Indigenous Ability

Dr. Huth is Donner Professor of Science in the Physics Department at Harvard University. He is also an historian and resurrector of primitive navigation skills. The below is part two of a lengthy and fascinating discussion on not just primitive navigational skills, but the consequences of allowing human skills or abilities to lie fallow. This conversation goes deep and is all the better for it.  You provide one fascinating example after another of navigating abilities that would border on the supernatural if one were not aware of the method. Once the method is revealed, and the skill set begins to be developed one feels almost as if they are engaged in a Benedict Cumberbatch-Sherlockian observational game of immense proportions. Is that how you see the world to some degree? Where the “ Oh, look at that pretty cloud ” becomes “ That cloud type and movement contrasted with the wind at ground level tells me to enjoy the picnic while you can because it’s about to turn cold in 3-4...

Dr. Huth is Donner Professor of Science in the Physics Department at Harvard University. He is also an historian and resurrector of primitive navigation skills. The below is the first part of a lengthy and fascinating discussion on not just primitive navigational skills, but the consequences of allowing human skills or abilities to lie fallow. This conversation goes deep and is all the better for it.  Dr. Huth, thanks for taking the time to have this talk, but first, I must ask, considering what your day-job is, how do you go from particle physicist to primitive wayfaring? This comes from two incidents that happened in 2003.    The first was in August. My wife and I had rented a house for a week on Little Cranberry Island off the coast of Maine.    I’d rented a recreational kayak.    I sort of knew the area from the year before when I’d also kayaked there.    While I was crossing a two-mile wide embayment, a thick fog started to roll...