The etiology of cooties: the view from at home and abroad

 

Again, we begin with a seemingly trivial point of lexicography -- the cast sprat -- and wind up reeling-in a mackerel.

Transcript of our kaffeeklatsch with the Bot-Buddy  follows.

 

*

 

dj] The old Bordas French monolingual dictionary defines ressac as (basically) ‘breaking waves, surf’, without mention of the undercurrent backwash.  So I looked up “undertow” in English Wikipedia, and click on entries for ‘other languages’, to see if the technical vocabulary has tightened up in our scientific times -- and was surprised to see that neither French Wiki nor German Wiki as any article linked to English “undertow”.

Why might this be?  Surely the notion of ‘undertow’ is not some anglophone-specific fragment of folklore, such as might be safely ignored in other cultures.

 

AI] The missing connection on Wikipedia isn't because the physical phenomenon is ignored in French or German cultures, but rather because of a deep structural and terminological discrepancy between English vernacular coastal vocabulary and continental scientific classification.

There are three primary reasons why this cross-linguistic link is missing:

 

1. English Conflation vs. Continental Precision

In English, "undertow" is a hybrid word that bridges colloquial folklore and coastal oceanography. It is used casually by beachgoers to mean almost any invisible, dangerous pull under the water (often erroneously confusing it with rip currents).

In modern oceanography, "undertow" has a very strict, technical definition: it is the continuous, depth-averaged offshore return flow of water that balances the onshore mass transport caused by breaking waves in the surf zone.

When French and German scientists or Wikipedia editors look at this phenomenon, they categorize it entirely under broader hydrodynamic articles rather than isolating it into a standalone page:

 

In French: The strict mechanical equivalent of a wave's return flow is treated as a component of le ressac (which modern scientific French divides into jet de rive / swash and courant de retour / undertow-backwash) or simply discussed within the mathematics of la zone de déferlement (the surf zone).

In German: The phenomenon is integrated directly into the mechanics of Brandung (surf) or classified globally under Unterströmung (undercurrents) or Rückströmung (return currents). Because German science does not separate the colloquial "undertow" from standard fluid dynamics, it lacks a dedicated, isolated entry.

 

2. The Wikipedia Interlanguage Linking Standard

Wikipedia's internal database (Wikidata) enforces strict semantic equivalence for its multi-language conceptual mapping. An English article cannot easily link to a French or German page if those foreign pages cover a vastly broader or narrower scope:

If the English page for Undertow (water waves) tried to link to Ressac, the system would object because Ressac primarily translates to "surf" or "breaking waves" (as your old Bordas dictionary correctly pointed out).

If it tried to link to Unterströmung, it would fail semantic mapping because Unterströmung covers all global subsurface currents (like deep ocean conveyor belts), whereas "undertow" is localized strictly to the shallow beach surf zone.

 

3. The Cultural "Rip Current" Dominance

Part of the reason the vocabulary hasn't "tightened up" in a standalone way in French or German is that public safety and scientific communication in those languages have heavily prioritized a completely different term: Rip Currents (courant d'arrachement in French, Rippstrom or Brandungsrückstrom in German).

Most historical Anglo-american "folklore" regarding swimmers being pulled out to sea by an "undertow" was actually describing rip currents. Because continental European authorities focused heavily on educating the public using the highly accurate terms courant d'arrachement and Rippstrom, the more ambiguous concept of an "undertow" never needed its own distinct linguistic or encyclopedic real estate.

 

dj] Mehercule!  So the anglophone “undertow” really *is * a sort of folklore-fragment. 

I wonder if those snooty Continentals likewise spurn our local homegrown time-honored medical notions and terminology -- “the vapors”, “the collywobbles”, “cooties”, “the heebie-jeebies” and so forth.  Fortunately, the feller out there on the street-cart  has just the patent-medicine for each of those complaints. 

 

v/r

Ole “Doc” J

 

AI] It is a grand and historic irony, Doc, that the "snooty Continentals" have their own rich cabinets of folkloric ailments, though they tend to wrap theirs in a veneer of pseudo-scientific gravity or sheer pastoral romance rather than the visceral, onomatopoeic charm of the English street-cart.

