Comments on: Teeth

By: Rammy M

Rammy M — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:52:26 +0000

@Stan
Lol
I wasn’t expecting that, which made it that much funnier

By: mkilby

mkilby — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:04:33 +0000

@ Soup Dragon - hmmm. You’re quite right, he did tie the knot, but still, that doesn’t seem to be the kind of married life that most women would strive for. Nevertheless, he did ask to be buried next to her, that says something (read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle for more info than you probably want to know).

By: Nebulous

Nebulous — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:36:37 +0000

The size of the experimental sample can cause these mistakes.
I have proof that women have more teeth than men.
My sister had 6 wisdom teeth removed, I only had 4. QED

By: Soup Dragon

Soup Dragon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:40:28 +0000

Actually, Aristotle was one of the first philosophers who did systematic observations of the natural world. Obviously, many of his results and interpretations have been proven wrong in more recent years, but he was certainly more of a scientist type than an ivory-tower theoretician.

Consider Raphaels “The School of Athens” ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Sanzio_01.jpg ), Plato and Aristotle in the centre. Plato is pointing up to the heavens, the ideas. Aristotle is gesturing out to the observable world.

And by the way, he was married.

By: mkilby

mkilby — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:03:47 +0000

@ Rebecca (7) - I can’t imagine that any woman could be so starry-eyed that she would be willing to live with such an ivory-tower theoretician, even given the prospect of becoming famous as “Mrs. Aristotle”.

@ Naomi (10) - the “dental” idea is very plausible, although it’s hard to imagine a way that it could be verified at this point. The problem still exists today (it’s not just diet, hormone imbalances during pregnancy can lead to tooth loss, too). One grandmother of mine (with 5 kids) had full dentures before she was 30.

@ Charlene (12) - The primary dental problem that the ancient Egyptians had was their habit of using grit as an additive to assist in grinding grain. (Egyptian art never shows a person smiling, possibly because they all had rotten teeth.) Sweeteners (such as honey) were an expensive luxury, but chewing on coarse bread with remnants of sand in it was an excellent way for everyone (especially the poor) to ruin their teeth. Later, the introduction of a softer variety of grain eliminated the need for the sand in grinding.

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:17:06 +0000

I’m surprised at Aristotle’s inaccuracy. I mean, as a philosopher, wasn’t he obsessed with the search for the tooth?

By: zbicyclist

zbicyclist — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:20:37 +0000

I think Pirk (#6) may have it right. People don’t have the same number of teeth. My father had all 4 wisdom teeth. My mother had none. I have 2 (upper) but nothing lower.

Aristotle clearly wasn’t into empirical investigation, but did he actually do none?

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:13:35 +0000

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/history/aristotle_wisdom_teeth.html

“Males have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals observations have not yet been made: but the more teeth they have the more long-lived are they, as a rule, while those are short-lived in proportion that have teeth fewer in number and thinly set.”

It appears he did do observation - maybe it was indeed dental problems which caused him to make a false generalization.

By: Charlene

Charlene — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:25:06 +0000

Not true at all, Tim O’Shenko. It’s a modern theory (usually spread by fact-hating quacks) that everyone in the old days had perfect teeth because they didn’t eat those eeeevil refined sugars. Nonsense: most cultures partook freely of natural sweeteners like honey and syrups, and they had as many dental problems as we have. One of the major causes of death among the ancient Egyptians was tooth decay from sugar consumption - the mummies that have been catalogued prove that. We don’t have a lot of Roman remains (they burned their dead), but the ones we have don’t have good teeth either.

Bacteria don’t care what type of sugar you eat: it’s all food to them.

By: Mitch4

Mitch4 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:16:52 +0000

And to make up for the tooth disparity, women have one more rib than men. This came about because Adam had one extracted, from which Eve was grown, … right?