Re: Robert Best - a moral lesson touching on nobody-can-make-me-open-my-closed-mind prejudice

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 08:03:49 +0200, "Uwe Müller"
<uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:73pq8318c3ubft1cfvor1sklgdrr97sfnj@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 13:20:18 +0200, "Uwe Müller"
<uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:huep83128m3ciddm6c4tvtsa3q5qifg1r4@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 07:40:13 +0200, "Uwe Müller"
<uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:lf4o835tniuamenv7up6d7jjfdts56c4d0@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 14:47:52 +0200, "Uwe Müller"
<uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:80gl831ph5dd74nl9ta0q8a89k8mqu8pg2@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:22:17 -0700, Carl
<pchristainsen@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Jul 3, 11:40 am, "Peter Alaca" <p.al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
...

snip >

Similarly, Masse's analysis of existing legends (compiled by others)
does not rely on flood deposits or the assertion of preconceived
theories. I may be wrong on the last but if you want to argue that I
am you will have to identify the persons who have come up with similar
theories prior to Masse or who have on some other basis come up with a
scientific basis for arguing much the same date for a similar event.
In short, I do not think Masse is following a theory developed by
others.

I never said he did. All I said was, that both theories could share a
common
basis for their dating: pure invention.

The deposit of gravel is not an invention. The explanation of it as an
artifact the 'the flood' may well be.

Come on, Eric. Read what I wrote.

I was talking about the basis of the dating of the two theories. If you want
to add some comments to that, go ahead. Why do you try to turn what I wrote
into something I did not write, and comment on that?

You actually wrote "It's more than remarkable close. Could there be a
common basis for both dates?"

Our present problem seems to arive from the fact that you did not
define what you meant by 'basis' and I replied in terms of a 'basis'
which was other than that which you meant. For what it is worth, I
would not have described 'pure invention' as a basis for anything to
do with serious attempts at dating and that was not meaning I took
from what you wrote. Things would be different if you had said 'pure
invention' in the first place. But then, I don't think it is hard to
show that neither date was based on 'pure invention'.


And discovering a couple of square feet of clay in a trench does not proove
a world wide flood.

Did I (or anyone else cited in this discussion) ever claim that it
did?

As I have recently posted, nor is the evidence of a comet impact an
invention. An extraction from legends of a date for the impact may be
an invention but from more recent work it seems it may have been a
successful invention.

In fact, I don't think you really mean 'invention'. 'Fiction' or
'fantasy' may be closer to what you intend.

No. I ment invention and so I wrote invention.
Just have a look at the state of dating in the 30s and earlier. There were
great differences between scholars, and biblical dating was still important
to some of them.
Is my English that bad?

I'm not sure. I wouldn't have thought that it was. Generally you write
it like a native (oops no - better than that). :-)

In this context 'pure invention' means that somebody made it up out of
thin air. Even though C14 or similar did not exist in 1931
archaeolgists were able to date layers and finds without having to
invent numbers. I don't think 'pure invention' is an appropriate
description.


Research is poor for the date given, I agree. But if you want to argue a
world wide phenomenon at that time, why choose areas as evidence, that
stand
out as being especially poor in controlled excavations? Because the best
researched regions do not show anything out of the ordinary. So they are
simply omitted.

Is that fair treatment of the reader?

It certainly is not fair treatment if the articles I have cited were
supposed to be thorough accounts of the work that was done and the
processes by which conclusions were reached. But all I have cited so
far are but short accounts of what has been done: news, almost.

And it did not occur to you that evidence for a world wide phenomenon would
be best sought for in areas, that are well researched? How big is the area
of uncovered clay deposits? How big is the region, that they looked at? How
does the area of uncovered clay deposits compare to the researched area,
compare to the whole world? So how big is the scientific basis of the
proposed theories of a world wide flood? It's like speculating about the
colour of someones hair based on research on a speck of dust found on his
coffee cup.

It's not that long ago (years) when I wrote about the possibility of
megatsunami and I was buried in abuse (in this news group) on the
basis that the tsunami record contained no evidence of realloy large
waves. Now the evidence of megatsunami is being found all round the
world on almost weekly basis. The fact that nobody has yet recognised
the evidence for exceptional events does not mean that there is no
evidence for exceptional events.

Incidentally, your anaology about the speck of dust found in a coffee
cup is not a particularly good one. The police successfully make use
of this kind of evidence all the time.


The problem you have described is not unique. I have long been
fascinated by the arguments about whether or not there ever was a
Greek 'dark age'. 300~700 years of possibly nothing much which some
archaeologists fail to notice while to others it is glaringly obvious.

Come on again. The dark age is a term coined for the absence of written
documents, so you should address historians with comments on that. There is
no lack of archaeological data. If you don't believe me, look at some recent
publication on the most famous of greek grave yards, the Athenian
Kerameikos. There is no 'dark age' for archaeologists.

Yet my copy of 'Greece in the making', Robin Osborne, Routledge
History of the Ancient World, 1996, ISBN 0-415-03583-X uses a
statisticsl analysis of the frequency of archaeological finds to argue
that there was indeed a dark age.


As you almost said, with respect to Masse's hypothesis, the best
researched regions do not seem to show anything out of the ordinary.

Than explain, why a world wide flood has left no signs in the regions with
the best state of research. And why evidence from other areas, where
research is just beginning, should overrule the hard data won in those
regions.

I can't answer that except to say that it is not likely that anyone
has attempted to collate the evidence for major floods in the time
period concerned. Even if someone tried, the difficulty of
establishing simultaneity would make it very difficult to establish
that the world experienced an episode of major world wide flooding.

Yet there are hints through histories (some of them written) that
there did occur at about that time an event similar to that postulated
by Masse. This then raises the question of whether not evidence for
the event has been missed, misidentified or misinterpreted. I'm not
trying to claim that I know the answer. I only know the question.

If I hear what people 'remember' about the Third Reich, a little more than
60 years back, I can not accept the validity of oral traditions as factual
descriptions of historical events. If these accounts are passed on for a
couple of centuries, their factual basis is lost, for any practical
purposes.

Certainly when it comes down to details. But that something of the
kind occurred is likely to be passed on orally for a long time to
come. Come to think of it, the polynesians have been shown to be
better than most people expect at carrying on finely detailed oral
tradition over many centuries.

Treating myths as factual and truthfull descriptions of historical events,
and using methods, devised for truthfull and factual descriptions, to
extract some desired infos from such myths, means that you have abandoned
reason and science.

I would never do what you have just described. Nevertheless myths and
traditions can be useful pointers to what might be found by proper
examination. See http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/march/6.htm

" The value of popular tradition as evidence in antiquarian
inquiries cannot be disputed, though in every instance it should
be received with the greatest caution. A few instances of
traditions, existing from a very remote period and verified in
our own days, are worthy of notice."

[ ... ]

... the tradition of the people was fully verified. For only by
tradition, and that from a very distant period, could they have
known that the person interred at Norie's Law was buried with
silver armour."

Myths and traditions are sometimes reliable indicators of what might
be found.

There is evidence in that too, but it is not evidence pertaining to
historical situations, but to the state of mind of the proponents of that
theory.

Yes, that works both ways.



Eric Stevens
.

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