[WikiEN-l] Biased "current events" stories

Sun Sep 19 06:37:04 UTC 2004

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