Tyler Cowen engages today’s deepest thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between. New conversations every other Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Conversations with Tyler

A professor of ics and author of books on the literature and philosophy of the roman period and the reception of the Western ical corpus in modern China.

How she learned Latin and how it was different to hear learning Mandarin

Thoughts on Homer and Virgil's underworlds as well as Lucan's epic

Chinese intellectuals and how they interpret both historical texts and current issues

Shadi Bartsch

A self-professed nerd, the young Shadi Bartsch could be found awake late at night, reading Latin under the covers of her bed by flashlight. Now a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, Dr. Bartsch is one of the best-known classicists in America and recently published her own translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. Widely regarded for her writing on Seneca, Lucan, and Persius, her next book focuses on Chinese interpretations of classic literature and their influence on political thought in China. Shadi joined Tyler to discuss reading the classics as someone who is half-Persian, the difference between Homer and Virgil’s underworlds, the reasons so many women are redefining Virgil’s Aeneid, the best way to learn Latin, why you must be in a room with a native speaker to learn Mandarin, the question of Seneca’s hypocrisy, what it means to “wave the wand of Hermes”, why Lucan begins his epic The Civil War with “fake news”, the line from Henry Purcell’s aria that moves her to tears, her biggest takeaway from being the daughter of an accomplished UN economist, the ancient text she’s most hopeful that new technology will help us discover, the appeal of Strauss to some contemporary Chinese intellectuals, the reasons some consider the history of Athens a better allegory for America than that of Rome, the Thucydides Trap, the magical “presentness” of ancient history she’s found in Italy and Jerusalem, her forthcoming book Plato Goes to China, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded March 16th, 2022 Other ways to connect  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Follow Shadi on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.  

A self-professed nerd, the young Shadi Bartsch could be found awake late at night, reading Latin under the covers of her bed by flashlight. Now a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, Dr. Bartsch is one of the best-known classicists in America and recently published her own <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602340/the-aeneid-by-vergil-translated-by-shadi-bartsch/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">translation of Virgil’s Aeneid</a>. Widely regarded for her writing on Seneca, Lucan, and Persius, her next book focuses on Chinese interpretations of classic literature and their influence on political thought in China. Shadi joined Tyler to discuss reading the classics as someone who is half-Persian, the difference between Homer and Virgil’s underworlds, the reasons so many women are redefining Virgil’s Aeneid, the best way to learn Latin, why you must be in a room with a native speaker to learn Mandarin, the question of Seneca’s hypocrisy, what it means to “wave the wand of Hermes”, why Lucan begins his epic The Civil War with “fake news”, the line from Henry Purcell’s aria that moves her to tears, her biggest takeaway from being the daughter of an accomplished UN economist, the ancient text she’s most hopeful that new technology will help us discover, the appeal of Strauss to some contemporary Chinese intellectuals, the reasons some consider the history of Athens a better allegory for America than that of Rome, the Thucydides Trap, the magical “presentness” of ancient history she’s found in Italy and Jerusalem, her forthcoming book Plato Goes to China, and more. Read a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/shadi-bartsch/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full transcript</a> enhanced with helpful links, or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT1ux_Gdrrs&amp;list=PLS8aEHTqDvpInY9kslUOOK8Qj_-B91o_W&amp;index=26" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full video</a>. Recorded March 16th, 2022 Other ways to connect <ul> <li>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cowenconvos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/tylercowen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tyler</a> on Twitter </li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/ShadiBartsch" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shadi</a> on Twitter</li> <li>Email us: <a href="mailto:cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer">cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscribe at our newsletter page</a> to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. </li> </ul>

Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China

Poetry itself, as a form of art, is also not to be taken as reflecting history or trying to say something true about the political situation of the day, but it's often less consumed and less misunderstood.

The difference between visual and written representations of history is that there are more viewers of visual representations and they're more likely to misunderstand what's going on in the picture that they see.