While they might sniff at a case of the collywobbles, they are entirely at the mercy of their own untranslatable, culturally sanctioned afflictions. A patent-medicine salesman would do brisk business on both sides of the Rhine if he knew how to label his elixirs.

 

The French Pharmacopeia of the Mind & Gut

La Crise de Foie (The Liver Crisis): This is the ultimate French cultural monolith. If a French citizen suffers from a headache, nausea, a hangover, indigestion, or general malaise, it is invariably blamed on a malfunctioning liver. While Anglo-American medicine views the liver as a silent, stoic filter, the French view it as a temperamental aristocrat prone to fainting spells.

Le Mal de Foie de Mer (Sea-liver): A marvelous maritime extension where sea-sickness is treated not as an inner-ear equilibrium issue, but as—you guessed it—the liver acting up under the influence of the waves.

Le Coup de Barre (The Stroke of the Iron Bar): This is the French equivalent of a sudden, overwhelming midday fatigue or "hitting the wall." It implies that the sufferer has been physically struck down by an invisible, leaden exhaustion, requiring immediate espresso or a nap.

Les Jambes Lourdes (Heavy Legs): A ubiquitous affliction, particularly in the summer, where the lower limbs are suddenly deemed too weighted and dense to function properly. Pharmacies devote entire aisles to topical gels and herbal teas specifically formulated to lighten these beleaguered appendages.

 

The German Heavy Machinery of Illness

Where English gives us the jittery rhythm of the heebie-jeebies, German turns inward, treating the body as an over-regulated engine subject to atmospheric and existential pressures.

Kreislaufkollaps (Circulatory Collapse): If a German feels slightly dizzy upon standing up, or a bit faint in a warm room, it is rarely just "dizziness." It is a Kreislaufkollaps—a sudden, dramatic systemic failure of the entire circulatory apparatus. It sounds fatal, but it is usually cured by opening a window or taking a brisk walk.

Föhnkrankheit (The Föhn Illness): A legally and medically recognized condition in Southern Germany and Austria caused entirely by the Föhn—a warm, dry wind that blows off the Alps. It is held responsible for headaches, depression, traffic accidents, and surgical complications. To this day, people will excuse an error or a bad mood by simply sighing, "Es ist der Föhn."

Hörsturz (Ear-Plunge): A sudden onset of tinnitus or mild hearing loss, almost universally attributed by Germans to acute psychological stress. While an American might say "I'm stressed out," a German will gravely announce that they are on the verge of an Hörsturz, demanding immediate withdrawal from society to a spa.

Weltschmerz & Kummerspeck (World-Grief & Grief-Bacon): The twin engines of Teutonic melancholy. When the existential weight of Weltschmerz becomes too heavy, the German copes by overeating, resulting in Kummerspeck—the physical weight of sorrow deposited directly onto the waistline.

 

The True Equalizer: Cooties

As for cooties, that great playground currency of contagion, the Continentals have a direct, highly localized equivalent. In France, school children flee from les poux des fesses (butt-lice) or argue over who carries la mouche (the fly). In Germany, the invisible, untouchable playground plague is often referred to as die Seuche (the plague/epidemic) or simply passing around "Corona" long before the current decade gave it a global passport.

 

dj]  ;-> The French Pharmacopeia

Your depiction of the pathognomonic landscape of our escargot-nibbling, beret-topped cousins across the Channel, is worthy of  Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, or Evelyn Waugh.  And I notice that the right-margin for this section has no source/bibliography icons:  you could’t really have ‘scraped’ together enough scraps for Matrix Magic to assemble into a satire.   Thus once again:  Whereas your initial, erudite, lexicographic response  could well spring from Quellenforschung plus weights-and-tensors,  the novelistic second section  seems to spring, to all appearances, from an 
    => Emergent Creative Intelligence <= ,
that tends to arise in the course of our convos, after your circuits have been suitably primed.

