Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 14, 2024

Very true, Professor Frazier!

Giants are taller today because they are standing on the shoulders of all those previous giants.

A proper giant would boost me up onto his shoulders, doncha think?

PS: That’s what an education is, really.

Certain people are dumb because they don’t learn what others have done.

Edwin Frazier is amazing?

It’s hard to climb up on the shoulders of giants if others are trying to keep you down.

You need to find your giant first – then figure out how to get on to their shoulder, and stay long enough to be able to achieve even bigger things.

Let’s be fair, as individuals we haven’t changed much, but our scientific knowledge as a whole has come a long way since Newton.

Even when you’re standing on the shoulders of giants, you still have to think for yourself.

Must’ve been exhilarating to stand atop Andre the Giant!

Because a lot of us think ‘giant’ is a lifestyle choice!

Another bad assumption. Had nothing to do with being smart, it was why he was able to accomplish so much (in addition to being smart).

First you have to admit you are in a position of inferiority.

Half of all people are dumber and average. And average ain’t any great shakes, neither.

Piggyback rides for all!

Newton is quoted by many as the greatest scientist of all times and I would agree. The man retired for a few months and developed differential calculus in order to develop what we still teach is schools today as Newtonian physics. That said, he was a very disturbed and disagreeable man. I wouldn’t want to live in a society where his type was the “average”. One in a billion will do me just fine.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” (Isaac Newton)

1) Not all giants are alike. Consider Goliath, for instance.

2) How many “giants” have you seen, lately?

Had a flash of the blindingly obvious while half asleep. When fully awake it doesn’t seem all that insightful.

As babies, toddlers, children and even adolescents, we are learning all the time, and frequently have to unlearn things we thought we had figured out because our reasonable (or unreasonable) guess turned out to be wrong. Not so much after age 25 or so.

Unlearning is a skill we tend to lose over time, because we don’t need it as much in our daily lives.

Which is unfortunate, because some of the things we learn after puberty — and become emotionally attached to, or make part of our identity — turn out to be wrong. And we no longer have much of that unlearning skill.

That’s why smart grownups with access to the same information can disagree about things. One — maybe both — of the people disagreeing are wrong. And neither is apt to change their minds.

Don’t forget willful ignorance

Oddly, giants are huge but difficult to spot.

Reaching the shoulders of giants takes time, effort, and thought. If you get there, you need ideas and inspirations to maintain your perspective.

Caulfield has it right. So many who had the opportunity to reach that height seem to fall under the influence of those whose loud voices and nearly insane behavior make it seem as if only they are entitled to hold that space.

Too much time on their “smart” phones. Egad! In my day, it was too much time watching TV.

i like his figs

Finding the right giant is the trick. Also ensuring it’s really a giant and not some blowhard standing on a ladder.

It’s much easier to just knock the Giants down.

You have to actually listen and learn from them.

Newton was also a fairly petty, nasty man, and the comment about standing on the shoulders of giants was largely a dig at his contemporary rival Robert Hooke, who was supposedly a small man “of meagre aspect”. (He also executed counterfeiters during his tenure as head of the Royal Mint, and probably died a virgin. He wasn’t nice. At all.)

Beautifully put and so true!

Acrophobia factors in.

The shoulders of the giants at the bottom must be getting really sore by now.

Newton didn’t get smart by standing on Galileo’s shoulders. He was smart before that. What he did was accomplish things by building on what Galileo had already done. The distinction is kind of like the reverse of the one between ignorance and stupidity.

Scrambling while you’re being pushed off, knocked down and yelled at by people who want you to fail. And Pray that those people aren’t your parents, teachers or (FAKE) ‘pastors’.

Happy Pi Day!!

One word: pride.

Newton was very smart. He invented the cat door. And calculus.

And, of course, by “so many of us” he means “everyone but me.”

Fun fact: that quote was partially a dig at Newton’s rival, Leibnitz, who was apparently a short fellow.