Trying to think about reasonable explanations why others might be acting in a certain way, can help you react better to otherwise negative events. Because after all, we don't actually know someone elses intentions or reasons.

We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.

They don't necessarily care anymore what it's about. We need to find ourselves thinking about the underlying issue and not caring about who's on which side.

The issue in politics is people take the opposite side of an issue just because other people have taken a side.

Can you think of a situation where you may have picked a side without understanding the underlying issues?

"It's better to listen to those that live the life they preach, but it doesn't mean what's being preached isn't interesting or valuable."

Dana Gioia

Before he was California Poet Laureate or leading the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia marketed Jell-O. Possessing both a Stanford MBA and a Harvard MA, he combined his creativity and facility with numbers to climb the corporate ladder at General Foods to the second highest rung before abruptly quitting to become a poet and writer. That unique professional experience and a lifelong “hunger for beauty” have made him into what Tyler calls an “information billionaire,” or someone who can answer all of Tyler’s questions. In his new  memoir, Dana describes the six people who sent him on this unlikely journey. In this conversation, Dana and Tyler discuss his latest book and more, including how he transformed several businesses as a corporate executive, why going to business school made him a better poet, the only two obscene topics left in American poetry, why narrative is necessary for coping with life’s hardships, how Virgil influenced Catholic traditions, what Augustus understood about the cultural power of art, the reasons most libretti are so bad, the optimism of the Beach Boys, the best art museum you’ve never heard of, the Jungianism of Star Trek, his favorite Tolstoy work, depictions of Catholicism in American pop culture, what he finds fascinating about Houellebecq, why we stopped building cathedrals, how he was able to effectively lead the National Endowment for the Arts,  the aesthetic differences between him and his brother Ted, his advice for young people who want to cultivate their minds, and what he wants to learn next. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded February 18th, 2021 Other ways to connect  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Follow Dana on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.  

Before he was California Poet Laureate or leading the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia marketed Jell-O. Possessing both a Stanford MBA and a Harvard MA, he combined his creativity and facility with numbers to climb the corporate ladder at General Foods to the second highest rung before abruptly quitting to become a poet and writer. That unique professional experience and a lifelong “hunger for beauty” have made him into what Tyler calls an “information billionaire,” or someone who can answer all of Tyler’s questions. In his new <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Studying-Miss-Bishop-Memoirs-Writers/dp/1589881516" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> memoir</a>, Dana describes the six people who sent him on this unlikely journey. In this conversation, Dana and Tyler discuss his latest book and more, including how he transformed several businesses as a corporate executive, why going to business school made him a better poet, the only two obscene topics left in American poetry, why narrative is necessary for coping with life’s hardships, how Virgil influenced Catholic traditions, what Augustus understood about the cultural power of art, the reasons most libretti are so bad, the optimism of the Beach Boys, the best art museum you’ve never heard of, the Jungianism of Star Trek, his favorite Tolstoy work, depictions of Catholicism in American pop culture, what he finds fascinating about Houellebecq, why we stopped building cathedrals, how he was able to effectively lead the National Endowment for the Arts,  the aesthetic differences between him and <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/ted-gioia/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">his brother Ted</a>, his advice for young people who want to cultivate their minds, and what he wants to learn next. Read a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/dana-gioia/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full transcript</a> enhanced with helpful links, or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkWUJODmxyM&amp;list=PLS8aEHTqDvpInY9kslUOOK8Qj_-B91o_W&amp;index=27" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full video</a>. Recorded February 18th, 2021 Other ways to connect <ul> <li>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cowenconvos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/tylercowen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tyler</a> on Twitter </li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/DanaGioiaPoet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dana</a> on Twitter</li> <li>Email us: <a href="mailto:cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer">cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscribe at our newsletter page</a> to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. </li> </ul>

Dana Gioia on Becoming an Information Billionaire

The reason we have art is to increase human happiness. On an individual level, a work of art awakens you to the possibilities of your own potential, it takes that potential and enlargens and refines it, And each art does it in it's own way. Music for your auditory senses, painting is visual. Poetry is our language and emotional functions. That's on an individual basis, when you do that on a social level, over time, you create people that are better aware who they are, how they feel, their ability to articulate it and recognise it empathetically in other people.

