I’ve been trying to take my mind off computer troubles by dipping into one of my favorite books, Meet Your Ancestors, by Roy Chapman Andrews, published in 1945. That is, during some of our own lifetimes.
One of the great science popularizers of his day, Andrew was famous for leading expeditions to Mongolia and being the first to discover dinosaur eggs. But in this book he leaves the dinosaurs behind and focuses on prehistoric humans.
Just about every jot and tittle of the Settled Science in this book is now unsettled, obsolete, outdated, etc. New discoveries, new techniques of analysis, have blown it all out the door.
The lesson to be learned is that today’s Settled Science is tomorrow’s hooey. This has always been true! Yeah, “climate science,” I’m talkin’ to you. To turn our whole civilization upside-down because “the science” tells us to is to turn it upside-down for nothing. It’s great politics, though: scare the plebs into giving you more power, more money.
It is an entertaining book though–gotta give it that.