Snake oil came first. By a likely ~ +50k years

I just thought it was interesting that the odd one out is what made it happen - one might say.

"professionalism’. ie formalities witnessed or known by all. Training, passed on, which has a name and shape. Repeatability, formal, of some sort.

The oldest professionalism, not profession.....

If one really follows through with what goes on, in these modern extrapolations of the old and origins, we find some interesting things.

It’s a bit of a logic leap or a very long set of dominoes to analyses..but..what it comes down to is that People like Geoff, are the ones doing all the heavy lifting in the directions of new. Like the shaman.

And Geoff will get all the lighting strikes of derision thrown at him and derives none to little of any benefit from fallout.

And the silence on the now, of some, will become their benefit in the future, when they utilize the cleared grounds that people like Geoff have done all the heavy lifting on.

A well known example is Alan Turing. Jack Parsons was an oddity to say the least, but modern space exploration can’t and wouldn’t exist without him.

Thousands of examples of the same exist in the record. It’s almost the norm. I’m trying to be polite. It is the norm itself.

" “When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." --Jonathan Swift.

Let’s be clear, I’m not calling Geoff genius, nor am I calling him a bozo, re the Sagan quote. ( “But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” -Carl Sagan)

It is discernment the capacity for such, that can make distinctions... and realize that there is no need for vitriol. It takes some minimal talent to exist in comfort, not strong emotions injected into reason. As that..is not reason. When you see the vitriol, you generally see some limit of an intellect being announced to all. That..in the end, the physical body rules the mental equation.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/genius

I find it interesting re the the path into professionalism.

We had this separate oddity, the thinking man, exploring, being different, being separated out, and so on. People always bringing that shaman the difficult questions. Not specifically looked up to, maybe even feared in some cases, but considered the ’designated expert’. The very first pro trial witness brought to the court.

One might consider that this was the pattern that emerged.

And that the shaman was exploring ways to expand the mind, to find the new, to be that new and so on.

Meter, memory, measurement, observation, record, all of that flowed from the shaman. Astrology and human observation, recognition of patterns in people, the weather, the world.

Then came numbers, geometry and so on. That the scientific method came from that odd person out in the tribe. Medicine, etc. And the drugs, the poultices, quite likely.

And the problem of the shaman always being right when sometimes he is wrong, but it is not recognized by the tribe. This is a standard human problem, or scenario.. that exists to this day. Trust in science, when science gets it wrong. The overall intent driven by desires that generally contain integrity, helps correct things, eventually.

The hero’s tale, re Joseph Campbell, the ingraining of this into the scenario of the shaman and connections of such in the group. That the hero’s tale is tied to being scared by the predator in the bushes and is a basic fear and relief story, where the hero has to win, to be able to record the tale.

This becomes instinct, over hundreds of thousands of years, which is why the hero’s tale exists deep inside all of us. Natural selection shapes the physical neural aspects of baseline psychology. (this would be pre shaman, most likely, but not spoken, not recorded until the shaman comes along)
The origins of class, separation, entitlement, religion, torsional and twisting stresses of the emergent culture and society, etc.

You can’t remove the shaman and then see a modern world, period. IMO.

It would be something else, we don’t see and would not know how to recognize, it would be alien to us. Humanity would be of a different shape, and possibly by quite a bit. It might not have happened at all.

No driving force or system of note, record, and collation, the library itself... to cause and be expansion of consciousness and world view. The shaman as living book of history and world, and so on.

We are wired to strive for order, to keep the group coherent, and to get upset when our autonomous pattern of existence is threatened. We are forced, under duress... to bring our temporary ’high energy use’ system on line :the evolving complex brain.

To find the solution that helps us complete the hero’s tale of escaping the jaws of death. the shaman can cut both ways, to offer comforts (defined rigor of religion), or offer up scary tales, scary answers. The shaman as the psychical embodiment of the pressures that are evolution itself.

That science, this evolution of the shaman, can try to offer comforts (defined rigors of religion, ie engineering--the literal embodiment of the desire to not be eaten by the animal), or the dangers and issues of difference, which is the new ’to be explored’ in science.....the use and taxing of the intellect. The intellect... which exists solely for that purpose. Literally.

The shaman as the embodiment of group focus and intent, and of course, more....what we see as complexities in life today, arises from those earliest scenarios. Things we rarely put voice to. Autonomous aspects.

I thought the shaman things of origins in professionalism was quite interesting. And I decided to put the snake oil comment in the title as is is part of the problem the shaman suffered.

Looking at the origins of snake oil, which is the far east... it is deemed to be a real and well known effective balm with good science behind it.

Rather, it is western ideas and histories on the word pairing of ’snake oil’ that has fault or it’s own but essentially -incorrect meaning. Nevertheless, it is a descriptive.

Which is tied to the attack of the shaman, even though the shaman is the source. Probably THE source. The main point of human concentration of effort, thought, contemplation, inspiration and so on. Beyond critical. There are other interpretations, this is just the one I’m writing at the moment. You might see or write something else.

Multifaceted, it is...where people can plant their own complex ideas on it and call their viewing point complete and well founded (they can see for miles!-all clear!)... and then emerge as righteous with their wrath upon it, in whatever way such may manifest.

The thread has no point, rambling is the point.

Everyone knows the best conversations at the party happen in the kitchen. It’s where the cooking is going on. And that meal might have anything in it, and probably should.

Keeping to the party analogy, the thread will likely degenerate to some of the more willful engaging in fisticuffs outside and the police will have to be called. But it can be fun for a while. All good parties tend to ride the ragged edge.

"Two very different things."

Like you said, I indicated and never called it that at all. So it is difficult to be as what you might be saying I said, as I said no such thing.  Perhaps yours is a general remark?

As for the shaman being a professional or not, we can’t really argue that in any sensible fashion. No point.

Something like that is likely true when it comes to the record in formalization.

engineering is born out of middle ages bombmakers for warfare. The original bombs came about when gunpowder finally appeared in the west. 

then the dangerous job of the bomb maker or 'engineer' arrived as a descriptive. He makes engines. Engines of war. (devices of war)

The term 'hoisted by his own petard', is in reference to engineers who blew themselves up.

Very much a case of inventing and constructing. The engine maker of the war effort. The word and it’s meaning as an origin point.

In modern parlance engineers don’t invent. They build by the book. If inventing -- that’s science. It can be easy to mix it up and mis-name it though. People do it all the time, so much so that the thing is a bit confused.

I’m not saying that engineers can’t be creative that they aren’t, but in modern parlance, the two are separated into science (theory and original creation) and build by the book (engineer)(which is enabled by the theory and original creation). Engineers search for solutions all the time but they don’t build a bridge based on a theory. 

Scientists, on the other hand, don’t build bridges. Thankfully. Not sure I want to be driving or walking on a bridge built on a theory.

It was the rooster. Get him drunk. Ask him. He'll crow all about it.