WEBVTT - Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.440 Hey, everybody, it's Josh, and I have one word to 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.080 describe this week's select from twenty twenty one on why 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.840 there are so many myths about a great flood founding 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:17.040 cultures around the world. That word is fascinating, but I'll 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.360 had a few more words. I guess this is one 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.960 of those good old fashioned Stuff you Should Know episodes 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.000 where we find out that a thing that everyone just 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.759 kind of takes for granted actually has a lot more 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:27.920 to it than it seems. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:29.080 And I love those. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.760 Episodes, and I love this episode, which is why I 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:32.199 picked it. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:33.680 I hope you love it too. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:53.320 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.640 Ahoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.640 and we're the captains of this here ship called Stuff 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.639 you Should Know. And that's all there is to it, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.120 although I do think we need to allow for the 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:07.080 fact that Jerry is Rear Admirable and by that, of course, 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.120 I mean Rear Admiral, and by that, of course, I 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.320 mean it's gonna be a long episode. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.479 Has there ever been a cut c TV show called 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:18.760 The Admirable Admiral? 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:20.039 Uh No? 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.120 That sounds great. I think there was one the Simpsons 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.680 did one called Admiral Baby. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:27.119 Oh all right, well that counts. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:27.840 Yeah. 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.639 I don't know if the baby was particularly admirable, though, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:32.800 it could have been like a terrible person. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:34.720 So I have a cold, So I just want to 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.880 apologize up front. Just a head cold. But I'm a 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.800 little stuffy, So I'm sorry if if it's coming across 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:42.720 as untoward. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:45.920 I'm very proud of you for pushing through, chuck, because 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:50.040 a lesser podcasters would not. They might they might just 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.160 be like, I can I have a cold. People don't 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.400 want to hear that, and you say, the heck with that. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:55.720 I'm going forward with it. 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:57.560 Remember back in the day, you had like a three 0:01:57.640 --> 0:01:59.280 month cold that one year. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.840 Every year here for a little while, I used to 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.880 get so sick. Yeah, no, it's terrible. But we've gotten 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:05.880 much better, haven't we. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.600 Yeah. I think I don't know, maybe quitting smoking and 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:09.240 something to do with. 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.320 That, maybe just a touch. 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.200 You don't get colds like that anymore. 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.520 No for you, I really don't. So yet another reason 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.760 to quit smoking. Everybody who's out there on the fence, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:19.680 that's right. 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:21.080 So we're talking today. 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.040 The reason I said that we're captains is because I 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.840 was making a play on a story that it seems 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.520 like every single person Chuck knows about. At the very least, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.720 I can say with almost one hundred percent confidence that 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:35.520 everyone that you and I have ever met, seen in passing, 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.840 talked to, or been in the same country with, probably 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.640 has heard of the story of Noah and the Flood, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.760 where Noah was told to go ahead and build a 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.400 boat because the earth was going to flood and everybody 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.280 was going to be killed. And by the way, grab 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.640 some animals put them on board so that you and 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.440 your wife and then the animals can all repopulate your 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.800 respective species once the flood's sides. Right, it's a classic story. 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.240 Everybody loves it. We we read it out loud just 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.560 about every Saturday at dinner time, and it's just a 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.760 great story. Right, everybody knows this story. But it turns out, Chuck, 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:21.080 that there's this idea that that actually happened. That there, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.720 and it's long been an idea that the what the 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.720 Noah's story is talking about happened in actuality, that there 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.519 was a point in time where the entire world flooded. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.560 And there's been a lot of scholarly research into this 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.120 into how that's even possible. 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.040 Yeah, And you know, I guess if we're talking about 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.480 this particular, because you know, we've we've found, after digging 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.040 around and getting ed to help us with this research, 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.160 that there are flood myths in not every culture but 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.440 a lot of cultures over the years. And we'll get 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.840 into that, you know, in lots of detail, but as 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.520 far as actual Noah's actual flood from the Old Testament, 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.680 there was a gentleman in eighteen seventy two named George 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:08.600 Smith who is a hobbyist of all things Assyrian and 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.120 an amateur sort of historical sleuth, but a well educated 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.880 when nonetheless, because he could do things like read quneiform tablets, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.599 and he was doing that one day on I don't 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.040 know if it was an actual lunch break or if 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.200 that's just apocryphal, but supposedly on a lunch break, went 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.839 to a museum, was reading quneiform and came across a 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:35.080 story the Epic of Gilgamesh and read this quote, build 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.320 a boat, abandon wealth and seek survival. Spurn poverty, save life. 