Smelling a rat in Laos
Apparently western scientists have encountered a curious mammal prevously unknown to them in Laos. Pretty interesting all by itself, but there’s more. Quotes from article:
"The kha-nyou, as local people call it, was discovered by a team of scientists in a hunter’s market in central Laos, according to a news release from the New York-based group.
"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables. I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before," Robert Timmins, a WCS researcher, was quoted as saying of his find.
Another colleague, Mark Robinson, later discovered other specimens caught by hunters…"
From a few dictionaries I’ve culled the following definitions for discover:
"to find out about, recognize, or realize for the first time"
"to gain knowledge or awareness of something not known before"
"make a new finding"
Etc.
Now, there are some senses of the word in which it is possible to say that someone discovered something as first in their peer group:
"To be the first, or the first of one’s group or kind, to find, learn of, or observe"
This seems to call for clarification that the new noun in question is novel to that particular peer group, not to humanity as a whole. Deep sea vent worms can be discovered, as can viruses and the like. We’re probably just about out of mammals as far as human discovery goes, although they haven’t all been cataloged in the western science libraries. There’s a difference.
Some Lao people clearly not only had a word for this critter, but know how to hunt it and prepare it as food. At the very least these folks discovered the animal, if not the people inhabiting that area of SE Asia before them. Claiming anything else is a form of haughty racism one would hope would have been drummed out of the biological sciences by now.
Maybe next month we can fly some Lao hunters to Birmingham, Alabama. They can visit a Piggly Wiggly, and discover an animal which local people call "cow," right in between some veggies and the frozen waffles. It reminds me of the scheme of some American Indian activists some years ago to fly to Rome and claim the discovery of Europe. They planned to declare it terra nulla and claim it for themselves in the name of the Great Spirit.
