Who ate his words when quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, particles physics, genetics, etc, came a few years round the corner.
Those were all rediscovered already by the time Lord Kelvin was born.
"We get a sense that the significance of [Laird] Scranton's work, he is showing that, he is showing in a way that's practically incontrovertible, that the ancients had our science." -- John A. West, egyptologist, December 2003
Quantum Mechanics
"Democritus [said], that there is but one sort of motion, and it is that which is vibratory." -- Plutarch, historian, 1st century
Nuclear Physics
"At least those atoms whence derives their power
To throw forth fire and send out light from under
To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide."
-- T. Lucretius Carus, philosopher poet, 54 B.C.
"... if one must believe Poseidonius, the ancient dogma about atoms originated with Mochus, a Sidonian, born before the Trojan times. However, let us dismiss things ancient." -- Strabo, geographer, 7
Particle Physics
"... his [Democritus's] ... atoms are infinite in number ... and [he] compares them to the motes of air which we see in shafts of light coming through windows ...." -- Aristotle, philosopher, On the Soul, 350 B.C.
Genetics
"... it is not any chance thing that comes from a given seed but an olive from one kind and a man from another ...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.
"Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that many of the characters presented by animals were merely the result of incidental occurrences during their development; for instance, that the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it happened to be broken owing to the contorted position of the foetus in the womb. In so saying he overlooked the fact that propogation implies a creative seed endowed with certain formative properties. Secondly, he neglected another fact, namely, that the parent animal pre-exists, not only in idea, but actually in time. For man is generated from man; and thus it is the possession of certain characters by the parent that determines the development of like characters in the child." -- Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, Book I, 350 B.C.
"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Isaac Newton, 1676.
Prisca sapientia ftw.
"This question of measurement is only one example of Newton's faith in the prisca sapientia of Ancient Egypt. He was also convinced that atomic theory, heliocentricity and gravitation had been known there [See McGuire and Rattansi (1966, p. 110)]." -- Martin Bernal, historian, 1987
My quotation is older, do I win? Ah, but wait, I didn't quote mine or cherry-pick out-of-context quotes, darn...
You cherry picked your quote out of context.
