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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Bronowski and historical fossils
Message-ID: <391@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 22:21:11 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.391
Posted: Wed Mar 12 22:21:11 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 20:40:06 EST
References: <8603090839.AA00847@decwrl.DEC.COM> <277@lanl.ARPA> <12332@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <389@lanl.ARPA>
Reply-To: jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 19
Keywords: fossils ignorance

In article <389@lanl.ARPA> jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles) writes:
>      ...   (There was an ancient Greek called Democratus (I think) who
>discovered that the Sun was the center of the solar system, and the planets -
>including Earth went around it.  He even had the distances about right.
>Why don't we know this theory as the 'Democratian System'?  Because his
>civilization DIED and Copernicus had to do the work all over again.)

I was afraid I'd get this wrong.  The man's mane was Aristarchus of Samos.
Unfortunately, most of his books were destroyed with the library of
Alexandria.  His ideas are known only because some of the surviving books
made references to his.  This is also the type of thing that happens when a
culture dies, the 'invading hordes' destroy what's left out of spite or
fear or ignorance. (I can see it now: the chinese invaders get hold of a
treatice on cosmology - "It's one of those American things, all about fast
food restaurants and other worthless junk.  We don't need to bother with it
- just throw it in the fire!")

J. Giles
Los Alamos