Dana thinks that poetry has a social function, but thinks it's a relatively complicated & subtle one.

1. What is the writer doing 2. How well does the writer do it 3. How worthwhile was the thing that they wanted to do Sometimes you see people do marvelous jobs of things that aren't worth the effort. It's important to make sure you've considered all 3 of these questions, particularly the 3rd one before ing.

Whenever Dana reviews books of poetry, he asks himself 3 questions:

I think the distractions for younger people today are so extreme that they learn very little about the past. Therefore, they learn very little about the present, because you can't understand anything unless you have a point by which to judge it as a point of perspective.

Get out of the daily ephemeral culture and immerse yourself into things that are going to be still there 10 years later or 100 years later.

Can you think of something that you did well but it wasn't worth the effort of doing in the first place?

"Consider, conserve &amp; create. Look at all of the achievements of the past, figure out what it is we save, and what it is we need to add to move forward".

Archaeologist and remote sensing expert who's work combines technology, historical study, and cultural anthropology to advance discoveries about the past while navigating the political and ethical dilemmas that plague excavation work today.
- Professor of anthropology and founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

ow we were able to build things such as pyramids, why egyptian people were buried with valuable goods, how far Phoenicians &amp; vikings were able to to travel and more.

On what is a bigger thread to archaeology: Economic development or looting

How Sarah become an archaeologist, the latest technologies inside of archaeology and her thoughts on what it takes to become one.

Sarah Parcak

What can new technology tell us about our ancient past? Archaeologist and remote sensing expert Sarah Parcak has used satellite imagery to discover over a dozen potential pyramids and thousands of tombs from ancient Egypt. A professor of anthropology and founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Sarah’s work combines technology, historical study, and cultural anthropology to advance discoveries about the past while navigating the political and ethical dilemmas that plague excavation work today. She joined Tyler to discuss what caused the Bronze Age Collapse, how well we understand the level of ancient technologies, what archaeologists may learn from the discovery of more than a hundred coffins at the site of Saqqara, how far the Vikings really traveled, why conservation should be as much of a priority as excavation, the economics of looting networks, the inherently political nature of archaeology, Indiana Jones versus The Dig, her favorite contemporary bluegrass artists, the best archaeological sites to visit around the world, the merits of tools like Google Earth and Lidar, the long list of skills needed to be a modern archaeologist, which countries produce the best amateur space archaeologists, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded February 25th, 2021 Other ways to connect  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Follow Sarah on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.  

What can new technology tell us about our ancient past? Archaeologist and remote sensing expert Sarah Parcak has used satellite imagery to discover over a dozen potential pyramids and thousands of tombs from ancient Egypt. A professor of anthropology and founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Sarah’s work combines technology, historical study, and cultural anthropology to advance discoveries about the past while navigating the political and ethical dilemmas that plague excavation work today. She joined Tyler to discuss what caused the Bronze Age Collapse, how well we understand the level of ancient technologies, what archaeologists may learn from the discovery of more than a hundred coffins at the site of Saqqara, how far the Vikings really traveled, why conservation should be as much of a priority as excavation, the economics of looting networks, the inherently political nature of archaeology, Indiana Jones versus The Dig, her favorite contemporary bluegrass artists, the best archaeological sites to visit around the world, the merits of tools like Google Earth and Lidar, the long list of skills needed to be a modern archaeologist, which countries produce the best amateur space archaeologists, and more. Read a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sarah-parcak/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full transcript</a> enhanced with helpful links, or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKB96if9Jc&amp;list=PLS8aEHTqDvpInY9kslUOOK8Qj_-B91o_W&amp;index=28" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full video</a>. Recorded February 25th, 2021 Other ways to connect <ul> <li>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cowenconvos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/tylercowen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tyler</a> on Twitter </li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/indyfromspace" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sarah</a> on Twitter</li> <li>Email us: <a href="mailto:cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer">cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscribe at our newsletter page</a> to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. </li> </ul>

