WEBVTT - Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:05.760 Good luck. Hey everybody. We are super excited to return 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.920 to the sketch Fest stage and do a live show again. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.440 We missed it so so much last year and we 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.360 can't wait to get back to San Francisco. Yeah, it's 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.800 our first live show in two years, chuck, and we're 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.720 going to be there at the Sydney Goldstein Theater and 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:25.800 beautiful San Francisco, California at seven thirty on Friday, January one. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.840 Is a straight up stuff you should know live show, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.800 and it's going to be off the chain, that's right. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:33.640 You should show up to see if we've forgotten how 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.600 to do this, to see a skate around on stage, 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:42.239 nervously sure, doubting ourselves and eventually bringing the funnies. Yeah, hopefully. 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.400 Where do they go? They go to s f AS 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.199 in San Francisco, SF sketch Beest dot com. Click on 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.040 the schedule and tickets link. There are tons and tons 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.760 and tons of great shows, so best comedy UH festival 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.000 in the country in my opinion over the whole month 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.560 of January. So go check us out and go check 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.920 out every body else as well. Yep, it's also a 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.640 full vaccination show, so you've got to show proof of 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.400 vaccination and wear some masks. Don't be naughty. Don't be naughty, 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.560 be nice. So we'll see you guys on Friday, January 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:17.120 one in San Francisco, California. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:27.760 a production of I Heart Radio. Ahoy, and welcome to 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.920 the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and we're the 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.040 captains of this here ship called Stuff you Should Know. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.320 And uh, that's all there is to it, although I 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.320 do think we need to allow for the fact that 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:45.000 Jerry is rear admirable and by that, of course, I 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.160 mean rear admiral, and by that, of course, I mean 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.880 it's going to be a long episode. Has there ever 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:57.680 been a cute c TV show called the Admirable Admiral? Uh? No, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.920 that sounds great. I think there was one. The Simpsons 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:05.480 did one called Admirable Baby. All right, well that counts. Yeah. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.360 I don't know if the baby was particularly admirable, though 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.520 it could have been, like a terrible person. So I 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.520 have a cold, so I just want to apologize up front. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.520 Just a head cold, but I'm a little stuffy, so 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.520 I'm sorry if if it's coming across is untoward. I'm 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.239 very proud of you for pushing through, Chuck, because lesser 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.120 podcasters would not. They might they might just be like, 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.120 I can I have a cold and people don't want 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.440 to hear that. You say, the heck with that. I'm 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.840 going forward with it. Remember back in the day, you 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.919 had like a three month cold that one year every year, 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:39.880 every year for a little while, I used to get 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.200 so sick. Yeah, no, it's terrible. But we've gotten much better, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.679 haven't we. Yeah, I think, Uh, I don't know. Maybe 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.480 quitting smoking has something to do with that, Maybe just 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.160 a touch. You don't get colds like that anymore for you. 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:55.040 I really don't so, And yet another reason to quit smoking. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.280 Everybody who's out there on the fence. Uh So we're 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.680 talking today. The reason I said that we're sin because 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.280 I was making a play on a story that it 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.840 seems like every single person Chuck knows about. At the 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:07.800 very least, I can say with almost a hund percent 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.000 confidence that everyone that you and I have ever met, 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.480 seen in passing, talked to um, or been in the 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.080 same like country with probably has heard of the story 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.440 of Noah and the Flood, where Noah was told to 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.520 go ahead and build a boat because the earth was 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.000 going to flood and everybody was going to be killed. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.160 And by the way, grabs some animals put them on 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.360 board so that you and your wife and then the 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:38.640 animals can all repopulate your respective species once the flood subsides. Right, 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.960 it's a classic story. Everybody loves it. We we we 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.240 read it out loud just about every Saturday at dinner time, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.200 and it's just a great story. Right, everybody knows this story. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.080 But it turns out, Chuck, that um, there's this idea 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.520 that that actually happened, that that there and it's long 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.040 been and I the that the that what the Noah's 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.680 story is talking about happened in actuality, that there was 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:10.120 a point in time where the entire world flooded. And 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.600 there's been a lot of scholarly research into this into 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.520 how that's even possible. Yeah, and you know, I guess 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.000 if we're talking about this particular, because you know, we've 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.360 we've found after digging around and getting d to help 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.760 us with this research, that there are flood myths and 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.279 not every culture, but a lot of cultures over the years. