Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 November 21

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November 21

Angels

Do angels exist? Is there any proof of their presence on earth?95.176.214.169 (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

No, and no.

Well, they might exist, but there is certainly no proof in the scientific sense. HiLo48 (talk) 00:55, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

They may well exist, but there is no scientific proof of their existence. It is a matter of faith. Edison (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

First select your type of angel. The Australian band of them definitely exists and Wikipedia says unequivocally that this book about angels is non-fiction. The article Angel describes the kinds of divine angels that are said to exist (but all the descriptions cannot be right so logically some or all are nonsense). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 01:44, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

As HiLo suggests, it is not possible to say definitively whether they exist or not, and any "proof" comes from faith, not physical evidence. An angel is supposed to be a "messenger from God", so there's no reason it would take only one form. It might take a form that makes sense to a particular culture. One can argue that angels are manifested through other humans. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Bugs, I thought for sure you believed in angels. — Michael J 07:34, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

As came up in a recent architectural theory lecture I attended, Kant argues that since we cannot even be certain of the nature of the world outside of ourselves, when it comes to things that we cannot sense at all, cannot see or smell or feel or even begin to understand, there is no way we could prove anything one way or another, and that therefore even trying to decide based on no evidence is a waste of time and effort. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 07:40, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

By 'eck, that sounds like a good description of dark matter/dark energy... --TammyMoet (talk) 13:12, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Except that those two (completely unconnected) things are attempted explanations for phenomena that we have observed, insofar (as per Kant) that we can observe anything. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.149 (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The Biblical Jacob was called יִשְׂרָאֵל Yisra`el, meaning "one that struggled with the divine angel" and Rembrandt snapped the clinch. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

While the bible does describe the fight between Jacob and the angel, the name "Israel" does not mention the word "angel", but rather God. Our article on Jacob contains several different possible meanings of the name, but none of them include the word "angel". While authorities argue over the meaning of the prefix "Isra"/"Yisrae", the suffix "el" is unambiguosly "God". An angel is "malach" in Hebrew. --Dweller (talk) 20:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Gregory the Great said England was the land 'not of Angles, but of Angels'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:20, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

• Those of my religion exist and intervene constantly for the benefit of people of my religion. Those of your religion (for we have differing religions) do not exist, and are either misapprehensions of demons and monsters, fairies and youkai, due to your lack of the fundamental religious virtue common to people of my religion allowing you to see these beings correctly; or, are in fact, delusions of a diseased mind as people not of my religion are more commonly mentally ill than people of my religion. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Well you would say that wouldn't you. For interest, what do you call your religion of such exclusive fundamental virtue and what does it say about respecting other people? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:54, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

For a person with firm religious beliefs, Fifelfoo's position is completely logical. (If not rational.) HiLo48 (talk) 09:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

This can only be a personal musing, not a real answer, and I won't offer proof of angels' existence, but in lieu of this, it may be possible to describe them in such a way that their existence can be taken as a matter of personal perception. Which is to say, angels can be described as the personification of concepts which undeniably or at least probably have meaning, and the degree to which this personification is literal or symbolic is a matter of personal expression. It is important to note that to avoid making angels into a polytheistic concept, the roles of the angels should in some way represent a logical partition of the message of God, rather than being viewed as deities in themselves which can be arbitrarily declared with arbitrary and intrinsic characteristics. To put it vulgarly, the powers and qualities of an angel might devolve from the office it holds, rather than being innate - a better analogy might be that the existence of separate angels is akin to the existence of separate orbitals, for example, the three p orbitals, which are defined by how an observer looks at them, but which don't actually have separate existence from some universal perspective.

Specifically, consider the (sometimes) seven archangels, possibly equated with the Seven Spirits of God and the seven virtues. These may also be compared with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as they precede the "fifth angel", Exterminans, in Revelations. Now drawing the specific equations is at best uncertain, more likely a matter of creative expression, but the idea is that if virtue or adversity can be divided up conceptually into specific realms (e.g. Gabriel, fortitude, and war), and if the virtues represent divisions of the will of a personal God, then there should be a personal face for these virtues also, i.e. the angels. Wnt (talk) 02:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you name the music in this video?

starts in 06:40 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4YQnACGpJs — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ofplef (talk • contribs) 01:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The choral music at 7:00 is Land of Hope and Glory sung to one of the Pomp and Circumstance Marches by Edward Elgar, probably recorded at a The Proms#Last Night of the Proms concert at the Albert Hall, London. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 02:01, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. You can see the whole thing here, conducted by David Robertson (an American chap, but we won't hold that against him). Alansplodge (talk) 11:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Scientists murdered by Christians

