How important would you say flexibility of mind is? One thing I pride myself on is if I am wrong I will acknowledge it, and take on new information. Ill listen to other perspectives and am always ready to change my stance if better information is presented, or if someone has a more logical explanation that myself. Now that is a good thing, but some ideas are controversial, and many discoveries, I think, are made on gut instincts that go against current knowledge. For example, in 1912, Alfred Wegener, who was a meteorologist, presented his theory of continental drift. The idea that continents float along the surface of the earth and that there was once just one vast continent, was pretty much completely derided as pseudoscience and nonsense. It took 50 years for geologists to find the evidence for Wegener actually being correct. Likewise palaeo-archaeologists like Zilhao has always held fast to the idea that Neanderthals were not cognitive incompetents, repeating that there is no reason to even presume theyd be mute, incapable of artistic expression or conservative in their lifeways. This was met with derision, but we now have evidence for paint, personal ornamentation, speech, flexible lifeways, cooking and advanced tools for the time in terms of efficiency. This is backed up by the discovery that Homo sapiens could interbreed with them, so they might actually be Homo sapiens themselves. Zilhao has been vindicated. So how tenacious should we be with our ideas? Is it better to be flexible and responsive to criticism or better to be steadfast and determined with our hypotheses and interpretations.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:04:21 +0000
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