I would have agreed with you until I started typing that list from the
_Peoples Chronology_. (That's why I love CoV--I end up assigning myself the
kind of homework that I would have balked at and never done if a teacher
had made me do it in school! My fingers are still sore from that one.) I
left out the majority of stuff that wasn't from Europe or the Near East that
was in the book, but the interesting thing was that just about *every* major
civilization on the planet collapsed or went stagnant at about that time.
Now, imagine for a moment that you're studying the populations of lizards on
a tropical island. You chart the changes in population year-to-year for
several decades and it seems like a steady rise over time. Then suddenly
there's a die-off. The population levels head backwards for a few years
without explaination and then slowly resume their course back upwards. Your
first instinct would be to look for a cause of the die-off; disease,
predation, lack of resources (food), changes in weather patterns, etc. And
doubtless you'll find one of those that you can directly trace to the
population decrease. So you proudly say, "Ah-ha! I understand the problem
completely now!"
But then, what if you go to the International Convention of Island Lizard
Researchers and talk with a bunch of your fellow lizard-counters (help me
out here, Eva, what's the name for someone who studies lizards?) and
discover that on *every* island, when the lizard population reached a
certain level it dropped suddenly? All for different reasons, but all at
about the same point in their growth. Wouldn't that make you pause and say,
"Hmmm, maybe I'm only seeing /part/ of the answer after all."
Now if all the advanced/advancing civilizations fell backwards at about the
same point in their development, doesn't that seem like an indication that
there is something about the process of development that may be at work
here? Something bigger than just which god they were worshiping? Some
quallity to the equation for the slope of progress which needs our
attention. (And something we might want to look at VERY closely, since
elements like that in an equation are seldom isolated to just a single
occurance on that slope.)
In other words, isn't there reason to put aside our, "Ah-ha! I understand
the problem completely now!" in favor of a more educated and enlightened,
"Hmmm, maybe I'm only seeing part of the answer after all."
-Prof. Tim
>>
>> ERiC
>
>I think Carl Sagen did a better job than I did on this subject. Here is
>where you can read it for yourself: http://www.messiah.org/p6694.htm
>Its only a few pages but I believe the last word needed for this
>particular subject
>Nate Hall
>