3 ms·

I agree. This is a common logical fallacy. The absence of proof is not proof of absence. a) There's no way to prove that this was the earliest recorded kiss. O

I agree. This is a common logical fallacy. The absence of proof is not proof of absence. a) There's no way to prove that this was the earliest recorded kiss. Others may have been recorded but they haven't been found (or the record has been destroyed). b) Of course as pointed out in the thread, the "earliest recorded kiss" is not the same as "the earliest kiss". A better title would be "Earliest recovered record of a kiss is from 4,500 years ago".

sgc 3y ago
This is all nitpicking about something every archeologist and historian understands. When they say earliest recorded kiss, they mean earliest currently recorded kiss, that we know about. Time before writing is called prehistory - and that is different for different regions of the world. Nobody thinks that means nothing happened or people were not thinking before that time. Just that we don't know what happened beyond non-linguistic inference. I don't think this shorthand causes any sort of imprecision among archeologists, and really all outside observers understand as well - hence the somewhat unnecessary nitpicking.
- hnfong 3y ago
  The language is unfortunate. For this case specifically the meaning is clear, but often the shorthand gets translated into concrete statements of facts in a more general context, eg. "humans started doing _____ 5000 years ago", whereas what they really mean "the earliest known evidence of humans doing _____ is 5000 years ago". And as other comments in this thread seem to indicate, even claiming that human kissing could have gone on (unrecorded) for millions of years is disputed. So how is anyone supposed to interpret this new "finding"? Should we think kissing only happened for a couple thousands of years (and probably not more than that)? If that's what we're supposed to conclude, I think these short hands are actively harmful, because they purport to tell people information whereas IMHO it shouldn't inform us of anything at all.
  - sgc 3y ago
    In this case it is a bit obvious, but often what an archeological find of this type tells us, is that something was important enough in that society for an artist to take the time to make a relief depicting it. It is not so much "people were kissing", but that "people were celebrating kissing as an integral part of copulation" at that time, showing that society appreciated the intimacy, rather than just treating it as the more animal pump and dump, then get on with your day.

sgc 3y ago

This is all nitpicking about something every archeologist and historian understands. When they say earliest recorded kiss, they mean earliest currently recorded kiss, that we know about. Time before writing is called prehistory - and that is different for different regions of the world. Nobody thinks that means nothing happened or people were not thinking before that time. Just that we don't know what happened beyond non-linguistic inference. I don't think this shorthand causes any sort of imprecision among archeologists, and really all outside observers understand as well - hence the somewhat unnecessary nitpicking.

hnfong 3y ago
The language is unfortunate. For this case specifically the meaning is clear, but often the shorthand gets translated into concrete statements of facts in a more general context, eg. "humans started doing _____ 5000 years ago", whereas what they really mean "the earliest known evidence of humans doing _____ is 5000 years ago". And as other comments in this thread seem to indicate, even claiming that human kissing could have gone on (unrecorded) for millions of years is disputed. So how is anyone supposed to interpret this new "finding"? Should we think kissing only happened for a couple thousands of years (and probably not more than that)? If that's what we're supposed to conclude, I think these short hands are actively harmful, because they purport to tell people information whereas IMHO it shouldn't inform us of anything at all.
- sgc 3y ago
  In this case it is a bit obvious, but often what an archeological find of this type tells us, is that something was important enough in that society for an artist to take the time to make a relief depicting it. It is not so much "people were kissing", but that "people were celebrating kissing as an integral part of copulation" at that time, showing that society appreciated the intimacy, rather than just treating it as the more animal pump and dump, then get on with your day.