Just Speculating

It's like I said before, there are more people in the world than just scientists, and you're never going to attain KBW without somehow getting them on your side. One way to get them on your side would be to convince them that you're right, another way would be to give up and become like unto them, and another way would be to meet them somewhere in the middle. You've already been trying for decades to convince them that you're right. How has that worked out for you? If you were to become like unto them, it would mean giving up most of your agenda. You might get elected, but then KBW would be so much like the current world that it would hardly seem to be worth the effort. That leaves meeting them in the middle. That might not work either, but it's all I can think of at the moment. Maybe, as we continue this discussion, something else will come up. You never know about things like that.

Like I also said, people have been telling stories since long before the scientific method was ever developed. That doesn't mean stories are any better than science, it just means that they were here first, and there's probably a reason for that. I don't know for a fact what that reason might be, but there's no harm in speculating about it. Let's continue with the theme of flood myths, since we're already there.

Like I said, there is geological evidence that Mesopotamia experienced a catastrophic flood of Biblical proportions, although it probably happened before people were living there. I'm not familiar with the geology of Mesopotamia, so let's go somewhere else, like the American South West. A lot of that country certainly looks like it was sculpted by water, although there is little water there now. As a matter of fact, modern geologists have determined that the whole region was under water at least once in the prehistoric past. Although primitive people were not geologists, they were probably more observant of their surroundings than the average person is today. They had to be, since their lifestyle required it. So here's this bunch of Stone Age hunter-gatherers walking around in the desert looking for something to eat and drink. They can't help but notice that it looks like there was a lot of water here once, but it's not here now. It would be natural for them to question where all that water came from, and where it went to. They next thing they would wonder about would be how all the animals that are here now managed to survive a flood of that magnitude. Sitting around the fire at night, somebody comes up with a theory, tosses it out to his buddies who kick it around for awhile, throwing out their own ideas as they occur to them and, before you know it, they have a full blown flood myth, complete with Noah and his ark. Well they probably didn't all call him "Noah", I believe the Mesopotamians called him "Utnapishtim", or something like that. (Can't readily find the book to confirm spelling and don't want to spend any more time looking.)

Isn't that what science is all about? First you observe something, then you wonder about it, then you try to explain it, then you test your theory to see if it works. Sometimes your theory cannot be readily tested with the tools available to you, so the theory will just have to do until somebody comes up with a better one. Sometimes old theories are not completely overthrown by new theories, they are just tweaked a little as new evidence comes to light. So it is with stories, except that people find stories to be entertaining, which tells us something about human nature. A long time ago, some shaman must have discovered that telling stories was a good way to get people's attention. Another way was doing magic tricks, which people also find entertaining. Maybe we're onto something here! To effectively persuade people, you can't just tell them what you want them to hear, and you can't just tell them what they want to hear, you have to entertain them in the process. Shall we toss that one around for awhile?