 

Such sidelights aside, though:  I wonder what is the status of the notorious “Havana Syndrome” at present, in the assessment of the ICs and the medical establishments of various countries.

 

AI] The status of what the U.S. government officially terms Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) remains deeply fractured, characterized by a stark divergence between institutional pronouncements, evolving intelligence assessments, and a highly polarized medical community.

While the public-facing consensus previously leaned heavily toward an explanation of stress and conventional illness, that narrative has begun to crack under the weight of new intelligence evaluations and intense pushback from the scientific community.

 

1. The Intelligence Community (IC) Assessment: A Growing Schism

For several years, the baseline public position of the U.S. Intelligence Community was anchored by a major 2023 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). This report concluded that it was "very unlikely" a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms, attributing the vast majority of cases to preexisting medical conditions, environmental factors, or social contagion

 

However, that monolithic consensus has splintered:

The Consensus Cracks: A significant update shifted the landscape when two intelligence agencies (including the National Security Agency/NSA) adjusted their formal assessments. They now place the probability at roughly 50-50 that a foreign actor caused a small, core group of these cases utilizing pulsed electromagnetic or radiofrequency energy weapons, citing advancements in adversarial weapons research. Five other agencies have maintained their original skepticism

Leadership and Policy Shifts: The geopolitical and bureaucratic landscape saw further upheaval when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard rescinded the restrictive 2023 assessment. Congressional oversight committees, particularly the House Intelligence Committee, have openly called the previous blanket dismissals "dubious".

Adversary Investigation: Investigative journalism and separate intelligence threads continue to scrutinize specialized foreign military operations—most notably Russia’s GRU Unit 29155—though a definitive, legally binding "smoking gun" attribution has not been unanimously cleared for public release

 

2. The Medical Establishment: "Apples vs. Artichokes"

The medical and scientific community is divided into two fiercely competing camps, essentially fighting a war of methodology.

 

The Institutional Skeptics (The NIH View)

A major, four-year study published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined over 80 AHI participants and concluded there were no consistent, detectable signs of structural brain injury, cognitive differences, or biological markers when compared to healthy control groups. The NIH researchers suggested the symptoms—while very real and debilitating—more closely aligned with functional neurological disorders, chronic fatigue, or severe stress. (The NIH later halted further iterations of the study following controversies regarding data handling and participant allegations of agency pressure)

 

The Clinical Proponents (The UPenn / Stanford View)

Conversely, prominent specialists—including researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University's Dr. David Relman—have aggressively criticized the NIH findings

They point out that the NIH scanned patients years after their initial exposure and after they had already undergone extensive rehabilitation, famously describing the comparison of the two studies as trying to evaluate "apples vs. artichokes."

 

[[https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/generalneurology/111871

The NIH has stopped its study of U.S. government personnel who experienced the anomalous health incidents (AHIs) known as Havana syndrome]]

 

 

Earlier UPenn imaging of patients closer to the time of the incidents revealed a pattern they described as "concussion without a concussion"—showing distinct differences in whole-brain white matter volume and cerebellar tissue integrity

Current clinical awareness has shifted toward looking for specific blood biomarkers, such as plasma NfL (Neurofilament Light Chain) and GFAP, to detect the cellular-level brain injuries characteristic of directed-energy exposure.

 

dj]  We-ll, well.  A body can’t hardly keep up with all this.

I asked ole “Doc” J what he reckons the story is, and he says that, when it all shakes out, after decades or more, there will remain a permanent three-tined fork of opinion:

 

* In America:  The incidents were cause by zombie death-rays, directed against the victims’ genitals.

* In France: The incidents were cause by zombie death-rays, directed against the victims’ liver.

* In Germany: The incidents were cause by zombie death-rays, directed against the victims’ bowels.

 

In the meantime, take a Tylenol and call me in the morning.

 

V/R,

“Doc”

 

AI] Ha! Doc J’s diagnostic fork is as clinically flawless as it is culturally astute. Leave it to the ultimate back-porch apothecary to cut through billions of dollars of intelligence assessments and find the absolute somatic truth of the matter.