Sarah Parcak on Archaeology from Space

Take the ancient Egyptians and why they built tombs and put valuable goods into it when people died. For many of us, with our modern mindset, we can't understand why they'd want to do that. But for the ancient Egyptians, their religion was their entire worldview. It's how they interacted with their world. The wind wasn't the wind. It was the god Shu touching them. The Nile wasn't the Nile. It was the god Hapi. So, if we think of their religion, in some ways, as their science and how they understood the changes in the world around them, then, we can being to better understand why they did what they did and why they believed what they believed. They believed that when they died, the things they buried with them, or the spirits within the things they buried, would accompany them to the afterlife. It wasn't just about building a tomb and putting goods in it.

We often view history with our own biases of what we know today, without properly putting ourselves in their shoes.

Sarah says, that's a hard question because there have been a lot of mistakes. I don't know about the biggest mistake. I have my own personal opinion, but I don't speak on behalf of my colleagues for this one. For her, when archaeologists go into the field, they don't pair conservation alongside excavation. In other words, they'll dig, and then whatever they've excavated, they won't protect. So a lot of these amazing discoveries from a long time ago are exposed to the elements, which often tarnishes the discover itself. This is particularly important as our ability to interpret and understand things often depends upon the latest technology we have, so by not preserving the discoveries, we're potentially hindering our ability to further understand things as we have new technology.

When asked about the greatest archaeological mistake?

We see it the  concepts of ownership everywhere in the world. Who came to a place first? Who has the right to be living in this place? Governments will use discoveries from archaeological sites to prove that "Oh, we're older. We're better." Or "This particular religious group was here first. Hence, we have a right to commit these atrocities or erase these peoples." - Particularly with the rise of nationalism. One of the biggest issues with archaeologists is that they have to be really careful, because they're only able to work in places where governments provide permits and permissions. And even after they've made discoveries, there's a whole nother discussion of who owns the rights to the data, as well as intellectual IP that's been made through the discoveries. And often, it's the governments who get to dictate these terms, otherwise you won't have the right to do any of your work.

Archaeology is inherently political by its very nature, because contending and interpreting the past, impacts who we are today.

Can you think of something that you previously dismissed
because you didn't genuinely trying to putting yourself in the shoes of?

“Sarah says: Everyone is born an explorer. We just choose
different things to explore.”

John Cochrane

What unites John Cochrane the finance economist and “grumpy” policy blogger with John Cochrane the accomplished glider pilot? For John, the answer is that each derives from the same habit of mind which seeks to reduce things down to a few fundamental principles and a simple logical structure. And thus, piloting a glider can be understood as an application of optimal portfolio theory, and all of monetary policy can be made to fit within the structure of a single equation. John joined Tyler to apply that habit of mind to a number of puzzles, including why real interest rates don’t equalize across countries, what explains why high trading volumes and active management persist in finance, how the pandemic has affected his opinion of habit formation theories, his fiscal theory of price level and inflation, the danger of a US sovereign debt crisis, why he thinks Bitcoin will eventually die, his idea for health-status insurance, becoming a national gliding champion, how a Renaissance historian for a father and a book translator for a mother shaped him intellectually, what’s causing the leftward drift in economics, the need to increase competition among universities, how he became libertarian, the benefits of blogging, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded January 4th, 2021 Other ways to connect  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Follow John on Twitter Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.  

