Re:A new book compiles knowledge necessary for society to re...
by EliRivers on Saturday May 03, 2014 @05:54AM
(#7690205)
Whilst I don't disagree with your point, I recall that for an enormously long time so much weight was put into the works of ancient Greeks that we literally missed the evidence of our own senses[1]. An understanding on the part of our hypothetical post-apocalypse recovery that the knowledge of their ancestors, whilst enormously useful, is not an absolute and is open to correction, would help them avoid making that mistake themselves. Sure, perhaps not the history of a page on something trivial, but something to keep the knowledge of the ancients being seen as immutable.
[1] The example I can't find, so I can't be sure I remember this correctly, but an ancient Greek writer described an insect as having a number of legs that it quite clearly didn't, and wasn't corrected for a long, long time.
[1] The example I can't find, so I can't be sure I remember this correctly, but an ancient Greek writer described an insect as having a number of legs that it quite clearly didn't, and wasn't corrected for a long, long time.