Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.
— If you float to the top of the river—the gods have judged you to be innocent.
— When you dissect a mallard and its gizzard is out of place in relation to its liver, your spice shipment from Cathay has been lost to pirates.
—Nasty pustules oozing Black Death? Those cranky, cranky gods.
— In the mid 1600s, a Englishman named John Usher calculated that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. His reckonings were so convincing they were printed in the margins of the King James Bible.
There’s an idea that runs through my Science and Humanities textbooks: People often make great progress when they challenge their gods. Ironically change has often been punished as heresy throughout history. (Maybe I should excuse myself now if you don’t mind—they’re piling sticks around that stake over there.)