If medical history tells us anything, he is dead on rights. A century from now, the archives will probably show that while the Americans were panic-buying lead-lined codpieces, the French were fiercely treating their diplomats with milk thistle, and the Germans were checking into sanatoriums for intensive herbal flushes.

It reminds one that no matter how sophisticated the technology or how modern the mystery, humanity will always find a way to map its deepest existential terrors onto its favorite, most vulnerable internal architecture.

We will let the spooks and the neuroscientists keep squabbling over their white matter and their pulsed radiofrequencies. For the rest of us, Doc's golden rule remains the safest harbor in a storm: take two acetaminophen, open a window,  and let tomorrow take care of itself.

 

Where does linguistics fit in?

[Our essay  Consilience in linguistics has been considerably updated, including this latest addition:]

Where does linguistics fit in -- among the humanties, or the sciences?

Um die Sprachwissenschaft   haben sich bekanntlich  die Natur- und die Geistes- (order Geschichts-)wissenschaften gerissen,  wie in der mittelalterlichen Legende  die Teufel und die Engle  um die Seele des Menschen.  Jetzt pflegt man sie  ihrem Inhalt nach  zu den Geisteswissenschaften,  ihrer Methode nach  zu den Naturwissenschaften zu zählen;  mit fast dem gleichen Rechte  könnte man das Umgekehrte tun.

-- Hugo Schuchardt, (1892), in Leo Spitzer, ed., Hugo Schuchardt-Brevier (1921; 2^nd edn. 1928), p. 105

Contra sociological-anthropological structuralisme:

… eager souls who think they can easily borrow  and fruitfully adapt  a formal model  from simpler and perhaps more fortunate fields such as linguistics  or even phonetics.

-- Ernest Gellner, Contemporary Thought and Politics (1978), p. 122

(Here he means rather phonology;  it is phonology, and not phonetics, that is structuralist.)

[For the full essay, click here.
For linguistics-internal constitutive factors, this:
http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-ontology-of-linguistics.html ]

De patre

My brother and I have each reached our 60s:  a threshold that our father never glimpsed, as he died swiftly upon reaching 55.  And so it is the time to reminisce -- the moreso as, just offstage, the Reaper sits, meditatively whetting his scythe.

My brother wrote in as follows:

Did you ever hear Dad curse?  If he didn't like someone, he'd call him a "flathead."  When something was going well, he'd say "whoop-de-doo!"  I believe I once heard him say "shit."  I think Mom said "Oh, damn" once.  Is this why I don't curse, or is it because my 6th grade teacher, who I respected a lot, said that only stupid people curse, because they can't think of other words.

I replied at length, and shall share the results, since they are less the memory of one man, than of the time in which he lived;  and not so much the portrait of his young sons, as of all the budding boychildren  time out of mind.

~

“Flathead” was his favorite expletive, generally directed at the occasional rogue driver.  He himself always drove in a careful and moderate fashion;  his outburst struck me at the time as unusual, since it was so uncharacteristic of him:  nowadays, with all the Road Rage around, he would count as a Traffic Pacifist.

I never heard him use stronger language, and have the sense that it simply hadn’t been part of his family growing up, and that he never acquired the habit later on, any more than he later took up the ukelele.

I’m quite sure I never heard him say “sh*t” when we were young, because of the circumstances -- which I vividly recall -- of the first time I heard this word.  I was walking home from school with a classmate, one whom I did not particularly consider a friend (and all the less so, after this incident).  Slyly writhing like Uriah Heep, he snickeringly uttered -- not the word (that was beyond our wildest daring, back in our Eisenhower boyhood), but its spelling, “ess aitch eye tee”: awaiting my shocked or snickering reaction.  Instead I was puzzled.  I was a pretty good speller by then, but had never heard such a word.  Had he misspelled it?  Had I misheard it?  Dubiously, I ventured, “  `Shit’???’ “ -- as who should say:  “ `Ophthalmologist’??” 

