The Day the Universe Changed: A Personal View by James Burke is a television documentary series produced by the BBC in 1985, written, produced and hosted by science historian James Burke. Its theme is the social impact of the development of science and technology. It was televised from 19 March to 21 May 1985. Although I saw some episodes that year, I am now trying to watch all the episodes (the first one can be seen here).
Yes: Burke is a normie. Although he is a secular humanist, he ignores some chapters of Christianity’s criminal history and, naturally, he also ignores race realism. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how science didn’t accept meteorites for a long time because it seemed absurd to think of stones falling from the sky. In another episode, he used Galileo’s paradigm to illustrate a great truth: ‘Experimentation itself depends on what’s official and what’s not’. Later he says: ‘Today’s version of the truth about the world is irreconcilable with the previous version’.
The big mistake of the proponents of race realism in the US is that it is impossible to convince Christians or atheistic neochristians of the goodness of scientific racism without first transvaluing their values. Whatever Burke’s limitations, his thesis is fascinating for understanding the fool’s errand if we limit ourselves with the tools of science to attack a medieval mindset.
Despite technological developments, the Christian mindset from which atheists still suffer is basically medieval. Think for example of how Charles Darwin predicted the extinction of the Negroes because he believed that the white man of the future would think in exclusively scientific terms. What happened was the diametrically opposite because of the absolute DOMINION of Christian morality in today’s secular world (those who haven’t read Tom Holland’s book by that title should read it now).
Although I might add something in the comments section in case there is something important to say about the next episodes, I would like to end this short entry with some words from Burke taken from that TV series: ‘The so-called voyage of discovery has as often as not made landfall for reasons little to do with the search of knowledge. Science, like all other human activities, is a product of what society at the time thinks it is important’ (emphasis added).
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In episode 8, several seconds after the 34 minute mark, Burke talks about social Darwinism. He mentions Himmler; Hitler speaking at Nuremberg and, after rephrasing a 19th century German social scientist who influenced both, Burke uses these words: ‘…all this 19th century pseudo-scientific garbage starts to become familiar?’
He then talks about the American version of social Darwinism: not based on race but on individualism and capital. Later he talks about Lenin and the revolution he started.
Yes… As far as race is concerned, Burke is a pseudo-scientific neochristian. He is unable to see that of these three worldviews, only the one based on race was the scientific one (Englishmen like him embraced the pseudo-scientific liberal worldview).