Reply #35: Both scientific and historical knowledge seem to be

[Lorien]

sadly lacking these days. 9/11, to many in America, was the worst atrocity ever committed, which only proves that their knowledge of history that is still "in living memory" is sadly lacking. The tsunami has made some of us shockingly aware that many of our fellow Americans don't have a basic grasp of how their planet's continents, mountain ranges and canyons were formed. Any more, if an event happens that hasn't happened in the past 30 years, it becomes "unprecedented".

It kind of reminds me of when I was showing my vacation pictures of a cathedral in France to my assistant; a 45 year old man. When I said "this portion was added much later, around the early 16th century" he gasped "No, that can't be right! You're saying that church is 400 years old?"
"no, I'm saying that this portion is around 500 years old. The cathedral was built around 1030 AD, so it's nearly a thousand years old".

My assistant argued that NOTHING standing was over 100 years old. Where he got this notion, I'll never know. I asked him about the pyramids in Egypt, and it seems that he thought that they had been rebuilt as a tourist attraction. To this poor fellow, the rest of the world was just one giant Epcot!