What unites John Cochrane the finance economist and “grumpy” policy blogger with John Cochrane the accomplished glider pilot? For John, the answer is that each derives from the same habit of mind which seeks to reduce things down to a few fundamental principles and a simple logical structure. And thus, piloting a glider can be understood as an application of optimal portfolio theory, and all of monetary policy can be made to fit within the structure of a single equation. John joined Tyler to apply that habit of mind to a number of puzzles, including why real interest rates don’t equalize across countries, what explains why high trading volumes and active management persist in finance, how the pandemic has affected his opinion of habit formation theories, his fiscal theory of price level and inflation, the danger of a US sovereign debt crisis, why he thinks Bitcoin will eventually die, his idea for health-status insurance, becoming a national gliding champion, how a Renaissance historian for a father and a book translator for a mother shaped him intellectually, what’s causing the leftward drift in economics, the need to increase competition among universities, how he became libertarian, the benefits of blogging, and more. Read a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/john-cochrane/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full transcript</a> enhanced with helpful links, or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgf9vo0PEf4&amp;list=PLS8aEHTqDvpInY9kslUOOK8Qj_-B91o_W&amp;index=29" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full video</a>. Recorded January 4th, 2021 Other ways to connect <ul> <li>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cowenconvos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/tylercowen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tyler</a> on Twitter </li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnHCochrane" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">John</a> on Twitter</li> <li>Email us: <a href="mailto:cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer">cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscribe at our newsletter page</a> to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. </li> </ul>

John Cochrane on Economic Puzzles and Habits of Mind

Which Tyler replied with; But theories make predictions. And then John says: Theories make conditional predictions. Theories make if x happens and you hold everything else constant, then y ought to happen. Economics is awfully bad at making unconditional predictions. John thinks it's a mistake to get into that game, where you say something is going to happen always.

John says: Economists should never make predictions.

John talks about how people like him &amp; Eugene Fama, a Novel Prize winning economist, wouldn't be able to get into economics anymore. Eugene did his internship when he was an undergrad in the steel mills, John himself only applied to be an economics graduate student on a whim one month before es . He says, you can't do that anymore. You have to be deeply ingrained in the system, ing as an undergraduate. Nowadays, it's harder to get into certain fields unless you early on, whilst previously, there was much more freewheeling.

One of the major changes of our time is the hyper-specialization of people in certain industries.

A nonprofit or government owned enterprise, is protected from the market for corporate control. If Stanford University or a hospital, is screwing up, you can't just buy up all the shares, kick out the management, and improve it. An example inside of healthcare would be how they've just recently said hospitals have to disclose prices. Which is a big red flag of a horribly uncompetitive business. If an airline tried to not disclose prices until you get off the plane or finished using the product, it'd be bankrupt because nobody would fly it, but that's unfortunately what's happening in our healthcare system.

John believes, one of the biggest issues in industries such as universities and health care, is a lack of competition.

Can you think of something where competition has helped or
something that needs more competition?

“John says: I have a hard time figuring out what I
think is right, let alone why other people get things wrong. Looking into
people’s heads is another bad intellectual habit.”

Historian of science at Cambridge University. 
- Author of Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career. 
- She's also well known for her writings on women in science, and portraiture and art in the history of science.

On Isaac Newton; How he died rich, leaving Cambridge to work at The Royal Mint, etc

How Patricia doesn't think there was a scientific revolution &amp; trying to get away from a Eurocentric view on the history of science.

Why some scientific discoveries took so long; such as Darwin's theory of evolution.

Patricia Fara

Patricia Fara is a historian of science at Cambridge University and well-known for her writings on women in science. Her forthcoming book,  Life After Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career, details the life of the titan of the so-called Scientific Revolution after his famous (though perhaps mythological) discovery under the apple tree. Her work emphasizes science as a long, continuous process composed of incremental contributions–in which women throughout history have taken a crucial part–rather than the sole province of a few monolithic innovators. Patricia joined Tyler to discuss why Newton left Cambridge to run The Royal Mint, why he was so productive during the Great Plague,  why the “Scientific Revolution” should instead be understood as a gradual process, what the Antikythera device tells us about science in the ancient world, the influence of Erasmus Darwin on his grandson, why more people should know Dorothy Hodgkin, how George Eliot inspired her to commit unhistoric acts, why she opposes any kind of sex-segregated schooling, her early experience in a startup, what modern students of science can learn from studying Renaissance art, the reasons she considers Madame Lavoisier to be the greatest female science illustrator, the unusual work habit brought to her attention by house guests, the book of caricatures she’d like to write next, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded January 15th, 2021 Other ways to connect  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Follow Tyler on Twitter  Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.  

