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I have started this thread to cover an interesting topic that arose in a recent ATM thread - the extent to which the work of the philosopher Immanuel Kant could (or should) be considered astronomy ... by the standards of the day, or today's standards (or any other for that matter).
Unfortunately, this interesting question is quite OT (off topic) for that thread. Here are the posts from that thread, relevant to this question, in the order in which they appeared: Quote:
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Continuing with copies of posts ...
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It was not good astronomy. It was EXCELLENT astronomy!
In addition to suggesting the existence of external galaxies, Kant recognized that the Milky Way's brightest component is a disk. He also correctly explained why Mars is smaller than Earth: because Jupiter interfered. Incidentally, Kant was not the first to suggest the existence of external galaxies. English architect Christopher Wren did so in 1657. |
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I think it's fair to say that what Kant did was a piece of the scientific process, but the fact that he was right was indeed a bit lucky. History remembers the correct theories and forgets the ones that didn't pan out, even though they may have all been equally good when they were first invented. It's unfair, but human, to credit the winner when in fact they were all doing more or less the same things. Kant was remarkably right though, so one must entertain the possibility that his extreme intellect helped him to penetrate through the uncertainties. But I've no doubt that equally powerful intellects have been totally forgotten simply for being wrong.
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I didn't know about all those things, but I do remember hearing that Kant was the first to propose the "primordial solar nebula hypothesis" by which we currently explain the formation of the planets.
He was a clever guy, even if his philosophical works are a chore to read. And an honest philosopher too, not a quack like so many who claimed to follow his footsteps. Quote:
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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire. "All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis. |
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I've always been impressed by how far ahead of the time some of Kant's astronomical ideas were, however little evidence he put forth for them. If he'd applied himself full-bore to astronomy, he might have been one of the greats, IMO, perhaps even of Herschelian stature.
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"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot." --The State |
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Hubble discovered a variable star (as I recall) in a distant 'nebula' but the supernova discovery years earlier in the Andromeda nebula, 1880's was already evidence enough. Either way Hubble showed observationally that the universe was much larger than most others (not all) before him thought, that the distance to remote objects, nebula, was emormous. Whether or not he's tha man behind the grim landscape of expansion, a hero of the foremost blue-collar epic ever created (the BB), appears almost trivial. He was, either way, an enthralled guide to the universe at large: that is for sure. Another note on Kant. He did not stop with the galaxies. I'll have to double check this, but if I'm not mistaken he went on to predict the universe itself was eliptical: an idea not backed by observations available at the time, and disproved by observation today. That of course takes nothing away from the insight that both he and Thomas Wright of Duram showed with the extragalactic nebulae prediction. Coldcreation |
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There are many different ways one could approach the question which is the title of this thread. One such would be to ask something like "But just what do you mean by the words 'good astronomy'?" or "How do you decide what 'good astronomy' is?"
One approach is to say "If Kant's contemporaries said, about Kant's writings, that it was 'good astronomy', then it was." And such an approach is obviously valid (and so the question in the OP relatively easy to answer). Another approach is to examine his work in the light of what the community of (professional) astronomers today considers to be 'good astronomy'. Yet another is to approach the question from the perspective of the history of ideas, and ask something like "To what extent did Kant's writings influence the content and direction of astronomy, of his time and in the following decades and centuries?" |
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And another general measure for this sort of thing is to ask, "if Kant had never been born, how many extra years would it have taken astronomy to reach the understanding it has today?" The way scientific progress has accelerated with modern technology, that one is probably a particularly sobering metric! Or a somewhat different question is, what service did Kant do for his followers by giving them a correct picture of nebulae, in the absence of proof, versus just some other equally satisfying but incorrect picture?
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Here is Hubble's own paper about it.
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"Stupidity gets denser in a crowd" - Old Finnish saying. [My website and My BLOG] [Nimblebrain forums] |
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However, I wonder if any kind of objective answer would be possible ... |
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Probably not! If one chooses to use the "accelerated advancement" metric to gauge the importance of Kant's contribution to science, chances are it strongly favors those who contributed to technology over those who contributed to ideas. And if one uses the "how many people were rescued from an incorrect picture" metric, one would need to quantify the harm in having an incorrect picture!
