# Snobbery of chronology...can't believe people used to believe that **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367 "2013-10-27T12:18:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![knel3030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@knel3030](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knel3030)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/1 "2013-10-27T12:18:01Z")
Looking back at the past from our sleek modern scientific towers, we can look at the superstitious dirty peoples of ages past and say things like…I can’t believe those dolts didn’t understand germ theory. They didn’t even wash their hands before surgeries. What might people in the year 2500 say about us and our primitive beliefs and practices? Absurdity welcome. “I can’t believe those dolts used to believe that thinking was done with the brain! Everyone knows effective thinking is only possible with at minumum a petaflop exocortex. I mean derrr. Bloody barbarians.”:smack: ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/2 "2013-10-27T12:21:03Z")
I can’t believe the surface dwellers of the Earth That Was doubted global warming for so long. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/3 "2013-10-27T12:32:18Z")
Ah, this is going to quickly devolve into one of those “people who disagree with me on various controversies are clearly idiots” threads. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/4 "2013-10-27T12:41:30Z")
Internal combustion engines?? How quaint… ---
**Author:** ![knel3030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@knel3030](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knel3030)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/5 "2013-10-27T12:42:17Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Ah, this is going to quickly devolve into one of those “people who disagree with me on various controversies are clearly idiots” threads. I disagree. Therefore you are clearly an idiot. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/6 "2013-10-27T13:00:10Z")
Those primitive ignoramuses (ignorami?)from about 1965 till 2100 believed that everybody had to be treated equally. Even if somebody was disabled or mentally retarded, they still let him go to school with the normal kids. It should have been obvious that some people are superior to others…But back then they didn’t know how to read their own genes. They even let the inferior ones copulate!! ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/7 "2013-10-27T14:08:57Z")
The only treatments they had for cancer were slash, burn, poison. They believed that you could wipe out drug addictions by banning the drugs and filling the country with prisons. They believed in supply-side economics, AKA pushing on a wet noodle. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/8 "2013-10-27T14:20:25Z")
“Snobbery of chronology”? I think what it amounts to, is that these things seem obvious to us, given that we’ve lived with the ideas all our lives. So we can’t understand how it wasn’t obvious to people in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/9 "2013-10-27T14:59:35Z")
I am not quite getting the germ theory example of the OP. How is germ theory obvious? ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/10 "2013-10-27T15:17:54Z")
[“He requested something called ‘wheat germ’…”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs4b3Fm5ymI) ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/11 "2013-10-27T15:20:13Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I am not quite getting the germ theory example of the OP. How is germ theory obvious? This one bugs me too, people had to realize dirt=infection even without knowing about bacteria. Take a clean blade and cut a living pig, now take a blade smeared with slime from a sewage canal and cut a living pig. Which one got infected? Repeat several hundred times, any pattern emerging? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/12 "2013-10-27T15:26:59Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I am not quite getting the germ theory example of the OP. How is germ theory obvious? Excatly! I visited Yorktown batlefield a couple of years ago. They had a re-enactor demonstrating the medicine of the time. Among other things that are cringe-worthy to modern ears, scientists of that era knew about microscopic creatures, which they called “animacules”. They did not know they caused disease. So close! Doctors of that time had treatments that worked, both in their theory and practice. Bleeding someone does lower their fever. When the fever comes back, bleed them again, and the fever lowers again. The patient’s bodily humours are back in balance, albeit temproarily. The trick is lowering the patient’s fever with out killing them - kind of like how we treat cancer with radiation and chemo therapy. Sure we 21 Century folks all know that fevers are not so serious as cancer, and should not be attacked with life-threatening treatments. What do _you_ suggest for fevers - tea made from tree bark?!! How do you _prove_ the germ thory of disease, at the same time the scientific method as we now understand it was being developed? Even if you had the outre idea that germs caused disease, they don’t cause all diseases (scurvy is a dietary deficiency) and not everyone with the same “animacules” gets sick (personal immunity among the survivors). I think it was the early 19th Century before the germ theory began to be accepted. Even then, it took a while - as Ignatz Semmelweis could attest from the asylum. (BTW, above is form my memory. I’m sure my timeline and details are wrong. Corrections welcome!) ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/13 "2013-10-27T15:39:01Z")
I can’t believe people in the 21st century didn’t even know what a schoogbriz is. How can you yhterak if don’t have a schoogbriz? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/14 "2013-10-27T15:41:30Z")
> [@grude](#): > > This one bugs me too, people had to realize dirt=infection even without knowing about bacteria. > > Take a clean blade and cut a living pig, now take a blade smeared with slime from a sewage canal and cut a living pig. Which one got infected? Repeat several hundred times, any pattern emerging? I’m saying it’s _not_ obvious. You’re describing a procedure for determining what’s going on, but outside of having intentionally gone through such a procedure, why would anyone jump to the germ theory conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/15 "2013-10-27T15:42:11Z")
The standard term for this is “chronological snobbery,” although I’m surprised to discover that some people do use the term “snobbery of chronology”: > **[Chronological snobbery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_snobbery)** > > Chronological snobbery is an argument that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior to that of the present, simply by virtue of its temporal priority or the belief that since civilization has advanced in certain areas, people of earlier periods were less intelligent. The term was coined by C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, and first mentioned by Lewis in his 1955 autobiographical work, Surprised by Joy. Chronological snobbery is a form of appeal to novelty. > As Barfiel... ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/16 "2013-10-27T15:48:37Z")
“In the twenty-first century, surgeons performed their craft by actually cutting into the patient. Even after the advent of laser surgery, puncture of the skin was still necessary.” (students cringe) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/17 "2013-10-27T16:16:42Z")
\*“Were people between the mid-19th and late-21st centuries really in a constant state of alarm that some natural (asteroid, supervolcano), manmade (AGW, nukes) or supernatural (rapture, tribulation) event was imminently going to bring an end to the world?” \* And it would have to be explained to them that actually, post-1950s there was at least one reasonable cause for such fear on the manmade category, but no, the majority of humanity did not spend the best part of three centuries thinking this was the day they’d get snuffed. Yes, many people look upon beliefs and practices of the past as if the right answer were bloody obvious and bring up the old timers’ honest ignorance/confusion as some sort of character defect. But that suggests to me that it would be hard to imagine what may elicit that same reaction in AD2500, since it would NOT be bloody obvious from this side. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/18 "2013-10-27T17:11:15Z")
“People back then thought we’d be highly judgmental of them and horrified by all sorts of now-obsolete technologies that they used? That’s interesting. I never really thought about it that way, but it makes sense in context.” ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/19 "2013-10-27T17:14:25Z")
> [@grude](#): > > This one bugs me too, people had to realize dirt=infection even without knowing about bacteria. > > Take a clean blade and cut a living pig, now take a blade smeared with slime from a sewage canal and cut a living pig. Which one got infected? Repeat several hundred times, any pattern emerging? Define “clean” for a physician-like personage of, oh, 1325. A blade that appears spotless can be teeming with E. coli and similar nasties, while one with pond slime on it could have nothing particularly dangerous on it. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/20 "2013-10-27T17:14:47Z")
My God man, drilling holes in his head is not the answer! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367.md?page=2)