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Darwin-L Message Log 5: 1–40 — January 1994
Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
Darwin-L was an international discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences, active from 1993–1997. Darwin-L was established to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present, and to encourage communication among scholars, scientists, and researchers in these fields. The group had more than 600 members from 35 countries, and produced a consistently high level of discussion over its several years of operation. Darwin-L was not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles Darwin, but instead addressed the entire range of historical sciences from an explicitly comparative perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology, systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical geography, historical anthropology, and related “palaetiological” fields.
This log contains public messages posted to the Darwin-L discussion group during January 1994. It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been reformatted, and error messages and personal messages accidentally posted to the group as a whole have been deleted. No genuine editorial changes have been made to the content of any of the posts. This log is provided for personal reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.
The master copy of this log is maintained in the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin) by Dr. Robert J. O’Hara. The Darwin-L Archives also contain additional information about the Darwin-L discussion group, the complete Today in the Historical Sciences calendar for every month of the year, a collection of recommended readings on the historical sciences, and an account of William Whewell’s concept of “palaetiology.”
--------------------------------------------
DARWIN-L MESSAGE LOG 5: 1-40 -- JANUARY 1994
--------------------------------------------
DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:1>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sat Jan 1 00:27:24 1994
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 1994 01:31:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: List owner's monthly greeting
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Greetings to all Darwin-L subscribers, and happy new year! On the first
of each month I send out a short note on the status of our group with a
reminder of basic commands. Darwin-L is now four months old, and we have
more than 500 members from nearly 30 countries. I am grateful to all of you
for your interest and your many contributions. In the early days of our list
many people sent short introductory messages describing the nature of their
interest in the historical sciences. If any of our newer members would like
to introduce themselves in this way they are most welcome to do so; others
who wish to remain in the background and just listen in on our discussions
are perfectly welcome to do that as well.
I hope shortly to have available a gopher archive that will allow anyone
with gopher access to browse and retrieve Darwin-L logs and other files,
and also to connect to a variety of other network sites that relate to the
historical sciences. Retrieving files via gopher should be much easier
than via listserv, and I will let everyone know as soon as this service is
available. At the moment I am waiting for my local computer center to make
one small change on our campus mainframe that is required before the archive
can made available; as is often the case, however, the bigger and faster the
computer, the slower the people are who run it.
The following are the most frequently used listserv commands that Darwin-L
members may wish to know. All of these commands should be sent as regular
e-mail messages to the listserv address (listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu),
not to the address of the group as a whole (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu).
In each case leave the subject line of the message blank and include no
extraneous text, as the command will be read and processed by the listserv
program rather than by a person. To join the group send the message:
SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L <Your Name>
For example: SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L John Smith
To cancel your subscription send the message:
UNSUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L
If you feel burdened by the volume of mail you receive from Darwin-L you
may instruct the listserv program to deliver mail to you in digest format
(one message per day consisting of the whole day's posts bundled together).
To receive your mail in digest format send the message:
SET DARWIN-L MAIL DIGEST
To change your subscription from digest format back to one-at-a-time
delivery send the message:
SET DARWIN-L MAIL ACK
If you are going to be away from your e-mail account for an extended period
of time and wish to temporarily suspend your mail from the group without
cancelling your subscription send the message:
SET DARWIN-L MAIL POSTPONE
When you wish to resume regular mail delivery send either the DIGEST or
ACK messages described above.
For a comprehensive introduction to Darwin-L with notes on our scope and
on network etiquette, and a summary of all available commands, send the
message:
INFO DARWIN-L
To post a public message to the group as a whole simply send it as regular
e-mail to the group's address (Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu).
I thank you all for your continuing interest in Darwin-L, and wish you
a happy and prosperous new year.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:2>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sat Jan 1 11:12:11 1994
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 1994 12:15:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: January 1 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
JANUARY 1 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1737: PIER ANTONIO MICHELI dies at Florence, Italy. Born into poverty,
Micheli's interest in and knowledge of plants won him patronage from the
Medici family and widespread recognition from the professional botanists of
his day. He collected widely throughout Italy and central Europe, and in his
_Nova Plantarum Genera_ (Florence, 1729) he described more than 1400 new
species of plants, many of them mosses, liverworts, and lichens, in which he
had a special interest. Micheli's extensive travel allowed him to contribute
to historical geology as well as botany, and the geological similarities he
observed between many of the quiet hills of his native Italy and the active
Vesuvius led him to infer correctly that the Italian landscape was in fact
dotted with ancient volcanos.
