Comment by oska
7 years ago
Emphasis is fine. What I am referring to is when people generalise things that are specific or local to the northern hemisphere onto the whole world.
7 years ago
Emphasis is fine. What I am referring to is when people generalise things that are specific or local to the northern hemisphere onto the whole world.
At some point these just become exceptions. 10% of people are left-handed, but we don't constantly re-write all instructions for that small minority, and left-handers don't waste time constantly pointing out that right-handers are making overly broad generalizations.
No one reasonably interprets "Having this one fixed point in the sky is the foundation of all celestial navigation" to mean "All celestial navigation in all circumstances requires a view of Polaris". For instance, people still do celestial navigation in the Northern Hemisphere when Polaris is obscured by terrain. But no one would use that fact to point out that the author's statement was wrong, and that when you're from a low-latitude mountainous area you notice this "high-latitude/non-mountainous-ism" all the time.