Tourists and locals were converging on the site where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke and where protesters denounced the Vietnam War, just to catch a glimpse of the wayward sealant—or perhaps even a souvenir.
“Taking a piece of paint is like taking a piece of the Berlin Wall,” one cyclist passing by told me. “It’s a piece of history.”
Sure it’s not a guarantee, but it does imo seem that scientists on the whole would make far more informed decisions than most. Not to disagree with what you wrote because yes a long view of history would probably be even better.
My point was that scientists aren’t infallible and frankly in my experience with various STEM folks they tend to run into what I would call specialization focus mixed with a bit of Nobel syndrome. Though there’s generally less of that in fields with a lot of discipline crossover, for example someone who studies man made stratigraphy for say urban development is probably going to have to have some amount of historical knowledge if only to know who they may need to call if they find something of note.
Yeah, I get that.