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Editorial

How Do You Know?

by Rick Lewis

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring”
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1709.

(In Ancient Greek myth, the Pierian Spring was a sacred spring near Mount Olympus, named after the daughters of King Pierus. It was supposed to be a literal fountain of knowledge.)

It’s a truly fundamental question, and the quintessence of a questioning attitude towards the world. The high priest, imbued with authority by his social status and towering purple headdress, looms over the child and tells her that the Universe was sneezed into existence by the Great Histamine Beast of Traal, and the child asks “How do you know?” She doesn’t deny his claims or make any counter-assertions, she just asks because she wants to understand.

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