Sunday, April 6, 2008

Why does a writer write ...

Is this article
How Aztecs Did the Math by Constance Holden, Science NOW Daily News, 3 April 2008
about "how the Aztecs did math" or about telling the reader that "a geographer and a mathematician have zeroed in on just what methods Aztec surveyors used" or to let us know that the Aztecs numbering system was "a vigesimal system (using 20 as its base) as opposed to our decimal system" or about how there's "a view that ancient peoples were obsessed with religion and that science and knowledge were all directed at religious ends."

Whatever. I wasn't aware there was such a view about 'obsessions of ancient peoples.' Could the writer of what I initially understood to be a science article have been practicing her modern day journalism skills? You know those highly tuned skills where the writer/reporter uses spurious quotes to inject unsubstantiated 'facts' into their latest propaganda pieces?

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