Many years later, whenever Professor Gilbert recalled that day, he still could not help but feel a surge of longing.
He had come so close.
So very close.
His mentor had almost become the Darwin of the new century, the Mendel of archaeology, and he himself had almost become the disciple of a grandmaster of archaeology in the new era, joining hands with his mentor to dominate the entire archaeology department at the University of Oxford.
Professor Gilbert had thought more than once that if not for that leather shoe flying onto the podium and making the elderly Professor Furnal look so embarrassed, perhaps history would have turned out differently...
Though fists were sometimes part of academic debate, making an elderly old man grapple with a young man was simply too unfair.
Earth, North Sea Alliance, England District, the outskirts of Oxford.
Inside an old residence that looked eighty or ninety years old, Professor Gilbert, wearing reading glasses, rambled on.
"Logic, logic... These idiots talk about logic every day, yet never consider that their own logic is a pile of shit! Besides, is scientific research about evidence, or about the pile of shit in these people's heads?"
"Does science rely on mainstream opinions? Does science even have such a thing as 'mainstream'? Jesus, this is the twenty-second century. I thought I was living in the Middle Ages! We're getting more backward the longer we live!"
"Look at the arguments they use to refute me. Let me pick one at random. Ah, here we go. This guy named Peterson, right? Don't laugh while I read it..."
"We must all admit that for a species to become the dominant civilization of a planet, it must at least possess an average intelligence level close to that of humans."
"But such intelligence has hardware