Galileo, Darwin, etc. were persecuted by the church but not killed. Were there any scientists who were actually killed by the church? The only one I remember is Hypatia. --70.250.212.95 (talk) 02:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You first need to define the words "scientist" and "murdered" and "by". --Jayron32 04:22, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

And "the Church"? What Jayron means is that it is difficult to answer the question because "the church" does not usually go around murdering anyone, including scientists, and before relatively recently (the past few hundred years), there were no "scientists" in the modern understanding of the word. Darwin and Galileo for example are certainly scientists, but Hypatia was more of a philosopher...and in any case she wasn't killed by "the church", she was killed by a mob for reasons that had little to do with being a scientist. Galileo was persecuted not specifically for being a scientist, but because he was kind of a jerk to people who didn't immediately believe him (the Pope especially). Darwin was never persecuted at all, although some members of the church disagreed with him (and this was quite a different church than the one that existed in Galileo's day, which itself was much different than the one in Hypatia's time). However, to give a simpler answer, you would probably be interested in reading about Giordano Bruno. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:14, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thomas More was a social scientist killed by the Church of England, depending on your definitions (he's a martyr to Catholics, so his death was more to do with church politics). I suspect there's quite a few who were killed for taking sides in conflicts with a religious dimension, such as Lazare Carnot, physicist and leader of the rationalist French Revolution, who was executed following the restoration of France's Catholic monarchy in 1815, but like most distinguished victims of the executioner, from Jesus onwards, he was actually executed by the state not the church. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

List of people executed by the Holy See may be relevant, but the only people I would describe as scientists are Bruno and the poisoner Giulia Tofana. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Giordano Bruno is basically the only case of a major scientist executed by the Church because of his scientific beliefs/teachings. The idea that the Church held a huge, murderous power over scientists is a bit overblown. Darwin was not personally persecuted by the Church and lived a quite comfortable life with the exception of his recurring illness. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:08, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Except that, as the article points out, many see him as being executed for his religious beliefs, not his scientific ones. Rmhermen (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but in his case they were pretty intertwined. But it's a general point that Inquisition persecution was never about just one thing — Galileo's house arrest was as much about politics as it was about the particular positions he took. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Though that raises the question of the changes in definitions (by the Church) between then and now of the divisions (or not) between the proper spheres of enquiry of religion and (what we now call) science. The possible existence of other inhabited worlds, for example, was then considered (by the Church prosecuters, who clearly had the whip hand) a religious question, while today most would concede it to the scientific realm. On a more general point, "history is written by the winners" and the Church as prosecutor in this and other cases (just as other Establishments, such as the rulers of Athens who condemned Socrates) clearly long had the advantage in controlling what was recorded for posterity. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.149 (talk) 16:46, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you give us a reference for anyone who was ever prosecuted by anybody for suggesting "the possible existence of other inhabited worlds"? It seems a bit unlikely. Alansplodge (talk) 17:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

That was (though I couched it in modern terms) one of the charges against Giordano Bruno, to whose already mentioned case I was referring in the first part of my response. When I broadened to make a more general point, I was not intending to assert that other individuals had also been prosecuted by the Church for exactly the same offense, though it would not surprise me to learn that other more obscure figures had, or had been threatened with prosecution to silence them, or had self-censored for fear of it. Please note that I am not trying to promote an "Ooh wasn't the Church horrible" message. Different times were different to ours, and one can be interested in that without trying to impose contemporary sensibilities on them. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.40 (talk) 21:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

From the article, the full list of charges was holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass; claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity; believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes, and dealing in magics and divination. Even with changing boundaries between science and religion, these are primarily theological charges. Many of these charges individually would have been sufficient for a sentence of death after conviction. Rmhermen (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

And to continue cutting and pasting from the article that we've all read where you left off:

"In these grim circumstances Bruno continued his Venetian defensive strategy, which consisted in bowing to the Church's dogmatic teachings, while trying to preserve the basis of his philosophy. In particular Bruno held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it." [My italics].

I'm not suggesting the last was the only charge, merely that it is one that, in today's terms, is relevant to the scientific theme of the OP's question, and (unlike some of the others) was upheld and led to his execution. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.40 (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

In the UK at least, the scientific community in the 17th to 19th centuries was well populated with Anglican clergymen. A comfortable income, few duties and a university education meant that they were well placed to persue their interests in botany, geology, entomology, astronomy and so on. An example that springs to mind is the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne. A European example of an ecclesiastical scientist is Gregor Mendel. Alansplodge (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

See Christian pacifism.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:29, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

In the 14th century the inquisitor Nicolau Aymerich persecuted followers of Ramon Lull. Lull wrote on a number of topics, including maths. I don't know if that amounted to any prosecutions or executions, or even whether anyone could find out at this late date. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The general problem, I think, is that, whenever large-scale persecution of nonstandard world views was in place, it was difficult for "scientists" even to rise to prominence without being shot down.

