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kompootor t1_j9nctfj wrote

Reply to comment by kompootor in The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People by nemo_to_zero

The article still seems problematic though. They're really pushing it in the second section, like the wording was changed to just barely be factual or impressive. Or not. For example,

>Native Americans also posited that megafauna like giant beavers and bison had shrunk to their present sizes over time.

They picked the bison right, since that basically did just shrink directly to the modern form. The giant beaver however is unrelated to the modern beaver. Same with the other megafauna -- simply shrinking seems to be a major exception.

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kompootor t1_j9ncmus wrote

Reply to The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People by nemo_to_zero

This article, like a lot of articles that deal with any history of science before modern science, seems to drastically exaggerate the value of any piece of information or insight given before modern science starts developing, slowly, at the end of the 18th century, and it similarly exaggerates, by giving any meaning to, any similarity to a modern science concept and anything proposed pre-science. So as a lazy example, you can read Aristotle for a few pages and feel like there's some deep insight, like he knew some greater truth, until you realize that when he's making up theories on 100 things he might get lucky with a handful of sentences, or one or two propositions, that sound like something in the textbooks once people start actually doing things methodically. This kind of stuff is valuable to history, H&PoS, and anthropology, but it's not science.

That said, the main contribution of people like Cuvier, more than any now woefully-incorrect theory or now-erroneous classification he made (I'm not familiar with paleontology, but the "father of" figures have this in common), seems to be getting the people coming after to study and build upon existing literature, learn a methodology and follow it, publish findings (not hide them), and tutor others. In that sense, if what's said in the final section of the article is representative, then as this work is bringing new people into the academic field it is arguably at least of comparable value to the science as its original foundations.

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b_needs_a_cookie t1_j9nbmbx wrote

Reply to comment by TRex19000 in The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People by nemo_to_zero

You'd be surprised what people aren't aware of or what they default to societal biases on if not clearly informed. Also, having a general inkling about slavery being used versus having a story/article/documentary clearly describe, model and expand upon its use will result into two different levels of an informed population.

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