According to legend, Roger Bannister was the first human being to run a mile in under four minutes. But if we think about this for even half a second, we realize it’s a completely absurd story. Look at the average person. They weigh roughly three hundred pounds and couldn’t run fast enough to catch a bag of Doritos falling off their dresser. Even in my more athletic days (back when I swam a mile without stopping, for instance) I never ran a mile faster than about ten minutes…and we’re supposed to believe that someone ran it in under four? In fact, I live in Colorado Springs which has the US Olympic Training Center, and I’ve never seen anyone run a mile in under four minutes. Several of my coworkers run religiously (they hold to the myth, you see), and I’ve never seen them run a mile under four minutes. Surely, if it were true that Roger Bannister did it, it wouldn’t be so hard for the average person to accomplish.
So how do we explain this? Well, we grew up reading comic books about Superman. And Roger Bannister is nothing more than a myth of Superman. See, Superman could run faster than a speeding bullet (and he could, therefore, run a mile in under four minutes). Because people looked up to Superman and longed to be like Superman, we created the myth of Roger Bannister. To make it more exotic, we pretended he was born in England (all good 20th Century myths require an Englishman. James Bond. Any questions? Didn’t think so.)
So what about the supposed evidence? Well, it’s all hearsay. None of us were there. Yes, the event supposedly occurred in front of thousands of witnesses, but none of them had stopwatches. And really, all you needed was to pay off the one person with a stopwatch who set the “official” time. Now tell me, isn’t it more likely that that one guy was paid off to lie than it is to think that Roger Bannister could actually run a mile in under a minute? And look at how the legend profligates to this day, with many athletes claiming to be able to do it themselves. (And we’ve seen how athletes lie when it suits them: ex. O.J. Simpson. Again, I rest my case.) Even if I was there and saw Bannister run the mile in under four minutes it wouldn’t prove he actually did. I would take the more likely truth that my stopwatch was flawed.
After all, the myth of Roger Bannister causes us to hope Superman is real. Those who believe in Bannister, frankly, could believe in anything. That’s what makes them so scary.
Note: At this point, the appropriate Triablogue response would be:
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Look at the average person. They weigh roughly three hundred pounds and couldn’t run fast enough to catch a bag of Doritos falling off their dresser.
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Even if this were true, Roger Bannister wasn't the "average" person. Average is irrelevant.
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Even in my more athletic days (back when I swam a mile without stopping, for instance) I never ran a mile faster than about ten minutes…and we’re supposed to believe that someone ran it in under four?
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"If I can't do it, no one can" eh?
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In fact, I live in Colorado Springs which has the US Olympic Training Center, and I’ve never seen anyone run a mile in under four minutes.
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Colorado Springs is a large enough city that it's quite possible to not meet more than, say, 2.8% of the population....
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Several of my coworkers run religiously (they hold to the myth, you see), and I’ve never seen them run a mile under four minutes.
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None of those co-workers are Olympians, however.
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Surely, if it were true that Roger Bannister did it, it wouldn’t be so hard for the average person to accomplish.
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If the average person could do it, no one would care that Bannister was the first to do it. It's because it's so hard that he's remembered.
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Well, we grew up reading comic books about Superman. And Roger Bannister is nothing more than a myth of Superman.
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An assertion in lieu of an argument.
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See, Superman could run faster than a speeding bullet (and he could, therefore, run a mile in under four minutes).
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So?
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Because people looked up to Superman and longed to be like Superman, we created the myth of Roger Bannister.
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If Bannister was based off Superman, why wouldn't he run faster than a speeding bullet? Why just a four minute mile?
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To make it more exotic, we pretended he was born in England (all good 20th Century myths require an Englishman. James Bond. Any questions? Didn’t think so.)
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England is a real place, however. There are actually people there. Not just fictional characters, but real people.
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So what about the supposed evidence? Well, it’s all hearsay. None of us were there.
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Irrelevant to whether it actually happened or not.
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And really, all you needed was to pay off the one person with a stopwatch who set the “official” time.
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That is a possibility, but why believe it? There's no positive evidence for beleiving someone payed off the timekeeper...other than the inherent bias in those who wish to view this event as a myth.
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Now tell me, isn’t it more likely that that one guy was paid off to lie than it is to think that Roger Bannister could actually run a mile in under a minute?
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Well, technically yes...but the claim isn't that he ran it in under a minute but that he did it in under four minutes.
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And look at how the legend profligates to this day, with many athletes claiming to be able to do it themselves.
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Perhaps it's because they can.
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Even if I was there and saw Bannister run the mile in under four minutes it wouldn’t prove he actually did. I would take the more likely truth that my stopwatch was flawed.
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Which only demonstrates the bias of the observer.
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After all, the myth of Roger Bannister causes us to hope Superman is real.
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Doesn't for me.
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And then, after all this, the Evanistic response would be:
Let me spell it out for you. Superman is a myth; Bannister is a myth. They both run. Superman was created in 1938. Bannister supposedly ran in the 1950s. I looked it up on Wiki a few minutes ago, but I forgot the exact year. Someone on there also said a bannister is a piece of furniature--obviously he's a myth.
Anyway, if twenty years had passed since the advent of Superman then it's OBVIOUS that Bannister is a creation of the Superman myth. Anyone who can't see this would believe in talking donkeys.
And yes, you caught me in an error where I said one minute instead of four, but your correction of my error actually proves my position even more correct! And it's your fault the error was there anyway. But I accept full responsibility for it.
It doesn't change the fact that Superman is said to run faster than a speeding bullet, and Bannister is supposed to have been a runner. C'mon guys. Think.
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I could continue, but you get the point.
Let's not forget, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do we in fact have such evidence? Clearly not. In fact, whatever documentary evidence does exist would only require additional documentary evidence to authenticate the original source document. But then that document would require another document authenticating it, etc. But then our confidence in this claim must only diminish with each new document. Hence, based on the documentary evidence there can be no more than a probability of 0.01 (or 1 percent) that this event actually occurred, since as you know 99% of history has been irretrievably lost.
ReplyDeleteIs there non-documentary evidence? Even if there is, it's clearly not of such an extraordinary quality as to place the probability of such an occurrence at greater than 0.5, and most likely far less than that. It's only the amazing credulity of the unlearned and ignorant masses that allows this myth to remain in circulation to this day.
Okay, I'm starting to get a little self-conscious here. This is the third thread that I've killed at two comments. It can't be my bad breath . . .
ReplyDeleteYou didn't necessarily kill it. It is late, after all :-P
ReplyDeleteI, for one, am now on my way to bed. But your Loftonius additions to the argument work well too.