Re: oldest American skull found!

From: Erik A. Mattila (emattila_at_oco.net)
Date: 10/11/04 

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:28:57 -0700

pwilson wrote:
> Erik A. Mattila emattila@oco.net wrote:
>
>>pwilson wrote:
>>
>>>Erik A. Mattila emattila@oco.net wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Yes, and I get the creeps looking at Egyptian mummies too. It's
>>>>probably the "creeps" because of my own internal conflict - on the
>>>>one hand it fascinating (and probably perverse) but on the other hand
>>>>the idea that the "long sleep" has been violated. It's like seeing
>>>>animals working out their angst in a zoo cage - little behaviors that
>>>>only serve to make incarceration bearable.
>>>
>>>So you equate the plight of caged animals with the 'plight' of
>>>mummies on display in a museum?
>>>
>>>That's bizzare. And kind of demented.
>>
>>But you're not making the connection, wilson.
>
>
> Then communicate your thoughts more clearly.

You mean "dumb it down" for you?

>
>
>>It's "display." What are zoos? Recreation designed to entertain folks
>>by plucking animals out of the context of their lives for the purpose of
>>exhibition. In other words, it's a spectacle, and it is impoverished
>>and shallow, as spectacles regularly are.

> Some are, others are grand and inspiring. It depends on your
> perspective. I think zoos belong in the former category and I am opposed
> to them. I think wildlife parks are more appropriate.

Appropriate to what, though? What's wrong with "wild"?

>
>
>
>>Didn't Alfred North Whitehead warn us against this a century or so >ago?
>
>
> I don't know what he warned against that's pertinent to this debate. And
> further, I don't see what any of this has to do with the reverence we
> accord to mummies by respectfully displaying them in the British Museum.
> Or how any of that compares to keeping animals in a zoo.

Whitehead showed how the science of biology errored by decontextualizing
its subject. Sort of a precurser to "ecology" you might say. It's just
that he believed if you studied a pickled fish in a jar you were
studying a pickled fish in a jar, and the scientific truth you could
derive from such a practice was about a pickled fish in a jar.

So if Zoos have educational value its education about animals on display
in zoos.

>
> I personally don't get anything out of looking at dried-up human flesh in
> a glass case. I find it boring. My preference would be to have the
> mummies available for scientific research - and interred in a safe
> conservatory in the interim. But I am not ethically opposed to having
> mummies on display in a museum as an alternative.
>
>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: oldest American skull found!
    ... studying a pickled fish in a jar, and the scientific truth you could ... So if Zoos have educational value its education about animals on display ...
    (sci.anthropology)
  • Re: oldest American skull found!
    ... studying a pickled fish in a jar, and the scientific truth you could ... So if Zoos have educational value its education about animals on display ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: oldest American skull found!
    ... > As an alternative to traditional zoos. ... >>a jar you were studying a pickled fish in a jar, ... > display of animals in a zoo and the display of bones in a museum. ...
    (sci.anthropology)
  • Re: oldest American skull found!
    ... > As an alternative to traditional zoos. ... >>a jar you were studying a pickled fish in a jar, ... > display of animals in a zoo and the display of bones in a museum. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: oldest American skull found!
    ... > As an alternative to traditional zoos. ... >>a jar you were studying a pickled fish in a jar, ... > display of animals in a zoo and the display of bones in a museum. ...
    (sci.archaeology)