39
Einstein and the Eskimos
Before the coming of the white man to the north, Eskimos
believed that if they cut slabs of ice, organized them in a circle, formed
a dome and lived inside they would please the spirits. Apparently, the
plan worked. The contented spirits made sure the Eskimos stayed
warm, even when the temperature dipped to forty below zero outside.
Eventually, western scientists showed up and tried to explain how the
Eskimos had mastered an invisible force called thermodynamics.
According to these presumptuous foreigners, the igloo's tunnel-like
entrance pre-heated outside air, the movable snow-block door let in
precisely the amount of this air that could be further warmed by the
seal-oil lamp inside, and the adjustable hole in the roof allowed just
enough of the resulting rising currents out to create the convection that
kept the whole thing going. The sturdy igloo builders pooh-poohed
thermodynamic nonsense. They knew exactly what invisible powers
kept their dwellings warm.63
Indians worship an invisible divinity--the cow goddess. As a
result, cows eat and Indians starve. We are appalled. Why don't the
hungry Indians simply carve up some of the cattle wandering
nonchalantly down their streets and wolf down a burger?
Anthropologist Marvin Harris has shown that if the Indians
slaughtered their cows and threw them between the buns of a Big Mac,
far more of them would starve. Harris explains that the Indians
survive by using the cow's dung as fuel, their traction to pull plows
and their milk to feed children. Killing the cows would make
agriculture impossible, heating unheard of, and milk unavailable. The
worship of the sacred cow works. It keeps alive the creatures on which
the entire Indian economy is based.64
Pictures of the invisible world can have wild inaccuracies. But
every view that flourishes does so because it solves at least one major
problem. Balinese religious leaders kept their gods happy by throwing
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