In 1951 Isaac Asimov inflicted psychohistory on the world with the Foundation Trilogy. Now, thanks to data sets going back more than 2,500 years, scientists have discovered the rules underlying the rise and fall of civilizations, after examining more than 400 such historical societies crash and burn - or in some cases avoid crashing. More here:
Turchin's approach to history, which uses software to find patterns in massive amounts of historical data, has only become possible recently, thanks to the growth in cheap computing power and the development of large historical datasets. This "big data" approach is now becoming increasingly popular in historical disciplines. Tim Kohler, an archaeologist at Washington State University, believes we are living through "the glory days" of his field, because scholars can pool their research findings with unprecedented ease and extract real knowledge from them. In the future, Turchin believes, historical theories will be tested against large databases, and the ones that do not fit – many of them long-cherished – will be discarded. Our understanding of the past will converge on something approaching an objective truth.
Discuss. Or throw rocks.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday November 18 2019, @01:23PM (5 children)
Edison killed Clarence Dally with just X-rays. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/clarence-dally-the-man-who-gave-thomas-edison-x-ray-vision-123713565/ [smithsonianmag.com]
You can pull 10000 other counter examples out of internets yourself.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 18 2019, @01:54PM (1 child)
Yeah, but that was in a prior millenium, when scientists were savages.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Osamabobama on Monday November 18 2019, @08:24PM
I once saw a documentary about noted biologist Dr. Moreau...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday November 18 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
Which was of the "beaker blowing up in the lab" variety.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 18 2019, @03:44PM
Take away the in [youtu.be]...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 18 2019, @08:42PM
They don't tend to kill each other intentionally.
Plenty of scientists die in the process of doing their research. See: volcanologists. That's a different matter.
Washington DC delenda est.