Skeptic: The Myth Is the Message; October 2004; Scientific American Magazine; by Michael Shermer; 1 Page(s)

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant. But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

Consider the so-called Lost Continent of Atlantis, a mythic place that has been "found" in so many places around the planet that one wouldn't think there was anywhere left to look. Think again. On June 6 the BBC released a story about satellite images locating Atlantis in, of all places, the south of Spain (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3766863.stm). The story quoted Rainer K¿hne of the University of Dortmund in Germany as saying, "Plato wrote of an island of five stades (925 m) diameter that was surrounded by several circular structures--concentric rings--some consisting of Earth and the others of water. We have in the photos concentric rings just as Plato described."