{"id":502,"date":"2011-01-19T10:54:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T10:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/?p=502"},"modified":"2011-01-19T11:47:12","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T11:47:12","slug":"on-holding-back-the-tide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2011\/01\/19\/on-holding-back-the-tide\/","title":{"rendered":"On holding back the tide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the Roman Catholic feast day for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Canute_IV_of_Denmark\">Canute IV<\/a>, also known as Canute the Holy. This cove is not to be confused with Canute II, aka <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cnut_the_Great\">Cnut the Great<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Cnut the Great who, according to legend, famously failed to hold back the incoming tide at Bosham.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=bosham&amp;sll=50.864911,-0.724068&amp;sspn=167.639474,150.46875&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Bosham,+Chichester,+West+Sussex,+United+Kingdom&amp;ll=50.833698,-0.846291&amp;spn=0.053558,0.086174&amp;z=12&amp;iwloc=A&amp;output=embed\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=bosham&amp;sll=50.864911,-0.724068&amp;sspn=167.639474,150.46875&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Bosham,+Chichester,+West+Sussex,+United+Kingdom&amp;ll=50.833698,-0.846291&amp;spn=0.053558,0.086174&amp;z=12&amp;iwloc=A\" style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:left\">Bosham, yesterday<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>The story goes that his sycophantic courtiers thought of Cnut as all-powerful, and Cnut decided to demonstrate the absurdity of that position by showing that he couldn&#8217;t hold back the tide.<\/p>\n<p>I see a parallel with what many science writers and science communicators are trying to do. If there is a sea of (honest) ignorance (and yes, mixed through stupidity and sheer boneheadedness) out there, these people try to hold it back. Yes, I&#8217;m thinking of our apparently futile fight against homeopathy, anti-vaxxers, and the like.<\/p>\n<p>We can also note that Cnut the Great successfully ruled over a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viking.no\/e\/people\/e-knud.htm\">united and peaceful England<\/a>, also protecting the kingdom against Viking raids. So maybe there&#8217;s a parallel there too, something to which we can aspire.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s for these reasons that I propose science writers and communicators adopt Cnut the Great as their &#8216;patron saint&#8217; (or &#8216;mascot&#8217;, if you prefer). <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:KnutBig.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Big Cnut\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/2\/22\/KnutBig.jpg\" title=\"Big Cnut\" class=\"alignnone\" width=\"300\" height=\"278\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Holding back the tide of ignorance for 1000 years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>(Note: this is written tongue-in-cheek, in case it wasn&#8217;t obvious. It was inspired by realizing that the anti-vaxxers had found a Certain Post elsewhere. And thanks to JJS for proof-reading.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the Roman Catholic feast day for Canute IV, also known as Canute the Holy. This cove is not to be confused with Canute II, aka Cnut the Great. It&#8217;s Cnut the Great who, according to legend, famously failed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2011\/01\/19\/on-holding-back-the-tide\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[74,71,70,75,72,73],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-engagement","tag-bloody-vikings","tag-canute","tag-cnut","tag-holding-back-the-tide-of-ignorance-for-1000-years","tag-science-communication","tag-science-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}