I think it's just an open minded anthropological exploration of culture and tradition, and the beginning sentence hints at there being some long term computatio

I think it's just an open minded anthropological exploration of culture and tradition, and the beginning sentence hints at there being some long term computation occurring with cultures similar to evolution, i.e "doing things that work benefit a culture selectively whether they understand how they work or not." I don't think the author wants us to "lose the documentation", only to not throw the procedure out just because we don't have the documentation. Foot binding and other negatively associated traditional cultural artifacts are selection bias and not representative of cultural artifacts broadly speaking. They did propogate because they did serve the societies, just not necessarily the individuals in those societies. All of them had reasons, ones that aren't good enough for us here and now, and your culture probably has some cultural artifacts that you don't equation that uponnskwptical analysis might not be viewed in a positive light. I saw a conversation you had down this thread about circumcision, that seems to me like a good example, it is my opinion you have a blind spot there caused by cultural bias you refuse to accept, just like a Han Chinese person might bestow the medicinal value of bear bile. And that's a good segway into something more interesting: in the west, our adherence to rationality is a cultural artifact. And a good one at that, and quite a bit meta (it's only rational to be rational, after all) and it has served us well. You're exhibiting it without even having to think about whether you should, you take it as a given that it is the right way to approach these things. As do I, rationality is core to understanding. All traditions should be skeptically inspected, but I do think that following the lessons others learned the hard way is a strength, our greatest strength, and so at least a little bit of respect for traditions is warranted. Don't destroy the fence just because you don't know what it's for, figure out what it's for first and then consider whether you should destroy it. It's good advice.