Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs to burn'

Re:Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs ... by lukevdp on Monday January 13, 2020 @06:14AM (#22033461)

Yep, it’s the noble savage fallacy https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Noble_savage

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Re:Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs ... by lonelappde on Monday January 13, 2020 @09:40AM (#22034793)

The article is about controlled burns.

What's the name of the fallacy where you dismiss something that has has been successful for centuries or more just because it doesn't have a Latin/Greek-derived name granted by a European?

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Re:Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs ... by jpz on Monday January 13, 2020 @10:12AM (#22035065)

I agree with the criticism, and disagree with your counterpoint.

There is no evidentiary record of this being "successful for centuries." After all, there are no written records.

On the face of it, if you start a fire in a bushland which is 100s of kilometres in breadth, how are Aboriginal people going to communicate and control such a blaze? They don't have access to:

- water pumps - hoses - irrigation - telecommunications - horses

There's some mythmaking going on at the moment in Australia about this.

I find it hard to take the claims at face value.

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Re:Australia fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs ... by pvaldes on Monday January 13, 2020 @09:34PM (#22041284)

> What's the name of the fallacy where you dismiss something that has has been successful for centuries or more just because it doesn't have a Latin/Greek-derived name granted by a European?

I bet that Ice age survivor Europeans were perfectly aware of fire and all its possible uses, a few thousands of years before 1606.

The idea of Australian aborigins teaching Europeans about how to use fire in that new thing called agriculture is very funny.

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