[raverbashing]

> it is impossible to reliably separate it from harmful false "knowledge" received in the form of tradition

Evolution/Survivability of a group usually takes care of that

Yeah, slightly harmful/long term harmful things will go though, but not major things.

Someone discovered cheese with mold is edible (probably happened in a low food situation), but there's a high likelihood on people having tried other things with mold and it didn't work out as expected.

[DenisM]

>Evolution/Survivability of a group usually takes care of that

Not washing hands survived for a very long time, and lead to huge child mortality. Humanity survived, but lots of people died for no good reason.

[meric]

A thousand years ago, it may have been more dangerous to send three times as many villagers to collect water from the river 20km away so that the village would have enough water for everyone to wash their hands, than to have people not wash their hands before eating. The benefits of a practice/tradition can vary over time.

Lots of people may have died from avoidable diseases, but lots of people may also have avoided death by bandits, wild animals, and starvation. (due to more workers allocated to water collection than food production; the extra food produced may have been the difference between life and death during famines for some people.)