Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
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Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#2> "Anthropologists are simply realizing that early cities took extremely diverse forms. "Clearly, urbanism is different in different parts of the world, and we need to be more flexible in how we define this," he explained. The tropics demonstrate that where we draw the lines of agriculture and urbanism can be very difficult to determine."
It seems that the more humans learn about any topic: our own agricultural history, biology, psychology, mathematics, etc we begin to reach conclusions similar to the above. Wow, this is much more complex than we thought it was. I find this in my own life as I explore socio-political topics also - it seems the deeper one dives into any topic the more difficult it is to, as the article says, "draw the lines". Has anybody experienced an intellectual exploration to the contrary?
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#3> "Anthropologists are simply realizing that early cities took extremely diverse forms. "Clearly, urbanism is different in different parts of the world, and we need to be more flexible in how we define this," he explained. The tropics demonstrate that where we draw the lines of agriculture and urbanism can be very difficult to determine." It seems that the more humans learn about any topic: our own agricultural histo…
Yes, in the sense that cross-discipline study sometimes reveals common themes. One field having complex dynamics might make the world seem complicated. When many fields have the same complex dynamics, you start to wonder if there's something simple you can tease out of it.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#4Anthropologists have known this for at least 50 years.
Props for raising awareness of the field, though.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#5When I was growing up, things seemed pretty much settled. We knew where the first humans came from, we knew when and where agriculture started, we even had 9 planets in our solar system.
This was the truths scientists had discovered and it was unquestionable. It was printed in books to last forever.
But you grow up, and you realize that these things are malleable. It's more like as of 1998, Lucy is the oldest human remains we discovered, using x method.
I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, but I think we should leave a little wiggle room in the way we make these statements from now on.
Though I haven't read a history or science book from a school curriculum in years so I can't say if that's already what is being done.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#6When I was growing up, things seemed pretty much settled. We knew where the first humans came from, we knew when and where agriculture started, we even had 9 planets in our solar system. This was the truths scientists had discovered and it was unquestionable. It was printed in books to last forever. But you grow up, and you realize that these things are malleable. It's more like as of 1998, Lucy is the oldest human r…
Yeah, absolute statements like "the science is settled" are rather unscientific. Good science must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and leave the door open to being proven wrong.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#7When I was growing up, things seemed pretty much settled. We knew where the first humans came from, we knew when and where agriculture started, we even had 9 planets in our solar system. This was the truths scientists had discovered and it was unquestionable. It was printed in books to last forever. But you grow up, and you realize that these things are malleable. It's more like as of 1998, Lucy is the oldest human r…
Yeah, absolute statements like "the science is settled" are rather unscientific. Good science must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and leave the door open to being proven wrong.
Every point of knowledge has a degree of certainty or uncertainty around it. It certainly isn't a point that is taught well enough in education.
"The science is settled that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old" is a perfectly fair statement, for instance.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#8Anthropologists have known this for at least 50 years. Props for raising awareness of the field, though.
Yes, some of the things mentioned as new ideas were discussed years ago. Like the idea that some primitive form of plant domestication may have been happening prior to the agricultural revolution of 9000-10000 years ago.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, absolute statements like "the science is settled" are rather unscientific. Good science must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and leave the door open to being proven wrong.
Every point of knowledge has a degree of certainty or uncertainty around it. It certainly isn't a point that is taught well enough in education. "The science is settled that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old" is a perfectly fair statement, for instance.
Science never settles anything, it's why it's such a successful idea. "Current evidence says the world is about 13.8 billion years old" is the way I would word that. With your method, a later revision says science was wrong, when it just didn't have enough evidence.
Re: Evidence that ancient farms had different origins than previously thought
#10> "Anthropologists are simply realizing that early cities took extremely diverse forms. "Clearly, urbanism is different in different parts of the world, and we need to be more flexible in how we define this," he explained. The tropics demonstrate that where we draw the lines of agriculture and urbanism can be very difficult to determine." It seems that the more humans learn about any topic: our own agricultural histo…
Yes, in the sense that cross-discipline study sometimes reveals common themes. One field having complex dynamics might make the world seem complicated. When many fields have the same complex dynamics, you start to wonder if there's something simple you can tease out of it.
Are you sure your digging deep enough? I have seen plenty of cases where different fields seemed to share a theme. But, the details always diverged on closer inspection, limiting the value of the comparison.
To stretch an analogy stacking blocks seems like you can add the heights, except the weight of the stack deforms them, so addition is misleading.