Lucretius, Shelley, and Ridley

Matt Ridley, a.k.a. the Rational Optimist, is an unusually clear headed pundit in our days of tribal hatred, and his blog is always a pleasure to read, even when you are just skimming its archives. That does not mean of course that he never makes any mistakes. Indeed, in any publication as ephemeral as a blog, mistakes are inevitable, and the wonder is not that he makes them, but that he makes so few of them while publishing so much (although I really wish he'd publish even more).

One such mistake was made on 11 March 2017, when he called learning Latin a waste of time. "That will get the letters coming", he quipped as an aside. Well, I would certainly hope so!

So I was pleased to see him tacitly back off of his extreme position on 5 June 2017. Half of that post is a celebration of Lucretius' magnum opus, which needless to say was written in Latin. Mr. Ridley follows Stephen Greenblatt's enjoyable tome, The Swerve, in giving Lucretius some of the credit for the scientific revolution.

My own take, for what it's worth, is that his rediscovery was more of a symptom of the renaissance than a cause of it, but that is a quibble. If the renaissance is what it took to get Lucretius published, then it was well worth it, I say.

So Mr. Ridley's paean to Lucretius is well worth a read. (Go read it, now!) The only correction I'd make to that half of his post would be to change the phrase "suppressed by the Christian church as heresy" to "despite having been lovingly preserved by the Christian church as a classic".

So much for the good half of that post. It's hard for me know what to say about the other half of the post, simply calling it the "bad half" doesn't quite do it justice. There, Mr. Ridley contrasts Lucretius Carus's great classic with Mary Shelley's much lesser classic, Frankenstein.

The upshot seems to be that Lucretius' poetic classic is pro-science, and Shelley's sci-fi classic is anti-science. In fact, both literary works (like all greats) defy such facile pidgeon-holing. Surely Mr. Ridley must know this, so why does he write these things? Is he merely trolling among the plebes? If so, I guess I must plead "hooked".

Lucretius' poem is in no way anti-science, but it does in fact use science soley as a prop for Epicurianism. Aspects of science which do not support his philosphy are roundly ignored, the effect of which is to make him equate science with atomism, sometimes to ridiculous effect. For him, Ghosts, gods, and mathematical theorems are all made of atoms, you see.

I do not know enough about the history of philosophy to say that the downfall of atomism in the second and third centuries caused the downfall of Epicurianism, but it is hard for me see how tying onto that sinking ship could have helped the boat of Epicurianism stay afloat. On the other hand, when atomism was resurrected by the Christian theologians Boyle, DesCartes, and Gassendi (and, needless to say, many, many others), Epicurianism (alas for Gassendi!) did not rise with it.

As for the pigeon-holing of Shelley...

When I was a young science student, it was common to hear a sci-fi fan dismiss a popular science fiction work which he didn't happen to like as being "anti-science". Star Trek was anti-science because of warp drive and stuff, or Star Wars was anti-science because of the Force and stuff, or Martian Chronicles was anti-science because, er, uh, Bradbury and stuff. Recently, I've heard Gravity and Interstellar being dismissed as anti-science. And now, Frankenstein: it's anti-science because of frankenfoods and stuff. Well.

Well the fact is that science fiction like Star Trek, Star Wars, Martian Chronicles, and (I bet) Gravity and Interstellar, and, yes, Frankenstein, have all inspired countless students of science, math, and engineering with their brilliant pro-science stories, and this despite their cautionary tales.

I get that "frankenfood" is an absolutely brilliant public-relations brand for the forces of evil, which is discouraging for all the rest of us. And I get that Mr. Ridley is a tireless defender of bioengineered foods, which have to date saved more lives than all the do-gooder causes in history combined. And I am very grateful for his Sisyphean efforts at combatting counter-knowlege regarding bioengineering (as well as many other) issues. And I get that maybe he didn't like this particular sci-fi masterpiece as much as the rest of us geeks.

But. But maybe going after Shelley isn't the best idea he's ever had.

So go read Ridley. And then dust off your old copy of Lucretius and read it (in Latin! if you can). And then, when you are done, maybe find some time to read the old sci-fi classic too.