if you haven''t already, read tom robbins's half asleep in frog pajamas.
josh | Homepage | 10.25.05 - 8:25 pm | #

"...the reader learns more about amphibians, Sirius A, B, and C, and rectal cancer than she would ever think possible."

From a review...huh, I see what you're saying.

The amphibian demon-gods of old were probably just trying to cure rectal cancer, thus the anal probes, and that's the way the mystery unravels.

I'm not big on novels but okay, thanks.

They haven't found the star Sirius C yet. But according to the Dogons it is there, so it's probably there. It's a weird world.
mynym | Homepage | 10.25.05 - 10:23 pm | #

Hello there.

I see that when you're not out trolling on other people's blogs, you're busy swallowing every cockamamie idea that tickles your fancy. Too bad the "Policemen of Knowledge" have already inquired and settled this supposed mystery years ago. And it is not the way you claim it has been settled (such strawmen is your forte, but please, not all your readers are gullible).

Read Carl Sagan's (omg, a skeptic!) book Broca's Brain (1974), pages 81-88. Unlike people who revel in their ignorance, we skeptics have an earnest desire to know.
Dan | Homepage | 10.27.05 - 4:52 am | #

When I wrote I don't know that means, I don't know.

Note that even ardent skeptics admit that the issue is mysterious* and is not "settled." But you self-defined Policemen are fond of arguing, "Then it is settled, which means I have authority over knowledge!" pretty much no matter what. You said next to nothing. It's not as if I don't know about Sagan's notion that the Dogon got their knowledge from moderns. Anyone cold think of that, but I think that charlatans using a primitive telescope is more likely given the fact that the technology that ancient people had is typically underestimated.

*So where does this leave the mysteries of Sirius? The antiquity of the Dogon astronomy is not so obvious as ancient astronaut enthusiasts claim but neither has it been disproved. The ancient records are filled with unanswered astronomical questions -- including the "red Sirius" and the possible Sumerian Ea-Oannes references to the spectacular Vela-X supernova. The Dogon myths may or may not be related....
It seems likely that we will never know for sure.

Whatever their place in the search for extraterrestrial contact, the Dogon myths are certainly odd. The Stone Age storytellers speak by their campfires of other people on other planets and of other mysteries. Our mysteries may be different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser.