Miranda Devine, rare books, Charles Darwin, recalcitrant scientists and books on the intertubes

(Above: Sam and Ralph, not so much standing on the shoulders of giants as adopting handy forms of clothing).

The Gutenberg bible is generally held to be the start of the Gutenberg revolution and the age of the printed book (yes I lifted that from here), but one of the more interesting aspects of its publication was Gutenberg's desire to replicate the old way books looked, by doing a print run on vellum.

Too many cows would have died to have achieved that vision (170 calves dead per bible) and a desire to save paper also led to re-setting to 42 lines per page.

These days only 21 complete Gutenberg bibles exist in physical form, but if you like, you can view a copy or even make a comparison copies online - for example at the British library here.

What was once only a rich collector's experience (or someone with a high class library reader's card) is now virtually available on the tubes at the click of a mouse.

Of course thanks in part to Gutenberg's trail-blazing ways, in most motels in the United States, and even Australia, you can find a copy of the bible - mostly unread or ignored - tucked into a bedside drawer. But these days you can carry it with you in a portable reader, or reference it on the tubes via the ether.

Which raises a question - is the knowledge, the information, inside the book made any the more relevant, accessible and informative by having it in the form of a rare book, or is a Penguin reprint just as meaningful?

Well like any primary source, a book speaks of the time it was made and the people who made it, and bibliophilia is a pleasant enough occupation, especially if it involves rare works like Shakespeare's quartos (and naturally enough there's any number of these volumes now available for viewing online, as here, and while the experience isn't the same as handling the real thing, it sure beats the dubious joys of microfiche).

But even taking a look at Shakespeare in original form is for the most part a novelty, unless you happen to be a scholar. It's just as easy to get Shakespeare in any modern edition, paperback for convenience.

Or you might head off to Project Gutenberg and get a free ebook version, along with lots of other works, available in the public domain, having at last escaped the clutches of copyright (here for the Australian edition and here for the international site). Unfortunately the older editions of classic works often feature old fashioned translations or fail to reflect the latest editorial scholarship, but hey, it's hard to argue with free as a concept.

The site's an admirable and voluntary effort to provide some 30,000 items in open formats available for anyone to read, and without the commercial and monopolistic agenda of Google's attempt to control the virtual world of ebooks (you can read Project Gutenberg's history here).

Back in the real world, there's a lot of mystical mumbo jumbo talked about when it comes to the physical possession of books, as if possessing the physical thing somehow imbues you with the ideas contained therein, the vibe floating through the ether. That kind of thinking reminds me of Godard's Le Petit Soldat, where a couple of soldiers return from the war clutching trophies - pictures of treasures, as if they were the treasures themselves. Book as symbol is not the same as book as container for content.

Actually it's usually a lot easier to read older texts in modern editions - especially those that were handwritten, or thofe inclined to whack a large s into the text af a way of writing a small 's', which for all the world looks like a large 'f' (and if you have a fetish for the letter 'f', why not indulge it here). The spelling's also a bugger and a tad too free form for me, until the immortal Dr.Johnson came along and imposed a little Augustan discipline.

And these days if you want to do a quick check, the power of immediate digital referencing - of text search - whether online or through a pdf is truly a marvel.

My ambivalence about the rare book trade is roughly equivalent to my lack of interest in the art market. Ideas tend to get trumped by monetary values - a book's worth two million or eight million, but not because of the ideas or the content within, but because of the container's rarity.

The same disease affects the art market, and the only refuge is the public gallery or the public library, with the private speculator taking things off to their lair so they can slobber over their hoard, and wait the moment to re-sell when the market hits another high. The sight of the Nazis aggregating art treasures which had no meaning to them except as loot is just Le Petit Soldat writ tragically large. Physical rarity isn't a particularly deep value, except as an indication of the way we fail to save the past, and only a few objects manage to survive the depredations of time.

But the desire to worship at the altar of knowledge by using a rare book as a token is common enough and given this kind of expression:

There's something about books that brings out the best in people, a reverence for knowledge, sharing ideas, and tangible acknowledgment of the worth of other minds.

