When was this and which people, specifically, did so?
Everywhere you travel, it seems, there are old stories about sky iron - Tibetian Thokcha and other names elsewhere.
But who were the people who regarded such stories as irrational and magical. How widespread was that belief?
> "Gentlemen, I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven."
http://www.meteorlab.com/METEORLAB2001dev/metics.htm#:~:text...."
(EDIT: immediately followed by (in link provided):
Whether Jefferson's quote is truth or myth, his belief real or an opportunity for a witty Virginian to take a shot at a two Yankees, is not known
Leaves the question of whether that was a widespread belief.
TBH it's the first I'd heard that anyone had ever not believed in rocks falling from the sky .. I'm 60 ish, have worked for decades in geophysics and read the original Scottish geologists, etc.
> And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
Joshua 10:11
( If your routinely clean your gutters and pick through the silt with a strong magnet you'll likely find micro meteorites sooner or later )
The Global Fireball Observatory is an multi-institutional collaboration, with partner networks around the world. Our observatories take pictures of fireballs so we can recover any meteorites that might have landed on the ground.http://www.meteorite.fr/en/basics/meteoritics.htm
From which:
> Until the early 19th century, most scientists shared Isaac Newton's view that no small objects could exist in the interplanetary space - an assumption leaving no room for stones falling from the sky.
And...
>... From this, he [Ernst Florens Chladni] was forced to conclude that meteorites were actually responsible for the phenomena known as fireballs, and, more importantly, that they must have their origins in outer space. His view received immediate resistance and mockery by the scientific community.
This obsession with "proof" and "data" is anti scientific.