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when you think about it tho pliny the elder is kind of the funniest guy in the world like. he wrote all these books about natural history that he was wrong about where he confidently claims things like “some animals only have blood during certain parts of the year” and then when mt. vesuvius erupted and destroyed pompeii and herculaneum he said “oh mt vesuvius is exploding? let me go check it out” and then he died
the man was committed to science. he wasn’t very good at it. but he was committed
I will not hear this SLANDER against Pliny the Elder.
Just as the truth of any individual skill is “dude, sucking at something is the first step to being kind of good at something,” this is also true of disciplines writ large. Pliny the Elder was one of the first natural scientists and OF FUCKING COURSE he was bad at it! There was no set process in place time-tested over the centuries yet! HE WAS ONE OF THE PEOPLE CREATING THE PROCESSES!
It’s easy for you to sit here in a post-Mendel world and rank on Pliny the Elder, but he was out there at least TRYING to understand, even if incompletely. Can you say the same?
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