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:33.960 And we'll get into that, you know, in lots of detail, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.680 but as far as actual Noah's actual flood from the 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.960 Old Testament. Um, there was a gentleman in eighteen seventy 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.440 two named George Smith who was a hobbyist of all 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:50.040 things Assyrian and an amateur sort of historical sleuth. But 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.279 um a well educated one, nonetheless, because he could do 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.280 things like read cuneaform tablets. And he was doing that 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.000 one day on I don't know if it was an 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.799 actual lunch break or if that's just apocryphal, but supposedly 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.200 on a lunch break went to a museum, was reading 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.520 Cunea form and came across the story the Epic of 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:14.760 Gilgamish and read this quote, build a boat abandoned wealth 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.359 and seek survival. Spurn poverty, save life. Take on board 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.880 all living things, seed animals. The boat you will build. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.440 Her dimensions shall be equal, her length and breadths shall 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.320 be the same. Doesn't seeing about cubits, but it's inferred. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.200 Cover her with a root, cover her with a roof 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.400 like the ocean below, and he will send you a 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.560 reign of plenty. And George Smith said, hey, this is 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:44.120 strikingly familiar as the Christian slash Jewish Old Testament Noah's 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.599 flood story. But this is several years previous. Yeah, and 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.920 instead of um, God telling Noah or an angel telling Noah, 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.479 it's the god in Leal who's telling a guy named 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.400 Uta pished him to build this boat. Noah's nowhere to 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.120 be heard and for what reason? What do you mean? Well, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.280 I mean, wasn't this one of the ones where like 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.800 Earth is being punished? Basically? Oh yeah, so um the 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.360 reason that that Uh and Leo gave to Udna pitched 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.320 him was because the humans were too noisy, and the 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:20.360 gods were sick of humans, so they were going to 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.200 flood the earth and kill off all humans, whereas in 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.799 the Bible it was because humans had become too wicked 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.760 to live. I think noisy and wicked are the same 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:30.680 thing back then, I guess so. And it makes you 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.800 wonder like did somebody misread the word and they're like 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.360 noisy okay, and just barreled on there like my lunch 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.000 break is almost over. So George Smith just was like noisy, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.159 it's they said noisy. But there was also the idea 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.320 of saving animals, and there was also the idea that 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.840 afterward birds were sent out to find dry land, just 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.240 as a no story, right, and so Uh, you just 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.160 kind of say whoops, because, um, the Epic of Gilgamesh 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.520 predates the Old Testament by at least several dred years, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.919 depending on what part you're talking about. And UM, so 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.040 you might say, Okay, so the Noahs story is adapted 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.440 from this, but that doesn't mean that it undermines the veracity. 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.440 They don't undermine the veracity of another. In fact, if 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.440 you stop and think about it, the fact that one 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.080 of the first things that was ever written down after 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.600 the invention of writing Q form was the first written 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:32.320 system humans ever devised, and that the first literary work 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:37.280 ever created, the Epic of Gilgamesh, contained this flood story. Um, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.880 it kind of suggests that something actually may have happened, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.840 Like it was a really important story that has stuck 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.640 around for thousands and thousands of years. The Epic of 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:54.800 Gilgamesh was written thirty four hundred years ago. Um that 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.280 that it suggests that there might be some some kernel 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.480 of truth to it. Yeah. And over the years, a 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:06.600 lot of people have tried to um prove, whether scientifically 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.920 or otherwise, that the the Noah's flood really did take place. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.320 Bible literalists, is that what is that? What we call them, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.960 I think, so okay, Bible literalists, um, Bible historians, because 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.600 that would uh, that would go a long way uh 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.360 in Christianity if you could say, hey, the Bible is 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.440 an actual historical document. This stuff is really true. And 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:31.920 in the eighteenth and nineteenth century there was something called 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.680 uh deluvialism, deluvial meaning like relating to a great flood. 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.280 But that was a big shaper of actual geology. Was 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.839 basically saying, hey, this physical literally the physical world that 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.480 we're living in came about after this flood. What kind 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.760 of reset things? And then the real geological record came 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.680 along when science got serious and they proved that was 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.640 not the case, and that kind of went the way 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.640 of the Dodo around you know, the mid eighteen hundreds. Yeah, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.520 they kind did it backwards. They said, the Noah flood 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.720 shaped the world as we see it. Go find proof, 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.880 and when they found proof, they're like, it's not really 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.600 adding up. So there's no evidence that there was a 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.280 global flood that inundated the world. And in fact, the 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.160 geological record that these geologists, the early ones and you 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.640 know up to modern day ones have been putting together 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.560 supports the exact opposite. Of that that Earth wasn't created 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.360 in a day luge. It was created over incredibly long 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:35.439 distances of time, very very slowly, layer by layer, right, 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.520 But people still say, okay, well, why number one, why 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.120 have we been telling this flood story for so long? 