Re: 70,000 year old snake god statue/carving found in Botswana

John Roth wrote:
Erik Hammerstad wrote:
John Roth wrote:
Erik Hammerstad wrote:
John Roth wrote:
Jois wrote:
"Roger Bagula" <rlbagula@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:vhfeh.1355$Gr2.61@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
from: "Misty" misty3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mistyrainbow3
Thu Dec 7, 2006 10:53 pm (PST)

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?messageid=312087&mpage=1&showdate=12/1/06

{snip]

"Scientists had thought human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to
perform group rituals until perhaps 40,000 years ago."

This is the kind of statement I dislike. Scientists - people who study
math? chemistry? language? pediatrics? Hello? All scientists are not
created equal and certainly aren't bullet-proof in fields other than their
own and sometimes not even then. As for the rest of the statement - that's
baloney. There is no consensus. Pish!

Jois
It's a bad translation. The original of this article was
in Norwegian, and the translation to English wasn't
checked with at least one of the interviewees.

The URL given above has an inaccurately rendered version of the
original press release at
http://www.apollon.uio.no/vis/art/2006_4/Artikler/python_english

But IMO there is nothing wrong with the translation from the
original Norwegian to English, nor in the translation of the
presumably original English of Sheila Coulson to Norwegian.

The only significant difference between the English and Norwegian
versions is that the former adds the comments of a Norwegian
zoologist at the end. And the text basically is in agreement with
what he said on TV, see http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/208953

But I agree with those who complain about the reference to Europe
40,000 years ago, that is old hat. Except perhaps for the claims
about a language gene appearing 50,000 years ago.
This isn't what he said on the Paleoanthro list. He said
specifically that his remarks had been poorly translated.
And the original was in Norwegian, not English. Likewise
from the same source.
So its the zoologist who feels he was badly translated, too bad
for him, but nothing to be very concerned about as what's
attributed to him is really an aside to the story of the find. And
we cannot check it except for what he said on the telly ;-)

So please stop bandying the "bad translation" bit, unless someone
specifically refers to what the zoologist was supposed to have said.

Why? I've got the emails that are on a publicly accessable
mailing list. You haven't bothered to look at the evidence as
far as I can tell.



I have compared the Norwegian and English versions paragraph by paragraph. I'm a native Norwegian, and I judge my English to be good enough to back up what I've posted regarding any differences in the versions. As I've said earlier, except possibly for the additional comments from the Norwegian zoologist in the English version, there isn't any "bad translation" in the original news story from the University of Oslo publication.
.

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