The concept of "science" only emerged when persecution by the Church was on the decline. It was born in late 1600's in England, partly due to tolerant attitudes of the young Church of England at that time. There's only a handful of individuals that we might consider true "scientists" who lived before that time - Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo.

The famous Spanish Inquisition was very active in 16th and 17th century and executed at least 1400 people between 1540 and 1740. Going through the list of Spanish scientists, I only see a few names dating from that period, and at least one of them, Michael Servetus, was executed by the Inquisition. In the List of alchemists, I don't see any notable alchemists to come out of 16th to 17th century Spain either. --Itinerant1 (talk) 00:36, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

To anticipate diversionary quibbles, Servetus was actually tried and condemned by, and executed on the orders of, the Protestant Geneva Council, although the French Inquisition had already condemned him and wanted to extradite him for execution anyway, and he was condemned for heretical theological views rather than any scientific teachings. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.40 (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I've missed that part when skimming the article. So the number of known prominent scientists executed by the Spanish Inquisition goes back down to zero. In any event, any promising alchemist or scientist born in Renaissance-age Spain probably had a good chance of attracting attention and potentially becoming one of the 1400 before he could make it into textbooks. --Itinerant1 (talk) 07:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

"The concept of "science" only emerged when persecution by the Church was on the decline." This is nonsense. There was plenty of systematic inquiry during the Middle Ages, most of it funded by the Church. This is a common-enough misconception that we even have an entry in it on the List of common misconceptions (see point #3 under Ancient to early modern). The idea that there were no scientists before Copernicus is patently ridiculous. Copernicus did not get the idea, the means, or the training to study astronomy out of nothing! He comes out of a rich tradition of Church-sponsored study of the heavens. The omission is clear when one goes from Copernicus, Kepler, to Galileo without mentioning someone like Christoph Clavius, who was the biggest Church-sponsored guy in between, and whose textbooks would have been mandatory reading for folks like Galileo. Clavius "rose to power" just fine, and was no stooge or dummy. (So not-a-stooge was he that he eventually conceded that Galileo's observations must be true, and a Ptolemaic model could not hold. Which is why the idea that Galileo was persecuted for opposing the Ptolemaic model is false — the Church had by that point already adopted the Tychonic system, which was at that point observationally identical to a Copernican one.) It is true that your average science textbook doesn't teach any scientists before then, but there were scads of people investigating the world, some more systematic than others, some more wrong than others. But do not mistake the textbook narrative of the history of science (the endless upward movement towards truth!) for the reality of it. What happened in the "Scientific Revolution" is less that science was born than science became connected with government and commerce, which put it on a pretty different path than it had been on before. I am no great defender of the Church (I'm not religious), but the idea that they were going around all during the Middle Ages and squashing anyone who dared to look at the sky (or other phenomena) is nonsense, and the idea that the entire idea of studying the world just suddenly came into the heads of a few random people is also nonsense. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The early modern with the least epicycles and the most observed predicted phenomena wins. But our article on the Tychonic system implies that was Tycho. And he did "win" if we consider the sociology of science reception. Until new observed phenomena appeared. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say that there were no scientists before Copernicus, did I? I said that scientists were very rare. And indeed they were. With regard to Copernicus, you say "he comes out of a rich tradition of Church-sponsored study of the heavens." And yet he was still working off the Ptolemaic system, dating 1500 years before his time. The only advances in 1500 years were incremental improvements in numbers and properties of epicycles, mostly made by Islamic astrologers.

By the way, Copernican system is observationally equivalent to Ptolemaic, differences are mostly mathematical and ideological, and Tychonic system is a partial ideological regression back to Ptolemy. The first system that is observationally different from any of those (which also happens to describe planetary motion with more accuracy and fewer free parameters than Ptolemaic/Copernican) is the Keplerian model.

Edit: I stand corrected here, there is a difference with regards to phases of Mercury and Venus. There is no difference with regards to motion of planets.--Itinerant1 (talk) 23:51, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

But here's a better way to illustrate my point. Count all world-class European scientists you know who were alive in 1500. I can come up with Copernicus, Leonardo, Paracelsus, Agricola, and maybe a couple of less important alchemists.

