246 | David Stuart on Time and Science in Maya Civilization

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Sean Carroll | Wondery

Society & Culture, Physics, Philosophy, Science, Ideas, Society

4.8 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You might remember the somewhat bizarre worries that swept through certain circles back in 2012, based on the end of the world being predicted by the Maya calendar. The world didn't end, which is unsurprising because the Maya hadn't predicted that, and for that matter they had no way of doing so. But there is very interesting archeology behind our understanding of how the Maya developed their calendar, as well as other aspects of their language and scientific understanding. Mayanist David Stuart takes us on a tour of what we know and what we're still discovering.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/08/14/246-david-stuart-on-time-and-science-in-maya-civilization/

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David Stuart received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Vanderbilt University. He is currently professor of Art History and Director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the youngest-ever recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Among his books is The Order of Days: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Maya.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What do I do? What do I do? What do I say?
0:03.3	What do I say?
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0:09.9	because we have it too.
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0:16.2	whatever you need to ask about cancer, whatever the time of day or night,
0:22.0	we'll do whatever it takes to help you to join us,
0:26.9	search Macmillan online community.
0:56.9	So, I'm pretty dramatic public misconceptions,
0:59.8	and one of the things I did was go to Amazon,
1:02.7	type the word quantum into the search bar,
1:04.7	and see all these preposterous titles
1:07.3	that purported to be about quantum mechanics, but really weren't.
1:10.4	So, imagine my delight when I picked up a book from today's guest,
1:14.6	David Stewart.
1:15.9	David is a very accomplished archaeologist,
1:19.0	a specialist in Mayan civilization and language.
1:23.4	David is actually the youngest ever recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship,
1:27.4	the Genius Fellowships.
1:28.8	So, he knows what he's talking about, and he wrote a book
1:31.6	about Mayan language, but also cosmology and numerology
1:37.7	and mathematics and science and so forth called the Order of Days.
	...

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