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.520 Take on board all living things, seed animals. The boat 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.000 you will build. Her dimension shall be equal her length 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.560 and breadths shall be the same. It doesn't sing any 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.880 about cubits, but it's inferred. Cover her with cover her 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.240 with a roof like the ocean below, and he will 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.160 send you a reign of plenty. And George Smith said, hey, 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.360 this is strikingly familiar as the Christian slash Jewish Old 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.279 Testament Noah's flood story. But this is several hundred years previous. 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:14.040 Yeah, and instead of God telling Noah or an angel 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.039 telling Noah, it's the God in Lel who's telling a 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.599 guy named utnapished him to build this boat. 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:23.280 Noah's nowhere to be heard. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:24.320 And for what reason? 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:26.279 What do you mean? 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.360 Well, I mean, wasn't this one of the ones where 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:31.640 like Earth is being punished? Basically? 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.599 Oh yeah, So the reason that U and Lel gave 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.599 to Udina pished him was because the humans were too 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.280 noisy and the gods were sick of humans, so they 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.800 were going to flood the earth and kill off all humans, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.400 whereas in the Bible it was because humans had become 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:48.719 too wicked to live. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.640 I think noisy and wicked are the same thing back then. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:52.080 I guess so. 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.719 And it makes you wonder, like, did somebody misread the 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.719 word and they're like noisy, okay, and just barreled on. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.120 They're like, my lunch break is almost over. So George 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.320 Smith's was like noisy, it's they said noisy. 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.359 But there was also the idea of saving animals, and 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.680 there was also the idea that afterward birds were sent 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.159 out to find dry land, just as a no. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.760 Story, right, And so you just kind of say, whoops. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:21.240 Because the Epic of Gilgamesh predates the Old Testament by 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.960 at least several hundred years, depending on what part you're 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.279 talking about, And so you might say, okay, so the 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.479 Noahs story is adapted from this, but that doesn't mean 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.960 that it undermines the veracity. They don't undermine the veracity 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.440 of one another. In fact, if you stop and think 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:42.160 about it, the fact that one of the first things 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.440 that was ever written down after the invention of writing, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.600 qn aiform, was the first written system humans ever devised, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.719 and that the first literary work ever created, the Epic 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.640 of Gilgamesh, contained this flood story. It kind of suggests 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.080 that something actually may have happened, like it was a 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.840 really important story that has stuck around for thousands and 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.480 thousands of years. The Epic of gilgrimesh was written thirty 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:19.080 four hundred years ago, that it suggests that there might 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.520 be some some kernel of truth to it. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.560 Yeah, and over the years, a lot of people have 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:30.240 tried to prove, whether scientifically or otherwise, that the the 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:34.960 Noah's Flood really did take place. Bible literalists, is that 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.880 is that what we call them? I think so, okay, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:43.080 Bible literalists Bible historians, because that would, uh, that would 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.680 go a long way in Christianity if you could say, hey, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.120 the Bible is an actual historical document, this stuff is 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.320 really true. And in the eighteenth and nineteenth century there 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:58.280 was something called deluvialism, deluvial meaning like relating to a 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.240 great flood. But that was a big shape of actual geology. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.000 Was basically saying, hey, this physical literally the physical world 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.400 that we're living in came about after this flood. What 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.720 kind of reset things? And then the real geological record 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.640 came along once science got serious and they proved that 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.680 was not the case, and that kind of went the 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.520 way of the Dodo around you know, the mid eighteen hundreds. 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.600 Yeah, they kind of did it backwards. They said the 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.280 Noah Flood shaped the world as we see it. Go 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.000 find proof, and when they found proof, they were like, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.439 it's not really adding up. Yeah, So there's no evidence 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.640 that there was a global flood that inundated the world. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.160 And in fact, the geological record that these geologists, the 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.880 early Ones and you know, up to modern day ones 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.600 have been putting together supports the exact opposite of that 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.400 that Earth wasn't created in a deluge. It was created 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.720 over incredibly long distances of time, very very slowly, layer 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:56.320 by layer. 