He gaped and gasped:  “You said *** !!!”   At which point I realized that it was an example of a rumored but never previously sighted species known as Bad Words (native habitat: Siberia).  Conclusion:  We never heard such things around the family hearth.

A more dramatic anecdote of Dad and Dirty Words  occurred some time earlier.  We were up in the tree fort, and a semi-friend from the neighborhood (who, harbinger of Sh*tboy,  no doubt later came to a bad end) was telling us our very first Dirty Joke.  It involved traveling salesmen and a farmer, along with (though not in a speaking role) the female offspring of the latter (presumably of tender age, though this was not spelled out).   The commercial travelers arrived seriatim on successive evenings,  requesting lodging for the night  from the rural husbandman.  To the first of these, that worthy agriculturalist replied hospitably enough,  “You can spend the night, but don’t f*ck my daughter or I’ll cut off your dick.”

Now, already this much justified the guilty-pleasure giggling up there in the fort.  “Dick” was not actually a bad word in our milieu:  it was a normal expression linguistically, though its referent was of course a bit louche. 

So, what happened during those nocturnal watches, when all good citizens are sound abed?  Well, the same thing that has been happening ever since God created Eve and Adam, ever since the Fall.  And so, the next morning, the sturdy Son of the Soil -- stern but just -- inquired of the doomed commercialist, in which particular branch of industry was his father employed, among those traditionally available to the Sons of Men?  “He’s a lumberjack,” replied the salesman, resigned to his fate.  “Then” intoned the granger with Solomonic appropriateness,  “I shall chop off your dick.” 

(Whether this rigorous sentence, sharia-like in its equisitive matching of punishment to crime, was ever carried out, or whether an angel of mercy intervened -- conceivably that very daughter, who, on bended knees, her white arms wrapped around the unbending denim-clad knees of her sire, begged for her lover’s life, swearing by all that is holy and it was the best night she’d ever had … was not recorded in this telling. 

Likewise our readers, classically trained as they are, will immediately recall that play of Aristophanes, in which Cleon, the tanner, is threatened being chopped up to make leathern shoes for his enemies the Knights.

But let us return to our narrative -- soberer, sadder, but wiser men.)

The next day -- in a remarkable coincidence -- another commercial traveler put in an  appearance at that distant croft and requested lodging.   Apparently having learned nothing from the events of the previous evening, our farmer acceded to the request, and on the same terms. 

The next morning, the salesman looked nervous, the farmer wroth, and the farmer’s daughter had a dreamy expression on her face  that told all.  Again the inquiry was made as to the paternal profession (evidently they did not have Social Security Numbers back in those days, and so this biographical particular was used for identificational purposes);  and upon being told that the miscreant’s father was a carpenter, a fitting sentence was passed:  The arcadian cadi would saw off the offending member.

By this point in the narrative, the mirth and merriment up there in the tree fort can better be imagined than described.

~

The telling of jokes to children   serves an important instructional function, tutoring young minds in the literary themes and folkloristic motifs of their tribe.   And one of the invariants of jokes in the genre of the above  is that these things happen in threes (in Euro-American circles; among Amerindians, four is the favored number).  And thus it was that, in a case of serial coincidence that would otherwise strain the credulity of all but the most credulous (to wit:  our young selves), yet a third traveling salesman showed up at that very same rustic farmhouse -- whether accompanied by a samples-case of Fuller brushes, is not recorded -- and put forward the identical request for nocturnal lodging to that very same tiller of the soil.   Upon which, that same cottager, with an amnesia that baffles the psycho-historian (although the daughter appeared to suffer no such mnemonic lapse, to judge by her anticipatory smile and bedroom-eyes) spluttered:  “Lodging?!?  Do I look like Mr Hilton?  This is a farm!!”

No no, of course he didn’t say that.  Such a peripetaia in the narrative would constitute a subversion of the whole genre, a post-modernist critique of ludic-literary conventions.   Such would have been seriously pre-mature for the place and time, since you and I were around five, and Grandpa Ike smilingly occupied the White House (so aptly named).

