Getting It Wrong Right
We all use trial-and-error. Beginning as children, we experiment with hand-eye coordination, walking, speaking and so on in a learning process that never really stops.One could even say that we're all amateur scientists, testing our hunches on our way through life.
Our most embarrassing moments are usually caused by gaps in our understanding, when previously hidden reality is revealed. It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally, by chance, we'll not have heard of a popular singer, for example, that our friends are talking about. Or, as a society, we'll discover DNA testing, which can prove that someone previously convicted of a crime is in fact innocent.
Do science and technology, though, have undiscovered blind spots? And if so, where might these lie? I briefly describe three: past, present and future, below. First, with social media, we have an on-going technological transformation that will soon, hopefully, reveal just how primitive our lives are now. Then, a prior transformation, the 60s, that is only just consolidating itself, 50 years on. And finally, an example of actual science that is on its way to being rewritten.
1. Social Media -- We're obviously taking baby steps, since most platforms (FB, Twitter) can't be traced back more than ten or so years. Once humans begin using social media to organize more effectively, there'll be dramatic changes in the following three and other areas:
*** Education (this is my big Twitter idea** that I have yet to write about). We will gradually abandon the one-size-fits-all, pour-knowledge-into-an-empty-vessel model. In its place will be an eating-at-your-own-pace model with teacher oversight. Huge numbers of wasted, threadbare lives will be transformed.
*** Communication (my little Twitter idea). There exist many gifted people on social media who, once recognized by rightful acclaim, will contribute the talent that we as a society presently miss.
*** Politics. Once we've succeeded in organizing ourselves (my suggestions are here, and here) into a thinking, deliberative mind that responds to emerging trends and events with relative ease, the excruciatingly slow, wrong-headed 'politics' of today will seem like ancient history.
2. The '60s -- Most historians would agree that something happened to us during the 60's. A relatively straight-laced, doctrinaire approach to life was challenged, and in some ways gradually replaced, by a relatively free, fun-loving alternative. What can we learn?
In a word: Freedom. When free, humans are characteristically themselves; otherwise, they're merely following orders. This is why so much changed over from orthodox to innovative. When more and more realized that they could just stop obeying their marching orders and instead, suddenly, fling the doors of perception wide open, they became their own freemen and -women.
3. The Pre-historic Migration of Humankind -- Here's a specific scientific blind spot, rather than a technological revelation (further background on Diffusionism, as it's called, if you're interested, here)
It is gradually dawning on historians that pre-history was the story of sea-going vessels with many empires and small bands of explorers venturing out onto the ocean in search of new lands, and that the Americas, long thought sealed off from Eurasia by vast waters, were visited, explored and settled by many cultures.
But why isn't this common knowledge? What accounts for the blindspot, if indeed there is one? There's a combination of four factors:
**** Chance. Given enough history, there's likely to be at least one era that's misunderstood. And since the Americas are separated from the rest of the world by sea, individual hints of prior cross-hemispheric contact, when examined on their own, have always seemed impossibly anomalous, suggesting a hoax or other unlikelihood.
**** Marginal Effect. Compared to the advent of modern contact beginning in 1492, most pre-historic exploration had little effect on Native American culture.
**** Die Out. Even cultures that were able to establish a presence in the Americas would be seen, eventually, as outsiders, with different ethnic markings, like skin and hair color, which would serve as natural targets in times of stress. Or, assimilation would see ethnic markings fade over time.
**** Willful Ignorance. Because western civilization was so obviously successful compared to what would otherwise be a few foreign settlements here and there, or a gradual assimilation and erasure, and because the historians in question were part of that western civilization, it was originally difficult to see any other contact being in the same category as the Columbian arrival of the 15th century. Then, the iconoclasm required became simply too disrespectful, it was likely thought, to be possible. Then, entire careers were built on manifold published papers agreeing on the absence of pre-Columbian contact, meaning that it became much easier to ignore uncooperative facts.
But facts are hard masters. First, it was the Viking settlement in Newfoundland dating to around 1000. Then a presence in southern Chile that pre-dated the ice age corridor that would have allowed the settlement of the Americas without the use of boats. Now, there's even a television program that explores specific facts and hoaxes, called America Unearthed, that periodically appears on the History Channel. And there's the print magazine, The Ancient American, which I have subscribed to for nearly a quarter century, which also discusses evidence for pre-Columbian overseas contact.
** I've had feedback questioning whether I haven't just given away my 'Big Twitter Idea'. The answer is 'no'. While I've revealed what might be described as the theme (see above), which has of course been touted by many others before me, the innovative part involves implementation. For example, if Mark Zuckerberg of FB fame had said in his college days that he had an idea that involved communicating over the internet, that wouldn't have given much away.
