Re: Meaning of Zero and All, Application to archaeology

From: Alan Crozier (name1.name2_at_telia.com)
Date: 01/27/05 

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:01:14 GMT

"Marcus Gustavsson" <mof@cd.chalmers.se> wrote in message
news:cta3bg$mmr$1@eol.dd.chalmers.se...
> In sci.archaeology I.E_Johansson <inger_e.xjohansson@telia.xcom> wrote:
>
> > British example of usage of word indicium:
> > "The ability to affect distribution is no indicium of monopoly power?"
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/25/judge_tangles_with_ms_witness/
>
> Hm Inger, I think they wonder because you provide no year. If you are
talking
> about the third century, it is difficult to find evidence for any cults
except
> that age old "let's destroy it and dump it in the lake" cult.
>
> All the same, surely you must see that you are using absence of evidence -
> for existance of Oden-cult - as some sort of evidence for its absence.
>
> It is all well that you have your opinion about the meaning of words, but
> maybe you can acknowledge that other persons can have other opinions?
Besides,
> if we are to believe Alan, he has been working some 20 years as a
translator,
> and still they employ him. He can't be all that bad, can he?
>
> Hm, hm, since we are talking about probability too: what does the
existence of
> Oden-cult among Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Lombards, and other Germanic peoples
> suggest?

My intention was not to reopen this debate but just to show that even Inger
has been known to argue that absence of evidence can be cited as evidence of
absence. It is very human to contradict oneself. We all do it. I suspect
that if anyone could be bothered to search through Eric's posts we would
find examples of this kind of argument there too.

But this is undoubtedly an interesting topic. Of course there is evidence of
cult in the time of which Inger was speaking. But we have no direct
linguistic evidence at all from these early periods, so we cannot say what
the people called the powers they worshipped. That applies as much to Freyr
as to Odin and Thor.

Alan 

-- 
Alan Crozier
Lund
Sweden

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