Friday
Nov272009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Nullius in verba
Nov 27, 2009 Climate In view of the Royal Society angle on the last two posts, I was very amused by the comments of reader MikeE, who opined that the society's motto of "Nullius in verba" must mean "nothing in writing". :-)
Reader Comments (14)
:D
Awesome!
Solus profundum variat
It actually means "take nobody's word for it" - ie, look at the evidence yourself rather than relying on an appeal to authority. It's a pity they haven't followed their own advice in this case.
http://royalsociety.org/Nullius-in-verba/
Is this a case of hiding the declensions?
:-)
None of them can read Latin anymore!
For you Mr. Bishop: Ab asino lanam quaeris!
The atrocious Bob May, the previous president of the Royal Society, tried to retranslate "Nullius in verba" from "On nobody's word" to "Respect the facts".
The idea being, of course, that the facts were whatever he told you they were.
I think it does, actually - taken literally. Amusingly appropriate.
The original is "Nullius addictus judicare in verba magistri" - Not compelled to swear to any master's words. Horace, via Wikipedia.
Sona si Latine loqueris.
I would not so harshly judge the Royal Society. They were, after all, the ones who forced Briffa to release his data where "the magic treemometer" was discovered by enforcing their own strict data archiving requirements over Briffa's objections.
Crosspatch
Fair point. I've often wondered if the Phil Trans B were operating at arms length from the Society, or if the RS just felt it couldn't allow Briffa to get away with it for the sake of their own reputation.
Ignotum per ignotius
I don't think that society can be explain with two Latin words. We commented something similar in
pharmacy escrow forum and we realized after so much deliberation that it is something even more complex.