The knowledge that would have saved the Easter Islanders’ civilization has already been in our possession for centuries. A sextant would have allowed them to explore their ocean and bring back the seeds of new forests and of new ideas. Greater wealth, and a written culture, would have enabled them to recover after a devastating plague. But, most of all, they would have been better at solving problems of all kinds if they had known some of our ideas about how to do that, such as the rudiments of a scientific outlook. Such knowledge would not have guaranteed their welfare, any more than it
...more
