Ada Palmer

There's got to be a difference in intellectual culture as a result of taking these things, teaching the equivalent of the Bible.

Totally different topic, but around this time... Okay, not around the time of Fetrock.

I know we're jumping around a lot, but...

In 1492, Columbus comes to the New World.

They discover the New World.

What is the reception of this news?

But they're rediscovering the new world.

And is it... I mean, today, would it be the equivalent of we just found there's aliens?

Or why wasn't it more... To the extent it wasn't, why wasn't it considered a more significant... Like, this is the main thing happening right now.

We've discovered the new world.

That's a very profound observation.

It was really interesting to learn from your book that of all the thousands of people killed during the Inquisition, one guy was executed for atheism?

I recently got interested in the story of Kepler, just because the way he discovers the laws of planetary motion is so whimsical with the theory of platonic objects.

Anyway, so I was learning more about it.

At some point while he's going through Brahe's data and coming up with the laws of planetary motion,

He is the imperial mathematician for the Habsburg emperor, which basically means that he's doing astronomy and astrology for generals.

Will we win the battle or whatever?

And then he gets excommunicated, not for the laws of planetary motion, but because he's a Lutheran.

And in fact, his mother has tried for witchcraft.

Again, has nothing to do with the science, just because she's also a Lutheran.