On the Sidereal Origin of Syphilis and the Development of Syphological Thought

Ludwig Fleck, while writing about the "life cycle of a scientific fact", reminds us of the way we used to tackle the origin of an illness:

Citing Iwan Bloch, in Der Ursprung der Syphilis (Origin of Syphilis), 1901, Fleck copies:

"Most authors assume that the conjunction Saturn and Jupiter under the sign of Scorpio and the house of Mars on 25.XI.1484 was the cause of the carnal scourge. ... The sign of Scorpio, which rules the genitals, explains why the genitals were the first place to be attacked by the new disease."

Of course! Scorpio, duh.

Notes
Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Ludwig Fleck, 1935 (Switzerland).
Edited by Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton
Translated by Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn
Foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn
Published by University of Chicago, 1979

The Change of Taste in Good Science: Differential vs. Digital

In the science of the past, matter was modeled by continuous quantities, such as densities and pressures, which satisfied complicated differential equations. Now, good theories are like games with simple rules. “Rather than having to solve equations, and then study the meaning of the solutions, one can simply write a program and see the consequences presented directly as patterns on a screen.” (p136)

Digression:
Smolin then goes on to say that “the computer is not only serving as a tool…it is itself serving as a metaphor.”  [But is not all form (such as that of the universe) an outgrowth of its function (i.e. the function as understood by humans at that time)? Therefore, whatever tools we use to understand become inextricable from the understanding itself?]

Back on Track:
(Regarding cosmology as analogous to biology) Smolin continues: Simple computer games can model the processes in biological populations in ways that ‘old’ differential mathematics could not. The key that we have discovered is – the right set of simple rules, repeated over and over again, can lead to the formation of enormously complex patterns and structures that reproduce themselves continually over time. The same math used to model the flow of waves through fluids (differential) cannot provide the results as would algorithmic systems (digital).

Old math keeps track of where the matter is, speaking a language of continuous function such as densities and flows. New science is discrete, speaking a language of on/off – a language of information.

Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos, 1997, Oxford

Status Consumerism vs. Goods Consumerism

The link between material assets on the one hand, and status and power on the other, is not self-evident or given by the nature of things. The links are socially created and what we need to think out is what these links can become under the new dispensation. Material goods do still lead to power and status, but they are not the only path towards it. The allocation of position depends on the social system and not the economy.

Ernest Gellner on Self-Image
Plough, Sword and Book
U. of Chicago Press
1988