Glenn:
> As I have told you, If only you and 7 other friends were left here, you all
> couldn't maintain the technological status quo of a neolithic farmer.
> Remember that the 4000 Tasmanians were isolated for 8000 years from all
> other human contact and their technology became more and more primitive with
> time. Their technology consisted of only 24 items. If 4000 people can't
> maintain the already impoverished Aborigine level of technology, what hope
> do 8 survivors of the flood have? (See Josephine Flood, The Archaeology of
> Dreamtime, p. 185)
This is somewhat in support of Glenn's idea. It has recently been noted
that there has been a rather dramatic recent rise in IQ in the Western
world in the last 30 or so years. (For the life of me, I can't remember
where I saw the article--it might have been "Science" but then it might
have been "Newsweek" too.) *One* of the explanations offered was that as
the world grows more complex, people's brains were adapting to the
increased need to process information. I know that studies have been done
that show that people and animals will grow up to be much
less mentally quick if they are not very stimulated or if they confront
only a limited variety of stimuli. Based on this information one could
speculate that:
Those who had some special communion with the mind of God might
(naturally) be quite stimulated (I'm thinking Adam and Eve here, before
the Fall). Once the influence of God's direct presence (or whatever it
was before the Fall) faded from human experience people would get dumber,
though they would have (in Glenn's view) the "culture" that God had
provided for them. After Noah, the people would have even lost the
stimulus of that culture toward the enhancement of their mental
development. Without the contact with God that Adam and Eve had enjoyed
and without the benefit of the God-provided culture and technology that
had existed before the Flood, the survivors fell into a cultural coma.
Just a thought.
Gene
-- ____________________________________________________________Gene D. Godbold, Ph.D. Lab: 804 924-5167Research Associate Desk: 804 243-2764Div. Infectious Disease/Dept. Medicine Home: 804 973-6913and Dept. Microbiology Fax: 804 924-7500MR4 Bldg, Room 2115 email: anselm@virginia.edu300 Park Place Charlottesville, VA 22908 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""