Snark taming

Snark Alarm

Meme from Simon DaVison's 2023 Snark film

This is from Simon DaVison’s Snark film. I have his permission to offer this in public domain.

The Failing Occurred in the Sailing

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
When a vessel is, so to speak, “snarked.”

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.

Sir Nicholas Soames’ speech | Repetition increases perceived truth | Code

2018-08-26, updated: 2023-05-06 (MG007)

Warren Buffet @warrenbuffet99 2018-08-26 15:18 UTC

The smartest people I know:

1 Don’t get easily offended
2 Read more than they talk
3 Enjoy intelligent discourse
4 Quickly admit when they’re wrong
5 Comfortable changing their opinion
6 Surround themselves w/ intelligence
7 Seek to understand every perspective on a topic

The Snark is not necessarily evil.

197 “He remarked to me then,” said that mildest of men,
198 “ ‘If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
199 Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens,
200 And it’s handy for striking a light.

Let’s strike a light and help the Snark not to turn into a Boojum: Snark taming.

One of my articles in this blog has the title What can Science reveal? This is the quest of the Snark (quoting Philo M. Buck, 1942). I think, that the question what science can reveal is only one among several quests of the Snark. Another quest might be, how science reveals the world and how science can be threatened. Here, flat earth theory is a good example. That theory does not only aim at reverting scientific findings, but also at damaging science itself. I don’t know whether Dodgson/Carroll took any interest in that theory and the related debates, but its history helps me to improve my understanding of popular science debates and businesses in the Victorian society at around the time when Lewis Carrol wrote The Hunting of the Snark.

This week in the New Yorker, Alan Burdick wrote an article about Looking for Life on a Flat Earth, What a burgeoning movement says about science, solace, and how a theory becomes truth (2018-05-30). Very regrettably, Burdick failed to mention Christine Garwood‘s book Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea (2008). That shouldn’t happen in a magazine like the New Yorker. Didn’t Burdick read that excellent book before he wrote his article?

Garwood shows why and how science can be threatened and is being threatened. This includes John Hampden‘s (1819-1891) discrediting of journalists 1870 (p. 76), who probably had quite similar reasons for media bashing as Donald Trump had and openly described them in February 2016. If you want to make a living as influencer, you need to control the presentation of knowledge. To understand that is as important today as it was in the 19th century. It is amazing how similar the 21st century anti-scientific populism is to what happened since “Parallax” started his flat earth business in the Victorian Britain. And he meant business.

Thinking it Through

Among the issues the The Hunting of the Snark is about, one of them perhaps might be reasoning. There are several remedies against bad reasoning. One of them is clear thinking. That is what Kwame Anthony Appiah‘s Thinking It Through – An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy (2003) is about. The book also is available as PDF file