and arduous work, for the petty annoyances of tedious
	research are made light when mitigated by a belief that one is a 
	heroic Darwin about to be granted apothesis for a lifelong labour.
	Professor Wilson's new synthesis does seem heroic, a grand heroic myth
	that tells us who we are, where we come from, and even where we are
	going..." <page 44>

Once Thompson has made Sociobiology into a heroic myth he has got it where
he wants it. One of his principle theses is that human beings find things
attractive because they appeal to a universal appreciation which all cultures 
share. He traces some of the elements of these myths through several cultures
throughout the book. He didn't go anywhere near molecular physics, but I suspect
that had he, he would have found elements in current theories which suggest to
him the same sort of myth-making that he finds in the myths of Ancient
Sumer and Egypt. I can't say how the molecular physicists will feel about
this - although I know some biologists have taken violent dislike to this
book based on his treatment of Wilson.

I do not agree with him on many counts, and I suspect that he could find
elements of myth in what I did or did not have for breakfast this morning,
but it does make interesting reading, if only for the strange myths that
are presented and interpreted in a different fashion than I have seen other
places. It also leads one to question the concept of scientists as white
coated god-like beings of supreme intellect who forge theories out of nothing.
Perhaps some scientists work that way, but the majority of them seem to be
influenced by their religion, their families, their miserable bosses and
insufferable co-workers. this is what one would expect, given that scientists
are real people, but a good many people I know seem to have forgotten this.

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura