Coffee House Musing

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Splendid and majestic is His work.
  —Psalm 111:3

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--Percy

A long while back I read a science fiction novel where the theory of searches featured in one chapter. Apparently such a thing exists now, but back then I think it was made up. The idea was that because of the effect of the theory of searches on the theory of searches that the best way to find someone was to stay in one place and eventually everyone you knew would happen by. Does this sound familiar to anyone?Reading about the 2022 Nobel prize in physics for developments in quantum theory made me recall this.—Percy

Interesting. Googling on a laptop is easier than Googling on a phone, so I found it this morning. It was Mindswap by Robert Sheckley. I have a copy, but there are audiobook and hardcopy versions at Amazon. There weren't many hardcopy books I kept when I cleaned house a few years ago, but that was one of them. I would have read it around 1970. I don't remember very much about it now, except that it was excellent and one I always intended to reread.--Percy

I posted a critical comment at the Washington Post article (Ancient footprints upend timeline of humans’ arrival in North America). There's a character limit on comments and so I wasn't as clear as I would have liked to have been, but I tried to make the point that this isn't the earliest arrival of humans in North America. It's just the earliest arrival that we have evidence for.The traditional view is that migration from Asia to North America was governed by glacial minimums and maximums. But the glacial maximums that lower sea levels and supposedly provided a land bridge between the continents would have been covered by glaciers, like everything else that far north. And a glacial minimum would have raised sea levels and turned the land bridge into island chains, which is what we see today.So I don't understand why two things aren't considered obvious by scientists:

1. Migrations involved both land and boat/raft travel and could have happened at glacial maximums, minimums, and anywhere in between.
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2. There have been many migrations from Asia to North American over the past 200,000 years or more. The current discussion is about the oldest migration we have evidence for. We forget that ancient humans were as capable as us, just with almost no technology. Across a span of time as great as 200,000 years there most certainly must have been earlier migrations, but they didn't leave evidence behind, or didn't survive long, or the evidence hasn't been uncovered yet.

--Percy

Within scientific circles there has always been skepticism about earlier dates, whether in North America, Asia or Africa and whether about humans or predecessors. The people that work in paleoanthropology seem an incredibly egocentric bunch. They all want their own discoveries to be the oldest, so they're automatically antagonistic toward anyone's discoveries indicating earlier dates. It's ridiculous and embarrassing.I'm fine with skepticism that centers around the evidence. We should be as certain as possible when it comes to forming a consensus within science, especially since it will in turn affect what appears in the textbooks. But I'm not fine with egocentric skepticism, or with skepticism that seems based on ancient people being less capable than people today, except for their lack of technology.--Percy

I expect that American Indian tribes exhibited the same range of behaviors as all human groups everywhere, with the particulars dependent upon circumstances. Agrarian societies were more common in eastern North America, hunter/gatherer societies in the great plains and the west, and on the northwest coast fishing societies were common. Wars between tribes were common, and after their arrival European assistance was often requested. Way back in the early 1600s Champlain and a platoon of ten or so soldiers armed with guns joined a war party made up of several local tribes to fight the Iroquois, their common enemy.--Percy

I wonder why disease didn't flow in both directions? I've heard that American Indians passed syphilis to Europeans, but not any others.--Percy