[Cronos]

...and the Spanish created gold, and made silver, in factories they built in the New World. They lost the technology when their colonial empire crashed.

err.. where DID you get that line from?

[ApplegateRanch]

...and the Spanish created gold, and made silver, in factories they built in the New World. They lost the technology when their colonial empire crashed.

err.. where DID you get that line from?

The same place people get the line that Islamic Arabs discovered or created the scientific & mathematical knowledge they appropriated and translated.

It is patently obvious that the Spanish PLUNDERED the wealth of the New World; likewise, it is patently obvious that the Muslim Arabs PLUNDERED the knowledge current apologists attempt to credit them with creating in Islamic-Arab "knowledge factories" called universities.

It is a logical device to demonstrate the absurdity of the premise, by creating an equally absurd, but easier to recognize fallacious analogy, by substitution.

It was one of the standard essay techniques when I was taking English 1-A about forty years ago.

Of course, back in the Stoned Age, we also were taught to examine ALL definitions of a word, as well as the connotations, listed in a dictionary. I notice that only the first seems to be given credence these days. Also, simple, or at most, complex sentences now seem to be preferred; compound and compound-complex, seem to be anathama.

Times and education change, and not always for the better.
Is there an analagy with the main topic in this, also?