LL-L "Life science" 2002.07.11 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 11.JUL.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Life science

Oops!  Sorry, this one just went out under the wrong heading
"Etymology."  Resending it gives me an opportunity to add my own quarter
Euro's worth to Sandy's response (resent below).

I feel that we are talking about here is a never-ending process.  By
this I mean that there is no point at which humans will know and
understand all there is to know and understand, which also means that
sometime in the future people will be grinning about our current
scientific insight (or the lack of it) the same way we grin about those
at different times and in different cultures.

Western medical scientists still dismiss and even ridicule Chinese
acupuncture, pointing out that its theory is not in synch with our
understanding of the nervous system and that it is therefore nothing but
voodoo and its supposed successes are merely imagination, psychosomatic.
But, of course, this leaves the question why acupuncture works on
animals, at the very least relieves pain in animals as well.

Sandy rightly points out how past perceptions -- now considered faulty
and ridiculous -- are reflected in our language(s) (e.g., "gathering
darkness").  I would propose that it also works the other way around,
sort of.  Let me rephrase this by saying that past perceptions reflected
in linguistic expressions help to reinforce or prolong these perceptions
among non-scientists.  Such expressions handed down to us with our
languages tend to influence our perceptions of the natural world,
including of our own bodies, their functions and tribulations.  Even now
we still use the word "(catch) cold" (and equivalents in other
languages, such as _Verköhlen_ in Lowlands Saxon and _Erkältung_ in
German), and many, if not most, of us still believe that all you really
need to "catch a cold" is to be out in cold weather, insufficiently
protected.  Even though a cure for the "common cold" has not yet been
found, we do know that the causes are different (namely those normally
invisible creatures people couldn't even imagine not too long ago).  My
mother-in-law used to get very annoyed with me when I told her that
standing in the cold at the bus stop alone did not cause her "cold,"
that she had caught it from other people -- and she would say, "So why
is it called a 'cold' then?"

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Etymology"

> From: "Luc Hellinckx" <luc.hellinckx at pandora.be>
> Subject: Raw materials.
>
> Beste leeglanners,
>
> Medieval knowledge about a body must have been more basic in the sense
> that
> some bodily funtions were not as clearly understood as they are now, but
> on
> the other hand man was more directly exposed and accustomed to slaughter
> I'm
> afraid (both of humans and animals).
> On farms, killing animals was almost everyday-business. Therefore I
> think
> people will surely have known that veins contain blood and nothing else
> (OK,
> ultimately blood contains useful elements of the food that we eat but
> that's
> another (newer) story).
> Moreover, bloodletting (= tapping blood) was very popular during the
> Middle
> Ages, so I gather people will surely have noticed that the red liquid
> oozing
> out of their veins was quite different from...euh...say, "ex-food" (with
> which they had a very "down-to-earth"-relationship as well...*pun
> intended*).

I really don't think that people would have made such
deductions in the middle ages. Generally, the classical
Greek theory that blood was "cooked food" (it was thought
to have been cooked in the heart) would have held sway and
no anount of everyday observation could have overcome
received wisdom in that particular age.

It can be interesting to ponder how much the natural human
train of thought can be in conflict with modern scientific
methods of deduction and how difficult it can be to make
the crossover from an observation (eg "blood is nothing
like either food or its end-product") to a deduction about
the actual nature of things.

A recurring illustration of this is the old understanding
of how the human eye worked, which can seem quite bizarre
to us: that in order for us to be able to see things, the
eye must emit light. However, this arises from one of the
favourite human modes of explaining a poorly-understood
phenomenon, which is to presume that there must be a
mysterious substance that causes it. So in order to explain
the phenomenon of darkness, they assumed that darkness was
a substance that gathered in the air at night (hence phrases
like "gathering darkness") and was dispelled by the sun's
rays, or by fire. There's nothing illogical about this -
it's how dew behaves, for example. This lead philosophers
to conclude that since darkness blocks vision, light must
be emitted from the eye.

It was also generally accepted that pain was a substance
that must be emitted by the brain and sent to different
parts of the body when they were hurt.

I say this is a recurring phenomenon because we also had
phlogiston theory (a substance "explaining" heat) and
psion theory (a substance "explaining" telepathy) and
even in this day and age Penrose's popular particles
"explaining" consciousness, but really explaining nothing.

Or, to sum up my philosophy in a nutshell - people are
stupid  :)

I do seriously say, though, that the absence of "food-like"
properties in blood wouldn't automatically lead to the
conclusion that there is no food in blood.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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