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:57.640 Right, that's right. 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.960 But people still say, okay, welly number one, why have 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.760 we been telling this flood story for so long? And 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.680 then also, why is it, like you said, the idea 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.480 of flood myths seems almost universal. Doesn't that like still 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.480 strongly suggest that there was, even if the Bible doesn't 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.400 quite have it right. And by the way, Noah's story 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.560 also shows up in the Quran too, so it's in 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.880 the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament and the Quran. And 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.360 then there's the epic of Gilgemach story, Like, why is 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.200 this important story still around? Doesn't that still support the 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.880 idea that something happened? Why would there be universal flood 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.240 myths from cultures that had never even heard of Christianity before, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.880 and there have been some attempts to explain that that 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.560 I think are much more satisfying than the idea that 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.280 we're just missing all of the evidence for a great 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.720 worldwide deluge that happened back in antiquity. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.959 Yeah, and there were you know that it's more than 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:55.480 just those There were Chinese flood myths. There were flood 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.240 myths in southern Canada and the British Isles. So there 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.000 was one study picked out fifty cultures and they all 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.720 had their own flood myth and that it was related 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.600 to some kind of punishment. So they started looking, like 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.040 you said, of like why why is this happening? And 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:13.719 there's a bunch of reasons and they all kind of 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.000 make sense to me if I'm being honest. One of 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.679 them is that there was a flood in these cultures, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.800 but it wasn't a global flood. But if you're you know, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.200 if all you know is a certain area and you 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.520 never get to leave that area and it wipes out 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.120 everything you know, then the story that you pass along 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.520 orally through the years would sound like one that wiped 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:39.160 out everything. 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.680 Yeah, and like the whole idea is that this flood 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:49.760 actually did happen way far back to one group, and 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.640 then that group eventually kind of spread out and carried 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.920 that flood myth with them, And so to those of 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:01.040 us today historians anthropologists, looking at like all of these 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.720 groups that are spread out all over the world, all 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.640 sharing basically the same story, it would make it seem 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.640 like a flood had impacted all of these groups that 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:11.079 were that far spread. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:12.520 Out, so it must have been a really big flood. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.400 But this explanation says no, the flood was actually really localized. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.760 It was the group that it happened to that eventually 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.079 spread out. That's one explanation. It makes a lot of sense. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.480 And one of the groups that are usually kind of 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.280 pinpointed as this flood happening to or the proto Indo 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.840 Europeans who were known to have been around the I 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.120 think the Caucasus Mountains to start, and then just spread 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.480 out as far as the British Isles, basically all over 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.960 Europe northwest, east, south, and that all of our languages 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.240 like English, Germanic, just a whole slew of languages developed 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:52.000 out of this group. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.840 Yeah, and some more support for this is the fact 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.920 that there aren't flood myths in Sub Saharan African cultures, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.160 and these were groups that when they left Africa they 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.760 didn't come back, so they would not have taken back 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.320 with them a flood myth from proto Indo Europeans. So 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:12.480 it all kind of makes sense. 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.360 Yeah, exactly. There's another kind of related one too, that 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.200 that says that there were floods, just not a flood. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.040 That flooding is actually really common, so it happened to 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.480 a lot of different groups, So it would make sense 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.240 that all these different cultures would have flood myths. 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:37.200 Sure. And again, if you live in your riverside village 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.480 and you don't get to travel very far from there 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.920 and everything you know of gets destroyed again, it could be, 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.360 you know, lend support to the idea that it gets 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.679 translated as a worldwide flood. And if everyone's having these 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:53.760 localized floods which happened, you know, there's always been floods then, 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.520 not necessarily of the forty days and forty nights variety. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.320 But when things are passed around orally and then they 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.640 get rewritten, things get kind of mixed up. 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.360 Yeah, and it's our bad, those of us alive today 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.600 who are mistaking or laying our interpretation of the word 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.280 world onto like these culture's use of the word world. