As it launched the modern worldview on its trajectory, the
intellectual revolution of the 18th century – the Enlightenment,
as it’s usually called – passed on a legacy with profoundly
mixed consequences for the future. Central to the Enlightenment
ethos was the claim that myths were simply inaccurate claims
about fact, and should be replaced by more accurate claims
founded on reason and experiment. This seems like common sense
to most people nowadays, but like most things labeled “common
sense,” it begs more questions and conceals richer ironies than
a casual glance is likely to reveal. One of those ironies became
central to a discussion sparked by last week’s Archdruid Report
post, when a reader took issue with my characterization of
progress as a myth. Like most people nowadays, he assumed that
“myth” meant a story that isn’t true, and drew the usual
distinction between myth and science – that is, between the
cosmological narratives of other cultures, which don’t usually
make experimentally testable claims