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They're anthropomorphising the stars as gods, people, and animals that are familiar to them. Families with seven sisters in a tribe of 150 was probably a relati
by akiselev 6y ago
They're anthropomorphising the stars as gods, people, and animals that are familiar to them. Families with seven sisters in a tribe of 150 was probably a relatively common occurrence, far more familiar than animals traveling in groups of seven (none that I can think of that do so globally) or gods in a group of seven who they'd have to have previously imagined or imagine anew upon identifying the constellation.
Convergent evolution is very common in biology, which has many more degrees of freedom. Why not in culture too?
- ncmncm 6y agoNotions of "convergent evolution" and "degrees of freedom" fatally undermine your argument. Culture has overwhelmingly more degrees of freedom than biology, which is constrained by needs to survive and also reproduce. Culture can sustain things like Scientology, Anime, and Froot Loops, in some places even simultaneously. Similarly, convergent evolution occurs only where environmental forces, such as a precise ecological niche, drive development into a very narrow range of possibilities with radically limited degrees of freedom. In the total absence of any such constraints, the only viable explanation for detailed similarity across vast distances and dizzying time spans is common heritage.