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.240 And then also, why is it, like you said, the 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.520 idea of of flood myths seems almost universal. Doesn't that 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.559 like still strongly suggest that there was, even if the 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.480 Bible doesn't quite have it right. And by the way, 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.079 Noah's story also shows up in the Koran too, So 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.079 it's in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament and the Koran. 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.960 And then there's the epic of Gilgamas story, Like, why 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.840 is this important story still around? Doesn't it still support 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.360 the idea that something happened? Why would there be universal 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.760 flood myths from cultures that had never even heard of 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.800 Christianity before? And there have been like some attempts to 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.760 explain that that I think are much more satisfying than 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.199 the idea that we're just missing all of the evidence 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.960 for great worldwide deluge that happened back in antiquity. Yeah, 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:28.880 and there were you know that It's more than just 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.280 those there were Chinese flood myths. There were uh flood 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.840 myths in southern Canada and the British Isles. Uh. So 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.360 there was one study that picked out fifty cultures and 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.880 they all had their own flood myths and that it 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.280 was related to some kind of punishment. So they started looking, 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.000 like you said, of like, why why is this happening? 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.439 And there's a bunch of reasons and they all kind 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.400 of make sense to me if I'm being honest. Um, 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.199 one of them is that there there was a flood 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.720 in these cultures, but it wasn't a globe flood. But 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.360 if you're you know, if if all you know is 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.200 a certain area and you never get to leave that 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.600 area and it wipes out everything you know, then the 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.280 story that you pass along orally um through the years 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.559 would sound like one that wiped out everything. Yeah, And 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:23.160 like the whole idea is that this flood actually did 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.920 happen way far back to one group, and then that 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.079 group eventually kind of spread out and carried that flood 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.360 myth with them. And so to those of us today 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:39.320 historians anthropologists looking at like all of these groups that 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.559 are spread out all over the world, all sharing basically 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.640 the same story, it would make it seem like a 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.960 flood had impacted all of these groups that were that 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:49.760 far spread out, so it must have been a really 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.000 big flood. But this explanation says, no, the flood was 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.640 actually really localized. It was the group that it happened 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.200 to that eventually spread out. That's one explanation. It makes 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.000 a lot of sense. And one of them, the groups 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.880 that are usually UM kind of pinpointed as that this 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.800 flood happening to or the Proto Indo Europeans who were 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:11.960 known to have been around the the I think the 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.240 Caucusus Mountains to start and then just spread out as 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:21.160 far as the British Isles, um, basically all over Europe northwest, east, 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:26.679 south UM. And that all of our languages like English, Germanic, um, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.840 just a whole slew of languages developed out of this group. Yeah. 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:32.840 And some more support for this is the fact that 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.480 there aren't fled myths in Sub Saharan African cultures. And 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.240 these were groups that when they left Africa, they didn't 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:45.160 come back, so they would not have taken back with them, 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.480 uh flood myth from proto Indo Europeans. So it all 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.880 kind of makes sense. Yeah, exactly. There's another kind of 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:58.400 related one to that um that says that there were floods, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.680 just not a flood. That flooding is actually really common, 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.319 so it happened to a lot of different groups, So 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.960 it would make sense that all these different cultures would 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.760 have flood myths. Sure. And again, if you're if you 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.840 live in your riverside village and you don't get to 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.319 travel very far from there and everything you know of 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.680 gets destroyed again, it could be, you know, lend support 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:25.120 to the idea that it gets translated as a worldwide flood. