On 18 Sep 2004, Erik Moeller wrote:
Delirium-
What if there are distinct scientific and philosophical traditions, and they conflict?
That happens a lot - that's why they're distinct in the first place. Our job is to document these differences in a reasonable and consolidated manner without having them spill over into unrelated articles.
And then, sometimes unrelated articles can become related to our surprise.
What prompts me to contribute to this discussion is my recent revision of the article on [[Apelles]], an ancient Greek painter whom I doubt anyone here has heard of & even fewer care about. As I read the passage in Pliny the Elder's _Natural History_ about Apelles the first time, I could not help but feel that the anecdote where Apelles introduces himself to Protogenes was the inspiration for a scene in the 1950's movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
(It's conceivable: a high school or college graduate in those days was expected to know more about the Greek & Roman Classics than students now. Then then is the case that good all writers tend to be omnivorous & far-ranging readers; my translation of Pliny was first published in 1952, & either the author of the original short story or someone involved in the movie could have read the same book.)
That is why I added a bit of commentary, although in a negative manner. Hopefully someone with the time & interest will investigate the coincidence & determine if there is more to it than one crank's idle musings.
On the other hand, while I was tempted to find a way to tie the lesson of Apelles' lost varnish recipie & the concept of free knowledge together, I decided it was not worth the effort. My intent in writing this article was to present information, not a sermon.
Geoff