Now count all world-class scientists who were alive in 1700. Just in Britain, we have Newton, Hooke, Wren, Locke, Stirling, Flamsteed, Halley, Taylor, Maclaurin ... On the continent, the scientific revolution took off a bit later, but we still have Leibniz, five different Bernoullis, Cassini, and de l'Hôpital. --Itinerant1 (talk) 23:20, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Mr. 98. Science can be considered the bastard son of the Catholic church really. Organized religions played a very important part in encouraging sciences and preserving scientific literature in the Dark Ages. Monks and scholars slaving away copying manuscripts they probably did not even understand is the reason why we still have some ancient texts today that would otherwise have been lost.

But then again to Itinerant1's point, most of the famous scientists were those who were born to noble families, had large fortunes, or managed to secure powerful patronage. And they still tiptoed around the base "facts" established by the Bible or the Koran. We really don't know how many amateur radical ones got burned at the stake for witchcraft.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 06:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

UFOs

From 1960 to 1972 I worked for CBS News in Philadelphia, at WCAU-TV. Channel 10. During that time I recall some respected source saying that the most nearly credible reports of UFO sightings was a cluster of sightings near a Soviet city that was a "closed" city for security reasons, sightings said to have been reported by hundreds of people. I do not recall the name of the city, but I see no mention of that incident. Do the authors of your page have any information about that? Donald Barnhouse [removed email address before they see it] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.36.209.48 (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I removed your email address as we do not reply by email. I'm not sure which page you are referring to. Do you mean our article on closed city?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:55, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I suspect he means our UFO article. Alansplodge (talk) 10:56, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The area around Astrakhan, particularly Kapustin Yar, was popular for UFO sightings (according to the article Kapustin Yar and a wide range of websites of uncertain credibility). This area was a centre of Soviet space research, so there were doubtless lots of strange lights in the sky. There's not much about the UFOs on Wikipedia - maybe there's a shortage of reliable sources of information. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a book dated 1968 that catalogues almost 200 eyewitness reports of UFOs in the Soviet Union. Reports are all over the place, but there is what looks like a cluster of about 30 sightings in July to October 1967, in the region of Donetsk, Lugansk and Rostov-na-Donu. The center of the triangle formed by these three cities is about 300 miles west of Kapustin Yar. In addition, there are about 10 reports in the vicinity of Kapustin Yar, and a few further south. Reports are not consistent with space launches, but could make sense if there was research into experimental aircraft going on nearby. As far as I can tell, there were no known closed cities in Donetsk/Lugansk area. --Itinerant1 (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Odd pop culture question.

MC Frontalot's 'Critical Hit' is a satire of a bunch of rappers, I am sure, but not being familiar with the genre, I don't know which ones. Which real rap songs typify the artistic form that Frontalot is ripping off? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about the video and not the song itself? The song lyrics don't stand out to me as being an homage to any form in particular, either in content or delivery. His video doesn't seem to have much by way of reference to rappers, but other pop culture characters, like David Bowie (the Aladdin Sane garb), Paris Hilton (the green "sex tape"), and David Carradine (the erotic asphyxiation bit), among others which I was not familiar with. My take on it, anyway; I didn't think the rapping sounded like an homage to anything I've heard, and I do consider myself fairly familiar with hip hop trends... --Mr.98 (talk) 18:11, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I'm talking about the genre of rap song about how cool he is and how great his life is? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

My interpretation is that it's just a common form of DJ boasting that has been done in hip hop since its inception. The earliest hit hip-hop song, "Rapper's Delight", is basically nothing but boasting. My limited understanding is that this is in part because of the influence of rap battles, in which two (or more) MCs explain why they are the best, and their opponent is, well, not. Anyway, I don't think Frontalot is referencing anything specific — it's a very common trope in rap. What makes Frontalot different of course is that he does it in reference to D&D terminology, which is unusual in rap. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

But not entirely unusual in nerdcore, which is the very genre that he is said to epitomize, in spite of its limited scope.--WaltCip (talk) 20:29, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure. But Nerdcore is pretty fringe when it comes to the whole of hip hop and its history. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - yes- the battles thing makes a lot of sense. I don't pick up a strong D&D theme in the song (except the nat 20 ref), it seems like that framing story is really emphasized in the video more. Other than Rappers Delight are there other non-nerdcore songs that really stand out as iconic in the genre of talking about the qualities of the rapper (whether or not they simultaneously denigrate others)? Thanks so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.159.19 (talk) 19:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

A huge amount of the work by Jay-Z and Nas is about their proficiencies as rappers and general awesome-ness. Other rappers usually sprinkle it throughout all of their work no matter what the subject matter. My all-time favorite couplet about rapping skills comes from Notorious BIG: I got techniques drippin out my butt cheeks / Sleep on my stomach so I don't fuck up my sheets. There's something so self-effacing, while self-flattering, about that particular line, along with its obvious crudity... --Mr.98 (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)