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.640 And if everyone's having these localized floods, which which happened, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.600 you know, there's always been floods then uh, not necessarily 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.520 of the forty days and forty nights variety. But when 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.840 things are passed around orally and then they get rewritten, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.520 things get kind of mixed up. Yeah, and it's are 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.520 bad those of us alive today who are mistaking or 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.199 laying our interpretation of the world word world onto like 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:53.280 these cultures use of the word world. They're saying their world, 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.600 which was much smaller than it is to those of 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.440 us today. When we think the world, we think the 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.640 whole globe. You know. Yeah, And speaking of laying your 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:07.640 things on other cultures, the third one is Christian missionaries. Uh, 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.040 and there's evidence of this happening. They would go and 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.720 tell the story of Noah's great flood, especially you know, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.960 when colonization was happening too, and between missionaries and colonization, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.560 all these other cultures picked up on that original biblical 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.560 flood tail or. I don't know if we should call 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:26.560 it a flood myth or or flood tail at this point, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.240 what should we call it? I think most people call 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.680 it flood myths or Deluvian myths. Okay, Delivian myth that 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.680 sounds a little more academic. Uh so. Yeah, So Christian 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.560 missionaries did this, and I think this is um also 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.440 evidence in the fact that the South Pacific didn't really 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.440 have one until eighteen fourteen when they came into contact 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.400 with with Christian missionaries, and then all of a sudden 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.240 they had the Maori flood myths. Yeah. So they actually 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.560 had a floyd myth before, but apparently it was more 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:02.240 tsunami based, and then after contact with Christianity, it became 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:04.680 much more of like a day lose and it just 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:09.040 bore some striking resemblances to the Noah flood myth of Christianity, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.080 and apparently that happened all over the South Pacific as well, 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.600 where um, these cultures will have their own kind of 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.240 flood myth, but it's always based on tsunamis. But then 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:19.280 the Christians come and go, and all of a sudden, 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.880 it's a day lose where the water rose after like 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.560 you know, forty days and forty knights of rain and stuff. 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.440 So that creates a lot of headaches for anthropologists, but 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.040 it also at the same time explains why universal flood 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.920 myth or a flood myth would seem universal of those 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.200 of us around today, and why they seem to bear 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.560 such a striking resemblance to one another. You know. Indeed, 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.000 I think we should take a break and I'm gonna 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.520 go blow my nose and then we'll come back and 0:15:46.560 --> 0:16:17.520 talk about geo mythology right after this. So, Chuck, that 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:19.320 was nice of you to blow your nose at the 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.040 break rather than during recording, even though I still had 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.520 to hear it. It was you know, what's funny, I 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.320 was listening to Uh. I don't know why I just 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.560 thought of this, but I was listening to Paula Thompkins 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.600 Stay at Hopkins podcast he does with his wife Janey 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.640 the otherday, and he was talking about sneezing on stage 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.520 and that that had happened to him once in his career. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:42.400 And Paul is someone who spent lots and lots and 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.280 lots of time on stages, and I wonder if there's 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:50.280 something to that of the body withholding things like sneezes, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.280 because I've never seen anyone's sneeze on stage. I've never 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.440 sneezed on stage. Isn't that weird? Yeah, I'm sure it's 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:02.000 related to adrenaline fight or flight. That's what I was thinking. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:03.880 I mean, there's got to be something to that. Yeah, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:05.959 like your body's like I have time to waste all 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.040 that energy and sneezing. We gotta get out of here. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.520 We're gonna put on a great show. It would be 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.000 really weird to think about it if, like, I don't know, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.919 Barry Manilow in Vegas was talking about setting up Mandy 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.280 before he sings it and just lets out a big sneeze. Yeah, well, 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.440 thank you for setting me up to reminisce yet again 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.480 about the time that you me and I saw Barry 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.320 Manilow front Road Center in Vegas. You would have been 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.040 sneezed on with that big snoze. Yes, we actually would 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.080 have been covered in his his sneeze. All right, So 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.720 we promised talk of geo mythology. Here's the idea. Since 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.800 science really got attacked together, there have been a couple 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.200 of different ways to look at things like flood myths 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.800 as either um, this is a story about our cultural 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.560 values and there's a lot of religious metaphor involved, or 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.199 this was an actual historical event and geo mythology came 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.800 along to kind of say, hey, man, it can kind 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.120 of be both, like there could have been a real flood, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:09.240 and it also took on metaphor and took on cultural 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.959 values and was used as a as a story of 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:14.600 I can't think of the word I'm trying to think 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.640 of to teach you a lesson. What's that called fable? Yeah, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.760 like a fable. So this kind of this field has 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.320 emerged since, um, I believe the sixties and actually it 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.320 was I was reading about. This field of geomethology is 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.399 like still really trying to establish itself in the field 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:37.720 of geology, and most most geomethologists are trained geologists. That's 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.159 where you start out D and D probably, but they 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.640 they also are, like, you know, they have to really 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.359 defend what they're doing against their fellow geologists because they're 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.000 they're basically saying, all of these myths, all of these legends, 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:56.080 all of this history, these these folk traditions, they actually 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:01.560 contain eyewitness accounts of natural disas, sters, of weird events, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:06.639 and earth of early finds of fossils. And yeah, they've 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.240 they've been cloaked them in the language of mythology and 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.600 the terminology of mythology and monsters and weirdness and all 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.639 this stuff that makes it just seem completely um legendary 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.360 to us today. But um, that's how these pre scientific 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:28.439 and often preliterate cultures um passed along really valuable information. 