From jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Sat May 20 19:59:33 2000 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id TAA55454 for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 19:59:33 -0700 Received: from ccat.sas.upenn.edu (CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU [165.123.88.70]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id TAA21892 for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 19:59:32 -0700 Received: (from jod@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA25021 for classics@u.washington.edu; Sat, 20 May 2000 22:52:43 -0400 (EDT) From: jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (James J. O'Donnell) Message-Id: <200005210252.WAA25021@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> Subject: Re: 6th century catastrophe (was: Hermann the German) To: classics@u.washington.edu Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 22:52:43 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: from "James M. Pfundstein" at May 20, 2000 07:25:10 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn3.3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We had a thread on this back in about January/February when I asked for advice, having been asked to review the script. I was not happy with what they sent me and told them so. I believe the words "trash science" may have appeared in what I wrote them. This is not to say that the programs don't contain science or raise interesting questions, but the fundamental function of science is to make discourse transparent and public and open to critical discussion and evaluation, and there was no sign that anyone associated with the program had ever thought of that. Jim O'Donnell Classics, U. of Penn jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu James M. Pfundstein wrote: > > At 10:40 AM -0400 5/20/2000, P. T. Rourke wrote (in part-- only in part): > > >BTW, has anyone seen the piece on PBS theorizing that an astronomical (I > >didn't see the beginning) event in 535? ad in effect "created" the medieval > >world? There was a LOT of fudging of dates,* so that the fall of Rome seems > >at times to have taken place in the sixth century, and the rise of the > >Saxons, and the coming of Islam. In other words, the program cut a wide > >swath of over 300 years (150 on either side) of time and tried to relate > >every event of significance in that period to the 535? ad "event." Yes, I'm > >getting the date wrong, as I didn't take notes. I will next time I see it. > > I saw part of this, I think-- "Catastrophe!", a double epidose of *Secrets > of the Dead*. (I meant to type "episode" above, but let it stand.... My > keyboard may be on to something.) They did speculate on the possibility of > a cosmic collision (asteroid or comet) causing a short-term climate change > in the range of 530-540 AD. But this was eventually dismissed (not nearly > fast enough) in favor of a massive volcanic eruption. (Krakatoa was > fingered as a possible culprit, on evidence that seemed to be a little thin > to me.) > > There was some dendrochronological evidence produced to support the notion > of short-term but dramatic cooling, worldwide. (It was a little sketchy, > and they tended to skip over the problems of coordinating evidence of this > type.) I didn't see the second half, which apparently where most of the > historical stuff came in. But I got the impression that the Roman Empire > they were talking about was Justinian's, and that they were going to trace > the beginning of the "dark ages" from J.'s unsuccessful reconquest of the > western empire (just as in that standard historical text, L. Sprague > DeCamp's *Lest Darkness Fall*). > > What impressed me most, I'm afraid, were the scary series credits, with > their agitated graphics-- take equal parts "Count Floyd's Spooky Stories", > various ads for the video game "MedEvil", a dash of "Blair Witch Project", > stir vigorously. > > JMP("Phantasma") > > > .