Yes, we're off in the peculiar world of Miranda the Devine, and this week she's Standing on shoulders of giants.

Most of the piece is a look at the rare book collection held in the Fisher Library, including a showing of the library's scientific works. Nothing wrong with that. The Devine lathers herself up into a fine old worshipping of an edition of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, a Venetian printing of Euclid and a first edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.

She almost sounds rational, chortles along at the feud between Newton and Robert Hooke, then happily dwells on a book about the impact of the bubonic plague in the seventeenth century.

To touch these books is the closest thing to being transported back in time, a tangible reminder that our knowledge has been achieved incrementally, by standing on the shoulders of giants - both intellectual and moral.

Well I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to see what Devine thought of the state of science as she worshipped the rare books produced by dead scientists, so I went back to the future and took a look at Geeks in white coats shall inherit the earth.

Environmentalism is the powerful new secular religion and politically correct scientists are its high priests, rescuing the planet from the apocalypse of climate change, as the Doomsday clock ticks down. Kyoto is the Promised Land and Bush/Howard/capitalism/industry/farmers are Satan.

Perth exploration geologist Louis Hissink suspects "politicised science has replaced religion as the arbiter of human affairs ... priesthoods of both organisations are concerned with what happens in the future and that current behaviour is thought to affect that future, hence it needs to be proscribed and prescribed".

It used to be men in purple robes who controlled us. Soon it will be men in white lab coats. The geeks shall inherit the earth.

Ah that feels better. The geeks shall inherit the earth! Come on down Darwin, time to finally collect your inheritance from the Devine.

Now as for creationism, my personal feeling is that it's entirely reasonable to discuss the issue and teach the controversy and not feel uncomfortable if intelligent design or its alter ego creationism turns up in the classroom. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum, but we shouldn't be afraid of information or alternative science with a valid point of view to that of Darwin's - you know, like god creating the earth in seven days (here).

And don't get me started on DDT or greenies or any other loopy scientific theory I might throw into the debate, because it's all just issue based and problem solving.

And at least we now know, thanks to the Devine, that the internet, rather than being a scientific marvel, contains the seeds of our destruction:

Even though the internet is an infinite virtual library, there is nothing like handling the real thing to give you the nuance of author personality.

Huh? Say what? Gobsmack me put the chewing gum on the bedpost overnight.

The intertubes have some uses? That can't be right. Quick, rewind and rewind fast, to just a few days ago:

Perhaps the mass decline of common sense is the inevitable result of what Susan Greenfield, a British neuroscientist, says is the altered brain architecture of a couple of generations of people reared on technology rather than real-life experience.

If common sense is the accumulation of millions of real world experiences and the amalgamated sensory input from our environment, then no wonder people habituated to a two-dimensional virtual world without physical consequences seem increasingly to be so clueless. (here).

Ah that feels much better. The intertubes is an infinite virtual library which is making us increasingly clueless. So we end up calling a finite thing infinite.

I was wondering where the worship of the two dimensional virtual world without physical consequences - you know, the world of the book - was taking us, and now we've arrived, back where we started.

Yep, back in the good old days, if you worshipped books, you were a book worm, a stick in the mud who likely didn't play sports or have a healthy outlook on life, wasn't a team player but a solitary figure with your nose always stuck in a book. No good would come of it, and it was a sure explanation for an inability to mingle with the opposite sex, and the likely cause of braces and pimples, and quite possibly a flat chest.

Not that I'm bitter. I just liked reading, and as a recovering bibliphile, now only have to worry about whether the number of books in the house will cause the foundations to shift. Fortunately none of them are worth anything more than words and ideas they contain. And even better these days there's a lot more books on the intertubes, in a much more compact form.

Meantime, what have we learned? Well it seems that on Saturdays, the Devine is now trying to be meek and mild, and nice about things, like books and knowledge and scientists.

But as you read, just remember that when a wolf turns up in sheep's clothing, they don't always come to praise science, not when they can make off with a lamb chop or two ...

(Below: the book itself, or the words it contains?)