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> The rise and fall of the Nile. The ancients noticed patterns, but had almost no causative understanding of what was happening. > The influence of the moon a

by p-e-w 3y ago

> The rise and fall of the Nile. The ancients noticed patterns, but had almost no causative understanding of what was happening. > The influence of the moon and the sun on weather and tides. Even Newton didn't correctly understand how tides actually work (there is no oceanic "tidal bulge"). It took until Laplace for dynamic theory to be developed. The ancients were unable to predict tides except by repeated observation of a specific location. > Where baby animals come from. There was zero understanding of biological reproduction before the modern era. Claiming that people 2000 years ago understood this phenomenon "almost as well as we do" is absurd. They didn't even know about sperm cells, nevermind chromosomes or DNA. > How to make beer and bread. Alchemy, with no insight into what was really going on. The ancients understood none of the things you mention even remotely as well as we do today. In fact, I'd argue that they essentially didn't understand them at all.

ggm 3y ago
For the purposes of planning, I think they understood them about as well as most modern people do. Specialists now understand them a damn sight better but in practical terms I suspect a brewer in Egypt knew when the beer was ready about as well as some hipster with his alcohol meter, and the Egyptian shepard knew when sheep fell pregnant, and how to tell which ones had been tupped by the Ram. Very few people trying for a baby think about DNA. They think about the fertility of the woman in terms of her menstrual cycle. Thats practical science which has been unchanged for a very long time. You're not wrong. I am literally wrong of course. Figuratively I think I'm less wrong than you say.
- stouset 3y ago
  Literally none of these are even remotely close to “examples of things people 2000 years ago understood almost as well as us”. Knowing when the beer is ready is a damn sight less than the chemistry done by even a good number of amateur home brewers these days. Knowing the sheep are pregnant is a far cry from the directed breeding done even at small farms today, to say nothing of the genetic programs at larger ones.

by p-e-w 3y ago

ggm 3y ago

For the purposes of planning, I think they understood them about as well as most modern people do. Specialists now understand them a damn sight better but in practical terms I suspect a brewer in Egypt knew when the beer was ready about as well as some hipster with his alcohol meter, and the Egyptian shepard knew when sheep fell pregnant, and how to tell which ones had been tupped by the Ram. Very few people trying for a baby think about DNA. They think about the fertility of the woman in terms of her menstrual cycle. Thats practical science which has been unchanged for a very long time. You're not wrong. I am literally wrong of course. Figuratively I think I'm less wrong than you say.

stouset 3y ago
Literally none of these are even remotely close to “examples of things people 2000 years ago understood almost as well as us”. Knowing when the beer is ready is a damn sight less than the chemistry done by even a good number of amateur home brewers these days. Knowing the sheep are pregnant is a far cry from the directed breeding done even at small farms today, to say nothing of the genetic programs at larger ones.