Ancient History

11.28.06 (12:51 pm)   [edit]

I'm definitely a proponent of "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it". I'm an even a bigger advocate of the abbreviated version - been there, done that. Still, it just bothers me how much money and time is spent investigating mysteries from the past just for the sake of posterity. For example, billions of dollars and millions of man-hours have been spent investigating how Da Vinci painted the fraking Mona Lisa. Then there's the cold case experts who spend millions of dollars to do CT Scans and MRI's on the rotting corpse of an Egyptian Pharoah just to prove he wasn't bludgeoned to death. I know there's no statute of limitations on murder, but who exactly were they planning to prosecute - the rotting corpse of the so-called conspirators? Next time some poor mother without health insurance brings her kid in to get an X-ray, you gonna be the one to tell her that she has to wait because Tuttie appears to have broken his femur thousands of years ago? Basically, the first people who discovered Tuttie damaged his remains and they needed 84 years of study and millions of dollars to find out what Quincy or Columbo could have told them in 42 minutes. Actually, Columbo solves the crime after 10 minutes and then spends the remaining 32 minutes having the criminal and other suspects shit themselves in fear. Wow, if some alien species were to observe us, they'd probably say that we waste a lot of time and money investigating our past ad nauseum and very little time saving our future. Archeologists, historians and the like, please don't write me letters. What you do is important - no doubt. We have a lot to learn from history. However, there's a level frivolity to some of the scientific research out there. All for shits 'n' giggles.

I have to agree with you on this waste of money. I understand the scientific curiousity re: Pharoah. However, being from Canada, I would resent waiting around for my name to move to the top of the list for an MRI scan, only to find that a mummy is ahead of me. If they are using a private MRI machine, I understand, however perhaps open it up to those who also need it.