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CC Last edited by Coldcreation; 18-January-2007 at 01:06 AM.. Reason: typo's |
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Kants claims may have ended up being demonstrated to be correct. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the same confirmation of your own.
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"The plan does not involve mayonaise." "... I knew there was a catch." You can't take the sky from me. |
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Kant does receive considerable credit for his early conjectures. Gingerich is not shy in quoting him, nor many other authors, though the reference to him seems more respectful of his seed sowing, as valid and sound logic that preceeded his conclusions does not exist.
Copernicus dug back into the Greek past and found other seeds to help support ideas he had. These early Greeks were stated in his Revolutions to help bolster his heliocentric theory. However, his strength was in his evidence (eg Venus variability)
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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Last edited by George; 19-January-2007 at 12:08 AM.. |
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Kant saw the big picture...the really big picture, and to the best of my knowledge he was the first to expand the universe beyond our own galaxy.
This is an important, observation-based idea, and it is new ideas that drive the scientific discovery process. What kind of mental calculations are necessary to introduce a new concept? First, you must realize that there may be something wrong with what you have been taught - and this was not any easier in Kant's time than in our own. Second, in order to conjure up a new explanation which might be scientific in nature, you must be able to do some good mental approximations, rejecting solutions which fail mental sanity checks. This takes a good analytical mind - just as important today as in Kant's times. Finally, you must convince a reasonable number of your peers that the new prospective makes sense. No one would remember Kant if everyone threw away his work. I humbly submit that these are the most difficult parts of the scientific process: Once others are convinced the idea has merit, it is possible to obtain the necessary funding to do the bean counting...which can even be trivial if the concept is truly correct. As a philosopher of science, Kant is peerless.
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jwj It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out? |
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What is laughable is that most (if not all) astronomer that followed Kant thought that nebulae, with their wispy tendrils and compact entrails (now called galaxies), were embedded inside the Milky Way Galaxy. What is laughable is that most (if not all) astronomer that followed Kant, and who were likely aware of Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (great title), refused to let go of the old dogma that the Milky Way was unique. That would last from 1755, en passent par the SN in the Andromeda nebula (1880's) all the way to 1929 (Hubble's famous paper, A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebula). What is laughable is that you, Kristophe, permit yourself the rather frivolous remarks of the kind posted above without apparently knowing the subject of the discussion very well at all. Stick to questions, others will provide the answers. Don't fight the chill. Coldcreation |
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Where did he get the idea of other galaxies? It wasn't original because about 200 years earlier Bruno beat him to it. I would bet Kant knew of it considering Bruno's infamous fate. Also, why didn't Kant follow through with his idea on stars forming from nebula by using math? Kant was still young at the time. LaPlace did the math and put bite into the bark, so LaPlace is given greater credit. I like Ken's question, "if Kant had never been born, how many extra years would it have taken astronomy to reach the understanding it has today?" I doubt very many more years would have been added to astronomy. The famous Shapley-Curtis debate would still have occured, I suspect. Conjectures are fine but they are not deemed as important, so less credit is given. This is good because often conjectures are wrong. Consider how wrong William Herschell was about the possibility of life within the sun? It was interesting conjecture, I suppose, and did not damage his reputation very much.
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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! |
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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire. "All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis. |
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Regarding Newton, gravity was known prior to Newton, but Newton's triumphs did come from math (ie calculus). This put meat on the bones of Kepler's laws and engineers today us Newton's math to no small degree, vastly more than GR or QM. Newton may not have mentioned his view on the possibility of other galaxies because of his more scientific approach of producing repeatable tests and math. Conjecturing is fine but is limited in merit compared to hard, supportable and predictable theory. Quote:
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My view is that the degree of merit is proportional to the degree of substantiation of the original conjecture. Greater is the merit for hypothesis, and greater still is given to one who offers a genuine theory. Also, greater merit is given for the efficacy of the contribution. [The sun's true color ranks rather low in this category, otherwise astronomers would have nailed it long ago. ]
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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Last edited by George; 23-January-2007 at 01:45 PM.. |
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Coldcreation |
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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! |
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Isn't that a straw man?
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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire. "All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis. |
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Also, though elsewhere, Kant is credited for this. Quote:
The two claims seem to go hand-in-hand. Indeed, the second half of their sentence states... Quote:
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