Riding the dinosaurs to church
One
often hears even educated people claim that in the past, people
believed that Earth is flat. An even stupider continuation is that
Columbus somehow "proved" that Earth is round even though the naysayers
predicted that he would fall off the edge of the Earth. This is sheer
rubbish and nonsense, of course: since antiquity, every serious person
with even a modicum of education knew perfectly well that Earth was
round. Ancient Greeks could even estimate the size of Earth with clever
geometric (heh) calculations. In later ages, the Catholic Church had no
problem with Earth being round, sphere being the shape of perfection
and all that, but the relevant question was the location of Earth in
the larger Universe.
Another similar modern delusion is the idea that "cavemen" existed in prehistoric times. Everybody can imagine the cartoonish caveman family with their thick eyebrows, dressed in furs and carrying big stone clubs, and project their favourite values onto them. But again, your basic common sense should immediately tell you that this is nonsense. For starters, how many habitable caves are there in the state that you live in? I sure can't name any around here. Sure, there are some, but they are so rare that they are tourist attractions. And most certainly there are very few caves that would be anything like those depicted in Star Trek episodes: flat floor, plenty of headroom, and self-illuminating walls. If the human population had to live in naturally occurring caves, we would have to be very sparse in number and habitation.
Primitive people still exist today, and we can see that they don't live in caves. And why the heck would they? All primitive people know perfectly well how to build some kind of overground shelter that is far more convenient and comfortable than any cave you could possibly find. Chimpanzees and other great apes are even more primitive than the most primitive humans, and they don't live in caves either. So what possible reason do we have to assume that prehistoric people lived in caves? This is probably because the only thing that remains of them today are their cave paintings, since everything that they did aboveground (with the exception of stone tools) has been ground to dust a long time ago. There is the popular idea that the world was more cavernous and volcanic in the past, but this delusion has thoroughly confused the geological and human evolution time scales.
So it's pretty funny that in one relatively recent Simpsons episode, Ned Flanders compared himself to a caveman and then sternly said that cavemen didn't exist. This was meant as a creationism joke, of course, but he was perfectly right. I wonder if this was intentional from the writers.
Another similar modern delusion is the idea that "cavemen" existed in prehistoric times. Everybody can imagine the cartoonish caveman family with their thick eyebrows, dressed in furs and carrying big stone clubs, and project their favourite values onto them. But again, your basic common sense should immediately tell you that this is nonsense. For starters, how many habitable caves are there in the state that you live in? I sure can't name any around here. Sure, there are some, but they are so rare that they are tourist attractions. And most certainly there are very few caves that would be anything like those depicted in Star Trek episodes: flat floor, plenty of headroom, and self-illuminating walls. If the human population had to live in naturally occurring caves, we would have to be very sparse in number and habitation.
Primitive people still exist today, and we can see that they don't live in caves. And why the heck would they? All primitive people know perfectly well how to build some kind of overground shelter that is far more convenient and comfortable than any cave you could possibly find. Chimpanzees and other great apes are even more primitive than the most primitive humans, and they don't live in caves either. So what possible reason do we have to assume that prehistoric people lived in caves? This is probably because the only thing that remains of them today are their cave paintings, since everything that they did aboveground (with the exception of stone tools) has been ground to dust a long time ago. There is the popular idea that the world was more cavernous and volcanic in the past, but this delusion has thoroughly confused the geological and human evolution time scales.
So it's pretty funny that in one relatively recent Simpsons episode, Ned Flanders compared himself to a caveman and then sternly said that cavemen didn't exist. This was meant as a creationism joke, of course, but he was perfectly right. I wonder if this was intentional from the writers.
There's a bit of irony behind the term. It's mainly the (suppsoedly) brutish Neanderthal who come to mind when we speak of "cave men" even though they weren't responsible for the cave paintings. But what creates a second level of irony is that fact that if any prehistoric group really had lived in caves, it was likely to have been the Neanderthals. Unlike the earlier hominds in East Africa, they didn't live in a climate warm enough to allow for year-round outdoor living without shelter, yet it's not at all clear whether the Neanderthal brain was sufficiently sophisticated to enable the construction of artificial shelters.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Posted by Anonymous | 1:41 PM
I was reading your blog and thought that you'd like an upcoming show put on by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Journey through the Stars features movie music from Sci-fi classics like ET, Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are three dates to catch this exciting show: April 6, 2006 at the River Run Centre in Guelph, and April 7 & 8, 2006 at the Centre in the Square in Kitchner. For more info and to order tickets online visit www.kwsymphony.on.ca. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Anonymous | 2:32 PM