The Maya · The Olmec and Teotihuacán · The Hohokam and the Anasazi · Looking for the actors
Have students compare Quinn’s presentation of the Maya to one found in a standard reference work.
What is the function of ballast in a ship?
Have students compare Quinn’s presentation of the Olmec and Teotihuacán to presentations found in a standard reference work.
Who would be the likely inhabitants of a ruined city and how they might live?
Have students compare Quinn’s presentation of the Hohokam and the Anasazi to presentations found in a standard reference work.
From what you’ve learned about these New World civilizations, which would you find most and least attractive to live in if you were a worker? If you were a ruler?
In the section titled “Vision: success without programs,” Quinn used Occam’s Razor to “cut away” the angel in the story of the dissolving salt. What does he “cut away” in this section using the same razor? [The notion that the Maya, the Olmec, and so on might have been “whisked away in flying saucers.”] On the basis of these two examples, what do you think the function of Occam’s Razor is?
In the television series The X-Files, which of the two investigators is constantly trying to force the other to employ Occam’s Razor?
