Would you believe. . . ?

People in the past believed weird things. That makes them just like us.

Here's the skinny.

1. Before Columbus, everybody believed the Earth was flat. False. Lots of people knew better: Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-195 BCE) even calculated how big around it was. Okay, he was off by 15%, but he didn't have a Satnav.
2. In the 18th Century, leading scientists did not believe meteorites were real. True. They changed their minds when a village was decimated in a meteor shower in 1803. Read about it in this old Post article.
3. Astronomer William Herschel believed in extraterrestrials. True. He thought all the other planets were occupied, including the moon. He thought Lunarians were probably pretty advanced.
4. The discovery that germs caused disease immediately revolutionised medical practice. False. The first person to propose the 'germ theory' was Girolamo Fracastoro – in 1546. Doctors didn't start washing their hands before an operation until late in the 19th Century. Before that, they just closed the windows to keep the 'miasma' out.
5. Aristotle wrote that men had more teeth than women. True. Apparently, nobody thought to count them. Or else the women in Greece refused to open their mouths for science.
6. The discovery of the platypus was originally dismissed as 'fake news'. True. Of course it was. They blamed it on Chinese taxidermists. (Or Ford Prefect.) It does look suspiciously like a joke. We blame 2legs.
7. Prester John was a real king who ruled over a fabulous kingdom in Mongolia. False. But lots of people believed in him, from the 12th-17th centuries.
8. The island of Krakatoa is east of Java. False. It is west of Java. If you were fooled, you've probably heard the title of a 1969 disaster movie. Well, it was a geographical disaster, anyway.
9. The last Romanov rulers of Russia, along with their children, are canonised saints in the Russian Orthodox Church. True. In Russia, they are 'passion bearers'. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, however, named them 'holy martyrs' in 1981. There's a distinction, but it's theological and political, so don't go there.
10. People on Earth have always believed that their solar system has the same number of planets. False. Let's see: Ptolemy had 7, including the sun and the moon. The Editor's science teacher brother-in-law (retired) wears a t-shirt that says, 'When I was your age, Pluto was a planet.' (The Editor gave it to him.)

Did you know all that? Then you're on your way to enlightenment. The moral? Beware the statement that begins 'Everybody knows that. . . '

Dmitri Gheorgheni

19.06.17 Front Page

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