Talk:Book:The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day

The fundamental problem is that the book's useful messages are wasted. AgProv has written some criticism with which I generally agree: the Science is very deep and the Discworld is very shallow. The characters' wavering voices appear again as in Unseen Academicals and they're reduced to spokesmodels like WWII celebrities and cartoon characters. There are clever takes on politicians' attitudes to science which resonate in Canada just now and any amount of the trio's usual skillful research, but Creationists and others who need it won't be buying the book or reading it. For the fans who do buy it it's a letdown on the Discworld side, anyway.

I enjoyed the recognition on page 84 of a curious blind spot in the collective vision. Having been involved myself, these several decades, I can't quite explain how most people think (or don't think) about electicity and electronics. Electronics and the technology of propelling a carriage without horses are about the same age, yet most people understand, in a basic way (Lies-To-Children?), that the automobile works by exploding small amounts of petrol/gasoline and the fuel has to be replenished and once in a while the lubricating oil has to be changed, tires/tyres and brakes wear out. Electronics, which has taken an almost exponential rise in our lives over the last century, is commonly viewed as magic: if it doesn't do whatever you want, the Wizard (that's me) should fix it with a wave of the wand, or by "putting it on the `scope" (a sovereign remedy from automotive technology).

The authors recall an educated colleague who thought that merely screwing an electical outlet box into the wall would provide power. This seems to corroborate the "two solitudes" of British education that have been mentioned here before. It seems less plausible in North America.

And, aside, Mightily Oats was quite a young missionary only about a dozen years ago: he shouldn't be forty yet. Is his hair white from harrowing experiences in Überwald?

--Old Dickens (talk) 01:28, 28 April 2013 (GMT)