Ancient wisdom often sounds like common sense now that it is commomly taught. What is some ancient wisdom that we no longer teach because it was wrong?
This question inspired by this post. [https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/02e01421-b3b6-4211-ba50-e5c2d812f0a8.jpeg?thumbnail=1500&format=webp].
Aristotle was obviously a great teacher and philosopher but he ended up being wrong about a lot. Like he thought the “elements” were earth, wind, fire, and water and that all objects want to be in their “natural” place. So, if you drop a rock, it tries to return to the earth. Fire goes up because it’s trying to get to where it “wants” to live.
He thought eels didn’t procreate because no one had ever seen it happening. (They go out to sea to fuck.) He was into bees and correctly noticed that there were workers and drones and that young bees grow out of the honeycomb. But he just assumed the Queen was a King and that worker bees were out collecting tiny baby bees from flowers. (He thought the air just blew pollen around and the honey naturally appeared.)
He had a lot of ideas that were just ideas but he was so influential and his writings were preserved and translating it. It took a shocking number of years for people to wonder if Aristotle was full of shit.
My boy Aristotle thought men had more teeth than women, and whatever testable hypothesis he created to prove that fact didn’t include, you know, counting the teeth of men and women.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy, and will agree that “classical elements” is probably the dumbest thing to accuse him of being wrong about. Hell, I have considered getting a Bekker number tattoo, but he was definitely full of some shit. It’s okay to acknowledge he was right about some things and wrong about others. That’s the whole point of this thread.
REEEEEE
IF HE WAS WRONG THEN HE WAS WROOOOONG
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TheLadyAugust
SwingingKoala