Knowing is Half the Prattle.

Monday, March 12, 2007

If I Believe it, It Must Be True.

I hate when people do this and feel free to smack me when I do it. People take their personal preference, belief whatever and believe it so much that they feel the need to go about proving that it is true, regardless of weather or not it actually is true. I came across this blog entry after navigating there from metafilter.

So this guy is a nudist and writes musings in his nudist blog and in his blog post he goes about trying to bust the myth that clothing is required for survival. Um ask anyone who's had hypothermia or lost a toe whether or not clothing is required for survival. Well in order to prove his point that clothing is merely a cultural affectation imposed by a puritan society he drums up the scientific evidence. Ah, here we go with the evidence. Rather than maybe looking at any source of medical cold related injury information he points out that "the natives in Tierra del Fuego in South America's southernmost region have lived nude in a climate with 43F (6C) degree average weather". He's actually quoting from the well respected journal of medical information The Complete Guide to Nudism and Naturism by Liz and James Egger. He (and probably Liz and James) go on about how even Charles Darwin (himself!!) documented this. Um maybe you should have actually read Darwin's notes or barring that taken a quick look at a drawing of a native Fuegian made during Darwin's expedition. Um... looks like he's wearing clothes to me. But then again, you shouldn't let reality get in the way of what you're trying to prove.

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