The Doors of Eden

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“There was a time, 1700, 1800, when, if you were a Serious Man Of Learning, you could know the sum total of human knowledge, they said. Philosophy, religion, natural history, classics, whatever they thought there was to know, you could know it. And then, they complained, we discovered too much and you couldn’t be an expert on everything. Except, you know what? It’s all BS. I am willing to bet my warm spot next to the fire that those Serious Men Of Learning did not know how to make a horseshoe or weave a basket or when to plant turnips. They just knew the useless stuff that their posh Enlightenment-bro peers reckoned Serious Men were supposed to know. Stick them here, now, and they’d crap out just like I did. While Farmer Bob would probably have the winter wheat ready for harvest in a month’s time.”