Re: The Vinland Map Find Or Fraud?
From: Seppo Renfors (Renfors_at_not.com.au)
Date: 03/10/05
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Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 07:23:23 GMT
ken.towe@alumni.duke.edu wrote:
>
> Hu McCulloch wrote:
[..]
> I feel obligated to respond to more of Professor McCulloch's
> intellectually dishonest material on the Vinland Map.
Well, well, here we see it again - the resorting to personal abuse
instead of dealing with the issues.
> He knows full
> well why neither McCrone nor myself bothered to mention such an absurd
> idea as deriving anatase for the VM ink from clays.
Is that so - and it is "absurd" for the reason it CAN explain the
existence of the anatase?
> Here are excerpts
> from previous correspondence. Note in the first one that he already has
> copies of my letters to the Washington newspapers that he is trying to
> trach down!
>
> Here is an excerpt from the letter that I wrote to him on October 21,
> 2001:
[delete a 281 word litany of irrelevant personal attack]
> I wrote this to Professor McCulloch on Feb 3, 2004 (after reminding him
> that a technical comment is "Correspondence" limited to 3000 words....)
My... my.... a "word nazi" as well :-)
> McCulloch takes issue with a statement that rounded anatase particles
> do not appear in nature.
So let me ask the question, DO they exist in nature or not? I have
read that they do in fact exist, do you disagree with that?
> Again, McCulloch desires that I discuss
> something not raised in Mrs. Olin's paper. Unfortunately, and despite
> my repeated efforts asking him to do so, he refuses to reveal, in
> fairness, that "in nature" such particles are a VERY minor
> component
Ahhh... so it DOES exist even according to you. Well at least there is
something we agree on now :-)
> of aluminosilicate clays and soils, usually representing only
> about 1-3% TiO2. It is quite absurd to believe that such a minor
> component could be completely separated from the other 97-99% clay and
> then appear in an ink on the Vinland Map (but not on the parchment).
Well, I suppose I should ask for a reference for that claim of "1 ->
3%" - and the frequency termed as "usually" is that 51% or 65%... or
85%... or what? Never mind, the term "usually" still leaves the times
when the "usually" does NOT apply and the UNusual concentration is
higher than quoted.
It is also "quite absurd" to claim it has "completely separated from
the other 97-99% clay" - It hasn't - the clay is there - McCrone said
so, only he wasn't interested in that component!
> This needle-in-the-haystack 'recipe' is another of the varied and
> contrived scenarios offered to "explain" the anatase on the VM, out
> of context with the rest of the evidence.
There is nothing so contrived as the claims made on how it got there -
the IMPOSSIBLE to do "double inking" - nor have I seen anything
substantiating how the anatase in the ink has come to be on the map -
but to be fair you have said, "My competence, however, is limited to
the chemical and mineralogical aspects of the map and its ink. I am
not competent to comment critically on the other aspects of the map,".
So while you may not be "competent" at the conspiracy theory required
for the map to be called fake - at least you should be "competent" in
the components of inks - at least you claim so. Then please state
WHERE this ink originates from? How come INK has a PAINT component in
it? WHO manufactured INK with anatase in it and where was this ink
available? All are unanswered questions. On the other hand, people
claiming "fake" get very annoyed and upset when someone attempts to
explain the so far UNexplained - how the anatase got into the ink. Why
is that so?
> It blunts the blade of Ockham's Razor of parsimony.
Surely that is a tautology! Nor is it applicable considering the whole
issue, the requiring of a rather convoluted scenario based on
unsubstantiated assertions, that would break more than Ockham's Razor,
to claim "fake" on.
> I'm reasonably sure that if Dr. McCrone
> had even dreamed that someone would come up with such a ridiculous
> idea, much less taken it seriously, he would have mentioned this
> natural occurrence, but with the qualification that finding kaolin
> anatase without kaolinite is like finding a needle or two in a haystack
> without finding any hay.
Hmmm.... again I have read that anatase does exist in kaolin, not only
kaolinite. Do you disagree with this? Perhaps not, considering the
exaggerated minimising of the "needle in the haystack" thingo!
> Dr. Weaver had to go through a series of
> technologically intricate physical and chemical laboratory procedures
> to come up with a few isolated particles, and even these were
> accompanied by residual clays...none of which is seen on the VM.
Hmmmm... now that sounds like hyperbole to me - or is it just sour
grapes? Lets face it, McCrone has also found "residual clay", was he
too all wrong?
> Ignoring this, McCulloch has "found" kaolinite and cites that McCrone
> reported aluminum and silicon in his analyses that imply kaolinite.
..and don't they? Is it quite impossible for it to imply "kaolinite"?
Isn't that what you are in fact implying?
> But
> he does not cite the "finer point" that apart from one or two samples
> Cahill et al. did NOT find either Al or Si above the level of
> detection.
...apart from those that they DID indeed find, you mean, and say
yourself that they did find.
> In this connection it is telling that McCulloch here chooses
> McCrone's analyses for Si and Al when searching for his needles of
> anatase among the kaolin hay but otherwise dismisses McCrone in favor
> of Cahill's data for titanium.
...and you are resorting to unscientific belittling of facts to
minimise or remove them entirely from consideration. Not what you call
"kosher" academically, you know.
> McCrone also has X-ray evidence for
> quartz (SiO2) and reports finding feldspar (another Al,Si mineral) by
> polarized light microscopy thereby making chemical normalization for
> kaolinite almost impossible....even if the idea was credible or
> applicable!
As you are an "expert" on the chemistry, are you saying that (A)
feldspar can in no way have anything to do with kaolinite, or - (B)
That kaolinite formed from feldspar cannot contain anatase? (C)
something else not being communicated by your words.
> Professor McCulloch has been, and continues to be, anything but
> completely honest preferring instead to rely on his half-truths and
> innuendos to support his absurd ideas regarding anatase in the Vinland
> Map ink.
Ahh... and you know what, that is exactly what I have found in your
text. But then, to be true you haven't supported the existence of
anatase in any way at all - yet there it is!! Still can't say I have
read all you have published on that subject, and perhaps you DO
explain how come PAINT components end up in INK, who made the anatase
and where it comes from etc... etc.... You know, the supporting
evidence for the claim it is NOT natural.
> If he has legitimate points to make he should, as most
> professors do, write it up in a formal manner and submit it to a
> peer-reviewed journal.
It should be "peer-reviewed"..... by who exactly - YOU? Well, we have
already seen the result of that! Just like your writing right here I'm
responding to, right?
> It is, of course, easier to take pot-shots, make
> unstubstantiated claims, criticize at will...and do it all in a yellow
> journalism format.
....as you have provided an example of here, I take it. Now that
"yellow" is the anatase paint pigment being produced, that really is
ink, for the impossible task of "double inking" no doubt, right?
> PS. Anyone who would like copies of my letters to the Washington POST
> and the TIMES, or my letter to Wilcomb Washburn may contact me. I'll
> try to comply.
Just post them here, well all be able to read them...... oh and I
suppose the Washington Post and Times are 'peer-reviewed journals'? I
doubt it - but then, please explain why YOU should have the privilege
to publish in any old rag and someone else does NOT have the right to
publish where they please, hmm?
[..]
-- SIR - Philosopher unauthorised ----------------------------------------------------------------- The one who is educated from the wrong books is not educated, he is misled. -----------------------------------------------------------------
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