Talk:Cosmos (book)
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[edit] Why the big critique of Sagan's attitude to atom bombs?
Why is this page, which I thought would be about the book, mostly a long critique of Sagan's attitude to atom bombs (which I don't know enough about to comment on). This seems to drastically unbalance the page. 62.31.128.13
This page was only created a day ago. I thought that analysis would make an interesting addition to the "Cosmos" page but there was no page on the book yet so I created one and posted what I had. I'm actually working on a summary of the rest of the book right now because you're right, it is very unbalanced. -snpoj
A comment: both favorable and critical discussions of the book can be summarized in several sentences. This is an encyclopaedic article about the book and should mention its biases one way or another but I don't think they need this much detail. It could warrant a separate article though (e.g. "Bias in Sagan's Cosmos") Miranche 09:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that any criticism can be summed up in a couple of sentences but if I'm going to make a statement like that I like to have proof. For one thing it's important for whoever reads the statement to be able to go through the observations and interpretations to see why that statement was made. That's one reason I think it should be left in the article.
The second reason is that bifurcation of articles is seen by Wikipedia strategists as a trend to be avoided in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_comparisons
"As Wikipedia grows more comprehensive, efforts are expected to move more towards increasing the quality, scope, classification and interlinkage of existing articles, rather than the creation of new articles - though see Wikipedia:Words per article for further discussion."
By adding a detailed, referenced criticism I think I have increased the scope, depth and quality of the article. Now, if it ever became common for people to come to this article to post their criticisms of Cosmos to the point of burgeoning the article significantly I think it would warrant its own page. --snpoj
[edit] I vote against sections "Criticism of Scientific Hubris" and "Criticism and Analysis of 'Cosmos' in relation to Nuclear Weapons and War"
They should be removed from this article, and I even consider that such kind of texts don't belong to Wikipedia at all. snpoj should write them somewhere else, outside of Wikipedia. Reason: they are fully unscientific. Specifically:
"Criticism of Scientific Hubris" -- the writer of the section wants to tell two things "we should even doubt that evolution existed" ('Creationism' anyone?) and "science is bad because everything is a theory and can't be proved 100%" -- here he tries to use the logic of 'Zeno's paradox' to discredit the scientific method. Makes you wonder why we need encyclopeadias then at all.
"Criticism and Analysis of 'Cosmos' in relation to Nuclear Weapons and War" is even sillier: here the writer tell us only "Sagan writes that nuclear weapons are bad, and that the society can destroy himself, but he is wrong since we haven't destroyed ourselves until now, QED". So let's remove both parts. - 80.109.93.28 17:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Disagree with some of 80.109.93.28's statements, but have no time to argue
Remove all you want. The entire article qualifies as original research (OR), which is prohibited. Notice how there are no citations for statements that aren't mere summary of the work. That is original research and it doesn't belong in the encyclopedia.
Whether the analysis is correct or not is not your judgement. All you can judge is whether or not it is OR.
-snpoj 13 Feb 2006
[edit] Article now marked with {{noncompliant}}
The reasons are more or less listed in the above discussion. I'll add just one more thing: it makes no sense to berate Sagan for his dislike - even fear or hatred, if you will - of atomic weapons from a 2006 perspective, without taking into account that his book was written in 1980, at the height of Cold War.
The section is seriously problematic and should not survive without a drastic rewrite. GregorB 20:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
So are you saying that Sagan's "scientific" approach to analysing nuclear war is just the product of the times he lived in? -snpoj
- To avoid further confusion, let's clarify. Nuclear war is subject to scientific analysis only to a degree. (Herman Kahn springs to mind.) One can analyze pretty much everything about it except the most important thing: is it going to happen? That's not a scientific question.
- Sagan's line of reasoning was: 1) nuclear weapons are hugely destructive (both long- and short-term), 2) the probability of their use is significant, 3) ergo, we should be really worried. IIRC he estimated the probability of survival of the human race in the next 100 years at 40%. Noone said this was science because it isn't and can't be. Was Sagan wrong? It makes no sense to pose such a question, since his claim(s) cannot be falsified. Was his estimate unrealistic? In 2006 - possibly. But in 1980 - I'm not so sure... GregorB 22:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
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- You missed the other two articles. Added the noncompliant tag there too. -snpoj
