The oral tradition is not lost, it just evolved to suit the times; urban legends and creepy pasta just have a lot more relevance. Literacy created the written tradition, moved writing past being just a medium for storage and transmission and moved the word beyond the limitations of speech. What really killed the oral tradition (in the sense TFA means) is technology, the ability to reproduce without error and the idea of "correctness," the old myths ceased to evolve so new ones took their place.
I think this view is doing a bit of a disservice to the article and to the concept by looking at things a little too narrowly. The point is this is not about myths this is about reality -- valid oral records exist in the modern world that are not myths.
Let's take a modern example. There is a place where the road to it's entrance has changed recently. It's been six months and Google Maps has still not updated the "written record" (Incidenetally this a real situation I'm talking about, not a hypothetical fhough it shouldn't matter.) The only reason people in the vicinity know the correct way is through word of mouth. It's a simple case where the oral record is correct and the written record is false. The truth has propagated orally from the people witnessing the change to the surrounding region.
Another example. The educated member of family of farmers always teases their mother about how she always tells them to use oils extracted from various plants whenever they have different ailments, recommending a specific plant depending on what the ailment is. Since the educated child can't find scientific literature supporting the claim, they often ignore the advice. Big pharma is not incentivised to fund clinical studies on these type of plants since they'd rather create a synthetic form of whatever property of the plant is aiding the healing and patent that synthetic formula instead, so studies like these are not prioritized. Years later, when someone finally gets around to conducting clinical studies on some of the regional plants, they end up supporting their mother's claims.
It should be even more apparent if we use the legal system as an analogy, since everyone now understands that if you are not literate in legal matters or don't have a top notch lawyer you can lose even if you're in the right. People are abused because they are legally illiterate, and it is in fact a type of tyranny. Oral records vs written records have the same problem. It's a very hard problem to solve but it is a problem.
> Big pharma is not incentivised to fund clinical studies on these type of plants since they'd rather create a synthetic form of whatever property of the plant is aiding the healing and patent that synthetic formula instead, so studies like these are not prioritized.
This is a silly myth that "alternative medicine" advocates preach. Big pharma is completely incentivised to fund clinical studies, exactly so they can refine a form of the chemical(s) involved and patent them. Even field research into Archaea species is funded by this.
What they are not interested in doing is saying, "Yeah, well, if you gather a few ounces of this wild plant and make a tea from it's roots, it's 90% likely to do the same thing as our pill."
>"Yeah, well, if you gather a few ounces of this wild plant and make a tea from it's roots, it's 90% likely to do the same thing as our pill."
You're distorting what I wrote it seems. I said "extracted oil" of the plant not "the roots of a few ounces". For essential oil you would need 100x or 200x of the plant or more depending on the plant to make the essential oil.
>Big pharma is completely incentivised to fund clinical studies, exactly so they can refine a form of the chemical(s) involved and patent them. Even field research into Archaea species is funded by this.
It's pretty evident I'm talking published research in my example. They are incentivized to conduct clinical studies internally on the plant extracts but they are not incentivized to publish that research if it's against their interests. My example would be nonsensical if they are randomly trying to mimic naturally existing compounds without researching first.
My point was not about myths either. Literacy created a new tradition, it did not replace the old. The oral tradition will be with us for as long as people can communicate. Also the idea of a myth having no connection to reality is rather narrow especially in context of the oral tradition where myth and mythology often carried everything a well rounded person needed to know to get by in life, things like what plants can cure various ailments and the law.
