It’s easy to think of people in the distant past as kinda dumb for believing things like that mice could spontaneously generate from old grain. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll find there was a sensibility to the odd beliefs that came before science.
# Summary
This Stuff You Should Know episode explores the wild and wonderfully wrong scientific beliefs people held before the scientific method became standard practice, from the four humors of ancient medicine to the idea that mice spontaneously generate from grain. Josh and Chuck walk through fascinating theories like the geocentric universe with its rotating crystal spheres, the belief that everything is made of earth, air, fire, and water, and Democritus's surprisingly accurate but long-ignored prediction of atoms—showing how these ideas actually made perfect sense given what people could observe at the time. It's a humbling and entertaining look at how our ancestors weren't dumb, just working with the tools and knowledge they had available.
No movies have been linked to this episode.
💬 Comments
Log in to leave a comment.