Check it: history or mystery

As much as anyone else, scientists and other academics love a good story. I like a good story. But should we let a good story interfere with the true story surrounding something or someone?

In "History: Great myths die hard", Héloïse D. Dufour and Sean B. Carroll use specific examples from the lives of Louis Pasteur and Ian Fleming to argue that very real harm is done to both the scientific and wider community and to students of science and medicine when the natural human desire for an inspiring story is allowed to twist historical reality (2013). This harm consists not only of false views both of what science and scientists can do, but warps our "understanding of the pace and complexity of science" (2013, Myth Busting section, para. 1). The authors document how the desire for a heroic story can combine with poor academic standards to give birth to myths which might well be moving, but which are also false. Dufour and Carroll emphasize that their examples show that "storytellers — journalists, authors, film-makers, scientists and educators — need to be vigilant when it comes to their sources" (Myth Busting section, para. 2).

I didn't include it in my summary, but Dufour and Carroll also make largely positive comments on the use of Wikipedia, with which I agree. Wikipedia is a great place to start researching on a topic, and if it's a good article, everything is supported by citing primary or at least secondary sources. The articles that do not do this are likely garbage and best not trusted too much. The Wikipedia article on Pythagoras is a good example of high academic standards: when the anonymous Wikipedia editor writes that "there is disagreement among the biographers as to whether Pythagoras forbade all animal food,³⁹ or only certain types,⁴⁰" (Pythagoras, 2013, Life section, para. 8) the two footnotes are to the best sources we have: the classical texts by Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, who I've also cited in an earlier comment. These are secondary sources since Aristotle and Laertius were writing centuries later and reported what earlier writers had said about Pythagoras and his ideas on eating meat. We do not today have any primary source by Pythagoras or anyone who knew him.

In contrast to the high academic standards of honesty and checking in the Wikipedia article, we see Sari Kamin writing in the popular Huffington Post that Pythagoras is a famous vegetarian (2013). I guess that Kamin is just an incompetent fool rather than a liar, but neither foolish incompetence nor lying make for a good reputation. And Kamin is very honest about her source for the unsupported and unsupportable claim that Pythagoras was a vegetarian: she got it from a book by Rynn Berry. But she did not check this claim by Berry, whose book is likely a tertiary source, or something even worse, that is, based on what someone else said that someone else said that someone said. If Berry put this claim about Pythagoras in the book, then I think that makes Berry dishonest and not to be trusted. Perhaps he really believes what he says, but if so he is an incompetent and unreliable fool. I think it's more likely that he is a liar - it's hard to believe that he wrote a book and didn't do any research at all to uncover a more accurate view of Pythagoras, but perhaps he blindly trusted someone as untrustworthy as himself. And then Kamin trusted him because he seemed to be supporting the vegetarianism that she favours as much as he does - and that makes her and all her other claims about vegetarianism look doubtful.

Another pro-vegetarian website that is garbage is Happy Cow, whose unknown author also repeats the claim that "Pythagoras of Samos was a vegetarian Greek philosopher/mathematician who discovered the Pythagorean Theory" (n.d., para. 1). Again, making this unsupportable claim does not help the vegetarian cause - it just makes the supporters look unreliable and dishonest.

Stephen Law is much more careful in his statements and in his use of sources, and gives a far more solid argument in favour of vegetarianism.

Mysterious myths might be more exciting, but seeking and telling truth is the business of academic work, even though it also takes more effort than just making something up or repeating what sounds good, however  pleasing or popular the myth might be.

__________

Reference

Dufour, H. D., & Carroll, S. B. (2013, October 2). History: Great myths die hard. Nature. Retrieved October 6, 2013 from http://www.nature.com/news/history-great-myths-die-hard-1.13839

Kamin, S. (2013, April 29). Pythagoras' other theorem: A short history of vegetarianism. Huffington Post, Huffpost Taste. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heritage-radio-network/history-of-vegetarianism_b_3164074.html

Pythagoras. (2013, September 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:36, October 6, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pythagoras&oldid=574764061

Pythagoras of Samos. (n.d.). Retrieved from Happy Cow website : http://www.happycow.net/famous/pythagoras_of_samos/