Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures
This tribe, the Cofan, has 17 varieties of ayahuasca, all of which they distinguish a great distance in the forest, all of which are referable to our eye as one species. And then you ask them how they establish their taxonomy and they say, "I thought you knew something about plants. I mean, don't you know anything?" And I said, "No." Well, it turns out you take each of the 17 varieties in the night of a full moon, and it sings to you in a different key.
When science meets aboriginal oral history
“Scientists are sitting around and academically discussing different theories about peopling of Americas, and you have all these different views on how many migrations, and who is related to, Then when we actually undertake the most sophisticated genetic analysis we can do today, and this is state of the art, genetically — we could have just have listened to them in the first place.”
-Eske Willerslev
chronological snobbery - the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.
-C.S.Lewis
We’re all a product of our time. We each think we live in the wisest, smartest era of history. What if our modern science is far too narrow minded? What if the lens and perspective it takes isn't the full story? What if there is more? More that won't ever be explored or discovered because it cannot fit anywhere in the narrow views and minds of those we have given all authority and power known as scientists.
The scientific method can it solve all of our problems? Can it seek out absolute truth?
Or is it merely another faith system generations from now people will shake their heads at embarrassingly?
What is reality? What is it to look through different lenses, to speak with humility confessing there is so much we don't know and possibly can't?
I find it difficult to truth authority and I'm not exactly convinced I should put my faith in the scientific communities laws, facts, and truths they seem to change with each new updated edition of the publication. Perhaps I'll wait until the dust settles to see where I stand.
Will the dust ever settle?
The Last Bison - Setting Our Tables
This tribe, the Cofan, has 17 varieties of ayahuasca, all of which they distinguish a great distance in the forest, all of which are referable to our eye as one species. And then you ask them how they establish their taxonomy and they say, "I thought you knew something about plants. I mean, don't you know anything?" And I said, "No." Well, it turns out you take each of the 17 varieties in the night of a full moon, and it sings to you in a different key.
When science meets aboriginal oral history
“Scientists are sitting around and academically discussing different theories about peopling of Americas, and you have all these different views on how many migrations, and who is related to, Then when we actually undertake the most sophisticated genetic analysis we can do today, and this is state of the art, genetically — we could have just have listened to them in the first place.”
-Eske Willerslev
chronological snobbery - the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.
-C.S.Lewis
We’re all a product of our time. We each think we live in the wisest, smartest era of history. What if our modern science is far too narrow minded? What if the lens and perspective it takes isn't the full story? What if there is more? More that won't ever be explored or discovered because it cannot fit anywhere in the narrow views and minds of those we have given all authority and power known as scientists.
The scientific method can it solve all of our problems? Can it seek out absolute truth?
Or is it merely another faith system generations from now people will shake their heads at embarrassingly?
What is reality? What is it to look through different lenses, to speak with humility confessing there is so much we don't know and possibly can't?
I find it difficult to truth authority and I'm not exactly convinced I should put my faith in the scientific communities laws, facts, and truths they seem to change with each new updated edition of the publication. Perhaps I'll wait until the dust settles to see where I stand.
Will the dust ever settle?
The Last Bison - Setting Our Tables