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.160 They're saying their world, which is much smaller than it 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.200 is to those of us today. When we think the world, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:20.560 we think the whole globe, you know. 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.319 Yeah, And speaking of laying your things on other cultures, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.840 the third one is Christian missionaries, and there's evidence of 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.080 this happening. They would go and tell the story of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.680 Noah's Great flood, especially you know, when colonization was happening too, 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.800 and between missionaries and colonization, all these other cultures picked 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:46.160 up on that original Biblical flood tale or I don't 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:47.439 know if we should call it a flood myth or 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.000 flood tale at this point, what should we call it? 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.240 I think most people call it flood myths or Deluvian myths. 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:59.400 Okay, Delivian myth that sounds a little more academic. So yeah, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.160 So Christian myth stiononaries did this, and I think this 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.520 is also evidence in the fact that the South Pacific 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.040 didn't really have one until eighteen fourteen when they came 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.240 into contact with Christian missionaries, and then all of a 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.200 sudden they had the Maori flood myths. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.880 Yeah, so they actually had a flood myth before, but 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.320 apparently it was more tsunami based, and then after contact 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.000 with Christianity, it became much more of like a deluge, 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.600 and it just bore some striking resemblances to the Noah 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.040 flood myth of Christianity, And apparently that happened all over 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.160 the South Pacific as well, where these cultures will have 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.200 their own kind of flood myth, but it's always based 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.840 on tsunamis. But then the Christians come and go, and 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:42.800 all of a sudden, it's a day luge where the 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.880 water rose after like forty days and forty nights of 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.720 rain and stuff. So that creates a lot of headaches 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.920 for anthropologists, but it also at the same time explains 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.960 why a universal flood myth or a flood myth would 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.640 seem universal of those of us around today, and why 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.760 they seem to bear such a striking resemblance still one another. 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:01.040 You know. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.000 Indeed, I think we should take a break and I'm 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.480 gonna go blow my nose, okay, and then we'll come 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.880 back and talk about geo mythology right after this. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:40.920 So, Chuck, that was a nice view to blow your 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.720 nose at the break rather than during recording, even though 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.520 I still had to hear it. 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.200 You know what's funny, I was listening to I don't 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:52.240 know why I just thought of this, but I was 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.080 listening to Paula Tompkins Stay at Homepkins podcast he does 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.400 with his wife Janey the other day, and he was 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.680 talking about sneezing on stage and that that had happened 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.600 to him once in his career. And Paula someone who 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.760 spent lots and lots and lots of time on stages, 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.640 And I wonder if there's something to that of the 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.400 body withholding things like sneezes, because I've never seen anyone 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.840 sneeze on stage. I've never sneezed on stage. Yeah, isn't 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:19.240 that weird? 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:23.000 Yeah, I'm sure it's related to adrenaline in fight or flight. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:24.880 That's what I was thinking. I mean, there's got to 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:25.600 be something to that. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.040 Yeah, like your body's like I have time to waste 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.960 all that energy on sneezing. We got to get out 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:31.880 of here, We got to put on a great show. 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.400 It would be really weird to think about it if, Like, 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.320 I don't know, Barry Manilow in Vegas was talking about 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.480 setting up Mandy before he sings it and just lets 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:41.400 out a big sneeze. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.200 Yeah, well, thank you for setting me up to reminisce 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.040 yet again about the time that you, me and I 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.040 saw Barry manilo front Row Center in Vegas. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.080 You would have been sneezed on with that big snoze. 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.560 Yes, we actually would have been covered in his sneeze. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.560 All right, So we promised talk of geo mythology. Here's 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.600 the idea. Since science really got attacked together, there have 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.560 been a couple of different ways to look at things 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:11.480 like flood myths as either this is a story about 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.200 our cultural values and there is a lot of religious 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.199 metaphor involved, or this was an actual historical event and 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:22.600 geomethology came along to kind of say, hey, man, it 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.440 can kind of be both, like there could have been 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:30.439 a real flood and it also took on metaphor and 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.920 took on cultural values and was used as a story 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:36.639 of I can't think of the word I'm trying to 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:37.760 think of to teach you a lesson. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:39.159 What's it called fable? 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:40.439 Yeah, like a fable. 