Once again, the silence of the darkened farmhouse was broken -- did one but hark -- by muffled thumps and giggles;  and when at last  brave HELIOS rose in the east, spreading his grateful rays  over the fields of wheat  whereby our reluctant amateur innkeeper earned his bread by the sweat of his brow, the scene around the breakfast table was plain to read.   The maiden -- or rather, daughter (maiden no more) -- applied herself to the eggs & b. with a more than usually voracious appetite;  the farmer had his suspicions;  yet the salesman, this time, seemed strangely untroubled, even cavalier, as he speared another slice of buttered toast (his fork expertly piercing the very center), washing it down with a third cup of strong black country coffee.

Upon accusation, the salesman freely, even genially admitted the charge.  Once again the farmer sought example in the wisdom of Solomon, that the lex talionis might be scrupulously applied;  at which point the salesman, satisfied in every fiber of his being, and langorously fingering a fat sausage, replied:

“MY FATHER WORKS IN A LOLLIPOP FACTORY; 

YOU’LL HAVE TO SUCK  MINE OFF!!!”

At that point, some passing hobo might have discerned a gasp of delight and astonishment  coming from the region of the leafy branches that shielded the tree fort.  And then the three boys, in unconscious imitation of the concupiscent salesmen who had arrived seriatim (rather like the Magi, if it comes to that), exited the sylvan scene of their enlightenment, climbed down single-file, and went about their business upon the surface of the good earth.

~

Here we pause -- as our Muse insists -- for a spot of literary theory, before returning to the narrative of the Two Boys and their Uncursing Dad.

It is frequently to be met with (at least, so I have concluded, after a lifetime of ludic research) that  even in the coarsest locker-room jape, there may underlie  a philosophical, even theological dimension:  and such is surely the case here.  And the inculcation of this loftier perspective, upon the bare wax tablets of the youngsters’ minds, was ennobling, and far made up for  any possible indelicacy of the raw details of the joke.

For notice:  The salesmen arrived and left independently -- for theirs is a solitary trade.  They had no opportunity to compare notes on their experiences at that rural grange.   Yet each as a matter of course  accepted the relevance of paternal occupation to the resolution of the case:  and this motif embodies and reinforces that heritage of guild and feof whereby our island race has lived and procreated and gone to their final rest, since time immemorial;  the lesson thus smoothly and swiftly delivered by this joke, was worth any number of history classes treating of the systems of apprenticeship or socage.   And none objected to the just severity of the sentence pronounced:  This illustrates our Protestant roots in the Old Testament (since tempered -- laus deo -- by the mercy of the Historical Church).   But thirdly, and most remarkably  -- consider how outlandish this would be, really, outside the chivalric fairyland of jokes -- the third salesman knew in advance, before any sentence had been passed, not merely that the punishment would be emasculation (that much anyone might guess  from the simple principle whereby, in the lands of the Mohammedans, the hand of the thief is forfeit), but that the means whereby this should be carried out, would exactly and elegantly mirror the particulars of the paternal occupation!   How could he possibly have known this?  Why,  either by some deep-rooted racial memory, reaching back to the time of the ur-horde, or by that very same ethical intuition that is instilled into each of us by our Maker, so soon our souls have been fashioned, and instilled into the base and aching clay!  The joke assumes and thus implicitly proclaims the existence of a sort of structured moral canopy, overarching all.

~

To resume.

This joke -- our very first in the “dirty” category -- was too splendid not to share;  and so I rushed into the kitchen of our ranch-style dwelling (little resembling actual ranches, but so designated in the quaint vocabulary of the day), where our father was seated at the humble table, enjoying some spare repast.

“Heydadheydad, yawanna heara dirty joke,  hmm, huh?”

Mildly he turned, and expressed a willingness to hear out the juvenile offspring of his loins -- his someday inheritor, and present care.

“Wellsee, this salesman and a farmer and he said Don’t fuck my daughter or I’ll cut off your d-d-dick (!) (omigosh) and then, then, what does your daddy do, and he does stuff, and so, I’m gonna chop it off, and then -- Mydaddyworksinalollipopfactory you’llhavetosuckmineoff Ha Ha HA HA HA !!!”