Patricia Fara is a historian of science at Cambridge University and well-known for her writings on women in science. Her forthcoming book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-after-Gravity-Newtons-London/dp/0198841027" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Life After Gravity: Isaac Newton's London Career</a>, details the life of the titan of the so-called Scientific Revolution after his famous (though perhaps mythological) discovery under the apple tree. Her work emphasizes science as a long, continuous process composed of incremental contributions–in which women throughout history have taken a crucial part–rather than the sole province of a few monolithic innovators. Patricia joined Tyler to discuss why Newton left Cambridge to run The Royal Mint, why he was so productive during the Great Plague,  why the “Scientific Revolution” should instead be understood as a gradual process, what the Antikythera device tells us about science in the ancient world, the influence of Erasmus Darwin on his grandson, why more people should know Dorothy Hodgkin, how George Eliot inspired her to commit unhistoric acts, why she opposes any kind of sex-segregated schooling, her early experience in a startup, what modern students of science can learn from studying Renaissance art, the reasons she considers Madame Lavoisier to be the greatest female science illustrator, the unusual work habit brought to her attention by house guests, the book of caricatures she’d like to write next, and more. Read a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/patricia-fara/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full transcript</a> enhanced with helpful links, or watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRqbDFpeAI&amp;list=PLS8aEHTqDvpInY9kslUOOK8Qj_-B91o_W&amp;index=30" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full video</a>. Recorded January 15th, 2021 Other ways to connect <ul> <li>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cowenconvos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li> <li>Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/tylercowen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tyler</a> on Twitter </li> <li>Email us: <a href="mailto:cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer">cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscribe at our newsletter page</a> to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox. </li> </ul>

Patricia Fara on Newton, Scientific Progress, and the Benefits of Unhistoric Acts

Patricia talks about how she'd like to make history of science compulsory for all science students. She says one thing that they learn are the debates of the past. A lot of the ethical considerations involved in previous debates are still very relevant. What historians of science do is argue and interpret and find ways of expressing their own points of view. We teach science students how to write essays, how to present their own position. These are skills that everybody is going to need. And finally, by learning about the history, the students themselves have an opportunity to argue and to express their own ideas and think for themselves, and compare that to people of the past to understand their differences.

Learning about the history of a discipline is something that all students should do.

Of course there are individuals, like Newton and Einstein, who made great discoveries, but what was really important, was the translations and explanations&nbsp;of their ideas and those that came before them, were things that a greater audience of people could understand. Patricia thinks of science as being continuous, not as a range of mountain peaks with individual geniuses standing on top of them. Women played a very important role in this, because the teaching, illustrating, editing, collecting different specimens are all absolutely crucial to progress. Science is about collaboration. It's about cooperation, standing&nbsp;on the shoulders of those that came before us.

Science is part making great discoveries, part communicating the ideas to others.

Many types of information are better communicated visually. Patricia says in teaching, particularly if it's the beginning of the academic year and you've got a group of nervous students, that don't want to embarrass themselves in front of the other students. If you show them a picture, everybody can say something about a picture. They can say, "Well, that's a man and a woman sitting at a table." A picture can often be more easily interpretable, and by using a picture, you encourage people to more easily explore the ideas together.

A picture can be worth 1,000s of words.

Can you think of some more unhistoric acts, or big impact
acts on individuals that you could do more of?

“Patricia says: Unhistoric acts, big impact on individuals
can be more rewarding than historic acts of smaller impact on many people.”