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.919 So this kind of this field has emerged since I 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.640 believe the sixties, and actually I was reading about this 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:53.080 field of geomethology is like still really trying to establish 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.520 itself in the field of geology. And most geo mythologists 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:03.879 are trained geologists. That's where you start out, probably, but 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.560 they they also are like, you know, they have to 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.879 really defend what they're doing against their fellow geologists because 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.480 they're they're basically saying, all of these myths, all of 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:17.120 these legends, all of this historical, these these folk traditions, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:23.320 they actually contain eyewitness accounts of natural disasters, of weird 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:28.200 events and earth of early finds of fossils, and yeah, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:33.480 they've they've cloaked them in the language of mythology and 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.800 the terminology of mythology and monsters and weirdness and all 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.000 this stuff that makes it just seem completely legendary to 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.159 us today. But that's how these pre scientific and often 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:51.320 preliterate cultures passed along really valuable information, and like we've 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.400 been kind of foolish to just discount them as all 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.359 nothing but legend, as if there's no fact whatsoever in there. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.840 Water exactly. And so that's what geomithology is doing. 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:03.800 They're saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, if you 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.760 just look at this the right way, we are covered 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.960 up in historical accounts, just waiting for us to unravel 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.920 if we learn how to read these correctly and then 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:20.440 also correlate with actual, like known geological events that we've 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:21.720 discovered through science. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.640 Yeah, like, hey, you see that story that seems completely 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.200 crazy about a demon god who lives in a mountain 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.840 and gets angry and spouts fire from its top. Like 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:39.359 that's a volcano, bros. And like, just because it sounds 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.679 crazy doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fact that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.400 an actual volcano eruption might have happened then, and let's 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.440 kind of marry these two things and let's just all 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:48.280 get along. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.159 Right, And so like that legend about the volcano with 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.919 the angry god that sometimes spews like scary stuff forth, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.720 and if you ever hear the mountains starting to make rumbles, 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.200 it means the god is way up and you should run. 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.520 Like that's that is a way for a culture that 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.840 is aware that this mountain's actually a volcano, and that 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.600 volcano can sit dormant for generations at a stretch, so 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.920 those there will be people born in the future who 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.080 aren't aware that that's a volcano. And this is the 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.320 way that the culture passes down over deep time. This 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.440 really important information. If the volcano ever makes a sound 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.000 run because you don't want the fiery breath of that 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.119 god that's trapped inside it makes it. 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.440 I've heard. I love this stuff. Like, Yeah, before science 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.760 came along, all humans did from the moment they could 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.639 sort of form thoughts was try and explain what was 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.560 going on around them, from rain and thunder to volcanoes 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.520 and floods. And I don't know, I think it's super interesting. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.040 It's almost like these proto early warning systems, right, like 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.560 nuclears didn't really know how to explain the science of it. 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.720 Exactly like nuclear semiox Remember we did an episode on 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.159 that on how to tell people ten thousand years in 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.120 the future about steering clear of nuclear waste. Right, it's 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.960 the same exact principle. It's just chuck. Somewhere along the way, 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:11.800 we later generations became arrogant and just completely discounted any 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.959 of that those pre scientific traditions because they didn't appear scientific. 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.119 But it is exactly like what you were saying. It 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.560 was the way that they made sense of actual stuff. 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.720 And so there's plenty of stuff to learn from those 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.200 those accounts and those tales and those myths and legends. 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.160 We just have to basically kind of eat a little 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.080 bit of crow and go back and be like, well. 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.200 We've been ignoring this to our own detriment. 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.440 Yeah, And it's like you said earlier, it's a tough 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.640 road to ho though for scientists these days if they 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.479 take this on, because you know, you have mixed results 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:47.280 when you go back and you look at these tales. 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.400 Some of them may just be folk tales and legends, 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.919 and some may have kernels of truth, some may have 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:56.400 a little more truth. So there's a lot to sort 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:00.560 of parse through as a geologist these days, if you're 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.760 if you're working as or with the geo mythologist. 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:09.240 Right, and so when you are laying this out and 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.520 trying to figure out, okay, what is this myth describing. 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.560