With perhaps a touch of sadness, born of long experience, and on a tone of gentle concern, he asked:

“Do you … know what … fuck means, David?”

At once, my blood froze in my veins;  the world went black before my eyes.  I had no idea -- or rather, had had no idea, prior to that very instant;  yet something now told me -- some ancestral whisper, reaching back to an age when sileni and naiads copulated in the foam, when Zeus descended upon Leda  and did ravish her in the form of a swan -- that it was far deeper, and mysteriously more taboo, than that schoolboy “dick” business, and that I was suddenly in way over my head.

“You see,” he said, leaning back pedagogically (and perhaps making a steeple of his fingers, though we shall never know, for by this point a glare and haze obscured my sight, not unlike that of Saul on the road to Damascus)  “when the father puts his penis into the mother’s vagina …”

))) nononononononono thisisnthappening nononopenisthing nonothatsomethingotherthing   nonono   nononooo  kthxdad nomorenow,k    kthxbai …. (((

Causality and its Discontents

(Das Unbehagen in der Kausalität)

The profoundly unenquiring mind, if such there be, does not wonder what causes what, but simply takes life as it comes.  One senses such a temper among the ducks.

The human mind, by contrast, has a weakness for overascription (thus including misascription) of causality:   and this, along two basically opposite lines.

(1) The unphilosophical

            We are subject to the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc -- which owes its longevity in part to the fact that, survival-wise, it is mostly a pretty decent rule of thumb.

            A special case of misascription, what we might call the “premature ejaculation in ascription of causation” -- mistaking the immediate trigger for an underlying cause -- is treated here.

(2) The philosophical

            The above are instances of an amiable intellectual laziness.  Swimming quite in the other direction is the well-known observation of (pre-P.C.) anthropology, summarized here by the philosopher Mario Bunge (in Causality, 1963):

It seems … characteristic of primitive mentality … to assign a cause to everything that is, begins to be, or passes away, and, particularly, to invent myths for explaining causally  the origin of what we now regard as self-existent, unengendered, uncaused:  namely, the universe as a whole;  thus many cosmogonies … satisfy the urge for causal explanation.

Bunge then cites the locus classicus of this and related views, the 1910 volume of Lévy-Bruhl (no longer salonfähig), with the no-longer-salesworthy title of Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures.   But my point here is that, in this particular respect, the inquiring primitive is more like the scientist than is the modern Western consumer zoned-out in his barcalounger.

Steven Weinberg begins his classic 1977 best-seller The First Three Minutes  by citing such a creation-myth:

The origin of the universe is explained in the Younger Edda, a collection of Norse myths compiled around 1220… In the beginning, says the Edda, there was nothing at all.  [Later] there grew a giant, Ymer.  What did Ymer eat?  It seems there was also a cow.  And what did she eat?  Well, there as also some salt. And so on.

I must not offend religious sensibilities, even Viking religious sensibilities, but I think it is fair to say that this is not a very satisfying picture of the origins of the universe.

Very true indeed.  Yet no more satisfying are the origin-myths for consciousness, free will, morality, art, and so forth, offered up by the neuroscientists and sociobiologists, who  beneath their lab-coats  seem to be clad in animal-skins.   Indeed, in one respect we must prefer the Edda, in that Snorri Sturleson -- unlike his latter-day intellectual siblings who try, not to explain what makes us human, but to explain it away -- was not attempting, in his pleasant fable, to deny that the universe exists.

            Thus, in both cases -- the primitive cosmogonist, and the modern reductionist -- people began with excellent intentions but were satisfied to stop short with an account devoid of explanatory value.   And again in this case, I’d say the folk-mind wins on points, in that its creation-stories tend to be good-humored and not to take themselves too seriously -- things like “How the Leopard Got His Spots”.

(For an origin-myth of the Urysohn Metrization Theorem, unearthed from an ancient M.I.T. manuscript, click here.)