Saturday, September 02, 2006

Spinning In His Grave

Jacob Bronowski is being used to support a course in palmistry ("You will need an exercise book and faith in yourself and your Guides and Angels!") in a quote mining perversion of his ideals, since he said:

The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.


The full quote in context from "The Ascent of Man" is (in reference to Henry Moore's sculpture The Knife Edge):

The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. Civilisation is not a collection of finished artefacts, it is the elaboration of processes. In the end, the march of man is the refinement of the hand in action.


This woo site also ignores that Dr Bronowski also said:

Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature.


as well as a whole plethora of books, lectures, and television appearances that were vigourously against ignorance and the adherence to impossible and disproven fallacies.

2 comments:

  1. An abomination. Better his quote had been uncredited.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Add this to all the misuse of Einstein and others, and the myths about deathbed conversions (Darwin, Voltaire...)

    Aaargh!

    ReplyDelete

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