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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA
The knowledge from the ancient Greeks was lost to western civilization during the “Dark Ages”.

The entire concept of the "Dark Ages" is part of the myth. The seedlings which would grow to be the trees of the industrial revolution were planted in ancient times and were being nutured in Medieval Europe. They experienced slow but steady intellectual and industrial development, and although universal education had to wait for Gutenberg's invention, the myth of general belief in a Flat Earth is a modern creation.

90 posted on 10/25/2011 8:13:53 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Q: When did you stop beating you wife? Muslim: I still beat her. Q: Ha ha I got you. Wait. What?)
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To: Jeff Chandler
Again, we're on a side-channel. My original point remains: Jobs, like Columbus, was a pioneer that acted on knowledge that other may have had (or, later on, professed to have had). For that, he deserves credit for bringing the GUI to market, and for making computers "for the rest of us".

You seem to be conflating the "Middle Ages" with the "Dark Ages". As for the term "Dark Ages" -- yes, that's probably too "black and white". Perhaps they should be called the "Quite Dim Ages", or the "Less Bright Ages". Regardless, the fact remains that the vast majority of people were not exposed to the philosophies of the Greek classical period. If they thought about such matters at all, they just accepted what "everyone knows", or what their "betters" told them. If they didn't believe in a flat Earth, they were just as likely to believe in a hollow earth (perhaps even more likely -- but, I don't want to open up another diversionary channel).

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the masses believed in such myths as flat or hollow earths. Even today, in the most advanced civilizations the world has known -- civilizations with universal educational systems, and limitless mass communications -- even today, thousands of people are camped in public parks to demand an economic system based on economic theories that have been proven to make less sense than flat or hollow earths. Then there's global warming.
91 posted on 10/25/2011 1:14:09 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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