Кога си обичен човек кој што немаш потреба од наука и немаш време за сето тоа...
Целиот текст на Џорџ Орвел подолу на линкот, тука само извадоци, оти големо..
"
SOMEWHERE or other — I think it is in the preface to
Saint Joan —
Bernard Shaw remarks that we are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and as an example of modern credulity he cites the widespread belief that the earth is round. The average man, says Shaw, can advance not a single reason for thinking that the earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth-century mentality.
Just why do we believe that the earth is round? I am not speaking of the few thousand astronomers, geographers and so forth who could give ocular proof, or have a theoretical knowledge of the proof,
but of the ordinary newspaper-reading citizen, such as you or me.
As for the Flat Earth theory, I believe I could refute it. If you stand by the seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts and funnels of invisible ships passing along the horizons. This phenomenon can only be explained by assuming that the earth’s surface is curved. But it does not follow that the earth is spherical. Imagine another theory called the Oval Earth theory, which claims that the earth is shaped like an egg. What can I say against it?
...
...
It will be seen that my reasons for thinking that the earth is round are rather precarious ones.
Yet this is an exceptionally elementary piece of information. On most other questions I should have to fall back on the expert much earlier, and would be less able to test his pronouncements.
And much the greater part of our knowledge is at this level. It does not rest on reasoning or on experiment, but on authority.
And how can it be otherwise, when the range of knowledge is so vast that the expert himself is an ignoramous as soon as he strays away from his own speciality?
Most people, if asked to prove that the earth is round, would not even bother to produce the rather weak arguments I have outlined above. They would start off by saying that ’everyone knows’ the earth to be round, and if pressed further, would become angry. In a way Shaw is right.
This is a credulous age, and the burden of knowledge which we now have to carry is partly responsible."
-
As I Please in Tribune 27 December 1946