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.119 And like we've been kind of foolish to just discount 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.800 these as all nothing but legend, as if there's no 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.119 fact whatsoever in there. And so the bathwater exactly, and 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.200 so that's what geo mythology is doing. They're saying, wait 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.440 a minute, wait a minute, if you just look at 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.199 this the right way, we are covered up in historical 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.680 accounts just waiting for us to unravel. If we learn 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.840 how to to read these correctly and then also correlate 0:19:54.720 --> 0:20:01.480 with actual, like known geological events that we've discovered through science. Yeah, like, hey, 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.240 you see that story that uh seems completely crazy about 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.359 a demon god who lives in a mountain and gets 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.960 angry and spouts uh fire from its top. Like that's 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:17.560 a volcano, bros. And like, just because it sounds crazy 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:19.639 doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fact that an 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.400 actual volcano eruption might have happened. Then, and let's kind 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.200 of marry these two things and let's just all get along, right, 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.840 and so like that that that legend about the volcano 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.679 with the angry god that sometimes spews like scary stuff forth. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.640 And if you ever hear the mountains starting to make rumbles, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.320 it means that God is waking up and you should run, like, um, 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.560 that's that is a way for a culture that is 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:47.320 aware that this mountains actually a volcano, and that volcano 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.720 can sit dormant for generations at a stretch, so those 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.040 there will be people born in the future who aren't 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.160 aware that that's a volcano. And this is the way 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.600 that the culture passes down over deep time. This really 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.800 important and information If the volcanover makes it sound run 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.080 because you don't want the fiery breath of that god 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.360 that's trapped inside it makes it I love this stuff. 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:13.480 Like before science came along, all humans did from the 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.520 moment they could sort of form thoughts was trying to 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.639 explain what was going on around them, from rain and 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.200 thunder to volcanoes and floods. And I don't know, I 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.200 think it's super interesting. It's almost like these proto early 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.479 warning systems like nuclear didn't really know how to explain 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.680 the science of it, exactly like nuclear semiatics. Remember we 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.040 did an episode on that on how to tell people 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.600 ten thousand years in the future about steering clear of 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.320 nuclear waste. Right, it's the same exact principle. It's just chuck. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:47.240 Somewhere along the way, we later generations became arrogant and 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:52.760 just completely discounted any of that those pre scientific traditions 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.040 because they didn't appear scientific. But it is exactly like 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:57.600 what you were saying. It was the way that they 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.639 made sense of actual stuff. And so there's plenty of 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.879 stuff to learn from those those accounts and those tales 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.480 and those myths and legends. We just have to basically 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.840 kind of eat a little bit of crow and go 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.040 back and be like, well, we've been ignoring this to 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.200 our own detriment. Yeah, And it's like you said earlier, 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:19.719 it's it's it's a tough roadeho though for scientists these 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.439 days if they take this on, because you know, you 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:24.320 have mixed results when you go back and you look 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.240 at these tales. Some of them may just be folk 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:31.280 tales and legends and some may have kernels of truth, 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:33.639 so may have a little more truth. So there's a 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.240 lot to sort of parse through as a geologist these days, 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:39.679 if you're as you're if you're working as or with 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:44.959 a geo mythologist, right, um, and so when when you 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.320 are laying this out and trying to figure out, okay, 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.880 what what is this myth describing? You know, again you're 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:54.840 a trained geologist if you're a geo mythologist, but you're 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:59.280 also working with people from other scientific fields, um as 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:03.440 far as trying to uncover, um this the fact the 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.600 kernel of truth behind these flood myths. You would be 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:11.520 working with paleo hydrology or paleo bath immetry, which is 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.480 the study of ancient sea levels like where they were 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:18.920 at in the past, and um so you're going to 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.959 take like the findings from these fields and then say, okay, 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.440 let me see if I can correlate it with a myth. 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:27.680 Or you find a myth and you say, okay, let 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:29.840 me see if I can correlate it with paleo bath 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:33.920