Thursday 26 July 2007

Pic of the day: Wrong! All of you are wrong! (Screenshot from the anime Lucky Star. Ironically, since astronomy plays a big part in today's showcase example.)

The folly of (small) crowds

For your edutainment, I bring you the following link to History: Fiction or science? in which a Russian mathematician proves that history just wasn't like that. Note that while he is a distinguished scientist, he is certainly not a historian. Those are all brainwashed into believing the same lies: That Jesus lived in Israel, that the Roman empire spread from Italy, that the pyramids are several thousand years old, and that much of history consisted of stagnation and dark ages, as empire after empire fell apart in suspiciously similar ways.

Rather, according to this new hypothesis, there was only one empire. Civilization started around what we now call the tenth history. Jesus lived in the 11th century, in Russia of course. His empire was the original from which all these different rumors arose and spread in a largely pre-literate world. The further away from Russia you get, the more outrageous are the claims. On the fringes of civilization, people believed the tales they heard had taken place millennia ago. Later they told these legends to the first historians, after the printing press was invented. These gullible folks wrote it all down and passed it on, so today almost everyone believes the wrong history. Only Fomenko knows the truth, and those who believe in him.

So far this all looks like the usual rantings of an insane man with higher education. There will always be some of these; academica is not an environment friendly to mental health. But the really fascinating part is the customer reviews I linked to. They are overwhelmingly positive, if not outright worshipful. One notable exception being the guy who knows that civilization is actually much OLDER than commonly thought. But even he touchingly agrees that the history books are just bovine fecal matter. This concoction of pseudoscience gets an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, better than serious and widely read authors could hope for. How come?

The mechanism is quite simple, really. You don't buy this kind of science fantasy for $44.95 unless you are already similarly unhinged. And most people have the decency to not review a book they haven't read. So only his fellow crackpots can review it. Big surprise that they all agree with him, eh? Meanwhile the sane people* tactfully ignore the whole shameful display.
*)Except me. What? I am not insane! The voices in my head told me so!

I am sure this book could have a market in the USA, where half the people think the world is 6000 years old and a solid majority believe that borrowing money and spending it makes the nation rich. Those who believe that empires cannot fall are cordially invited to follow the next few years carefully.

"Those who don't learn from history are condemned to major in Literature instead." Or, in this case, mathematics.