[Aztlan] King Kong, Cold Fusion and The Mayan wheel.

[Michael Finley]

Historians of Science and Technology  have long stressed the connections 
between developing facets of  technology, and between technology and 
other cultural factors.  A lot of pieces, technical and social,  had to 
be in place before, for example,  railways  could replace stage 
coaches-- this despite the fact that railed vehicles of a sort were used 
in mining from the Middle Ages, and the concept of steam power was known 
to Hero of Alexandria.  To extend Mokyr's metaphor,  explaining the 
course of  biological evolution  requires an ecosystem approach, not 
just focus on fortuitous mutations, and cultural evolution cannot 
ignore  structural/functional dimensions.

So I'm still kind of attracted to the old explanation ----  the wheel 
wasn't used for transport in Mesoamerica because other  technical and 
cultural  elements that would have  made it a cultural fit were absent, 
particularly beasts of burden to haul carts, but probably other factors 
as well that I'm not clever enough to think of.  If I recall correctly, 
wheeled vehicles appeared in Europe when semi-pastoral,  migratory 
people with  oxen or other  domestic long-haulers  appeared on the 
scene.  Neither factor  seems  to have existed in Mesoamerica. The 
comparison may not be decisive, but it is suggestive.

But all this remains speculation.

Michael Finley

Robert Evans wrote:

>I'm embarrassed to admit I've lost the original posting where one of the
>kind listeros suggested this paper by Joel Mokyr. 
>
>"King Kong & Cold Fusion: Counterfactual analysis and the History of
>Technology."
>
>http://www.faculty.econ.northwestern.edu/faculty/mokyr/Tetlock3.PDF
>
>It seems unlikely that the Maya had the wheel yet used it only minimally,
>but Professor Joel Mokyr's Darwinian model for technological development
>proposes a framework for us to consider this possibility. Mokyr suggests
>that technological innovations are the equivalent of mutations in biological
>Darwinism. A genetic mutation must give the organism an advantage in the
>environment in it exists if it is to be selected and passed on to future
>generations. Also, any genetic mutation must come from the gene pool stock
>at the time. The same holds true for technological innovations; the
>innovation must have a useful application for it to be selected and passed
>on. In a parallel to the gene pool, innovations spring form the sum total of
>technological applications that exist at the time. 
>
>
>All technological innovations exploit the regularities of nature, some of
>them are understood and some are not much more than exploitable accidents.
>Those which are well understood have far greater potential of growing and
>yielding further innovations, while those than are either minimally or
>mis-understood will not develop much at all. A technological breakthrough
>occurred when early man discovered that crop yields increased after adding
>the excrement from domesticated animals to the soil. These ancient farmers
>did not in short order progress to developing chemical fertilizers. They had
>no idea of how fertilizers worked, soil chemistry or any of that. They just
>knew that it did work and that knowledge was passed onto the collective
>human knowledge where is stayed for millennia in a simplistic and infant
>state. They didn't have enough of a knowledge base to develop the idea; we
>had to wait until after the great leaps of science following the renaissance
>and the industrial revolution for the human knowledge pool to be deep enough
>for the technological breakthrough of man made fertilizer. 
>
>Even if there is a deep enough pool of knowledge, it by no means guarantees
>that any specific technological invention will come forth. Just as no matter
>how deep the gene pool, we have no way of predicting what mutation will
>occur or when it will happen. The pool of knowledge may languish for
>centuries before inspiration strikes a particular mind to advance the
>technology. Having said that, the chances of a selectable mutation or an
>applicable technological innovation occurring are proportional to the size
>of the pool.  
>
>Beavers make dams without a clue about hydraulics, ancient farmers
>fertilized with no idea of chemistry, and it is conceivable that the Maya's
>knowledge base regarding the wheel was so shallow that the likelihood of one
>of them inventing any more applications for this curiosity was so slim that
>time ran out before it happened.
>
>Robert Evans
>revans at atoda.com
>www.atoda.com
>
>
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