1778: CHARLES-ALEXANDRE LESUEUR is born at Le Havre, France. As a young man
Lesueur will sail aboard the _Geographe_ and the _Naturaliste_ to Australia,
where, in the company of Francois Peron, he will collect tens of thousands of
zoological specimens. Lesueur's considerable skill as an artist will enable
him to illustrate many of the expedition's finer specimens, but the early
death of Peron will delay the completion of the expedition's report, and most
of Lesueur's illustrations will never be published. In 1815 Leuseur will sail
for North America, and will spend the next twenty-two years travelling in the
interior of the United States collecting and illustrating mollusks, insects,
fishes, and fossils. Upon his return to France in 1837 he will be appointed
curator of the new Museum d'Histoire Naturelle du Havre, and he will die there
in December of 1846.
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences. For
information send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:3>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sat Jan 1 21:55:25 1994
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 1994 22:59:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Popular historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
Just a few stray thoughts and subjective impressions relating to the
interesting discussion of historical linguistics in _Scientific American_
and similar venues.
I wonder if the audience for such popular treatments is being overestimated in
one respect and underestimated in another, and that the situation could be
improved by addressing this imbalance. In the first case, I think it is easy
for specialists in any area to overestimate the non-specialist audience's
grasp of (and even interest in) particular disciplinary disputes. Thus while
many historical linguists may, in reading Greenberg's articles in _Scientific
American_, see errors of fact or method, the non-specialist reader may only
see a piece of writing on an interesting topic, the history of language. It
is certainly valuable to challenge such work in the technical literature, but
I wonder if challenging it directly in the popular literature has any
measurable effect. Non-specialists often don't get the point of the internal
debates we all engage in within our disciplines because, by their very nature,
such debates often turn on arcane details. I am reminded of the Star Trek
episode wherein the Enterprise crew encounters a unusual alien who is black on
one side of his body and white on the other. They take him to be "a mutant"
and unique, until they find another alien who is also half black and half
white, and who is in fact being hunted by the first alien. No one can
understand why these two aliens are locked in mortal combat, since they appear
to be the only ones of their kind left in the galaxy. Alien number one
recoils at the suggestion that they are both of the same kind: "Can't you
see that he is black on the left side, whereas I am black on the right side?"
I do _not_ want to suggest that one should cede the non-specialist audience to
work that is poorly thought out, though; quite the contrary. It's just that I
wonder if another strategy might be more successful. I think in this case one
should not underestimate the _extent_ of popular interest in subjects like
historical linguistics and the historical sciences generally. This interest
may not be deep enough to grasp details of technical dispute (see above), but
I wonder if it isn't broad enough to allow a different strategy: "just start
painting the fence" (Eli Gerson's nice phrase). In other words, if some
particular view seems to be getting too much popular attention, don't actually
challenge it directly, but rather just start getting your view out in front of
the public yourself. Now it may be that _Scientific American_ is a closed
shop, but there are many other vehicles that could be used, and other media as
well (think about the PBS series "The Story of English"; a similar series on
Indo-European might be really something). I'm not really convinced that the
problem is "the facts are boring", because so much depends upon their
rhetorical presentation. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, has taken a great
many ideas that are commonplaces in evolutionary biology, and has been very
successful at drawing popular attention to them. So much so in fact, that he
is sometimes credited for having invented them, much to the consternation of
his less-rhetorically-skilled colleagues. (I once read a reference to
"Gould's proposal" of a particular new idea, an idea that had in fact been
proposed in the 1870s.) Language is an everyday phenomenon, and in my
experience lots of non-linguists are interested in dialects, word origins, and
all sorts of issues in historical linguistics, interested enough to read a
magazine article about them or to watch a tv special at least.
There is of course one pragmatic obstacle that would confront someone trying
to follow this latter strategy, namely that writing non-specialist literature
doesn't always help one's specialist career. As someone who may well be
bagging groceries next year for want of other employment I am quite conscious
of this as a genuine concern. Then again, there have been a couple of
articles recently in the _Chronicle of Higher Education_ about "the rebirth of
the public intellectual", so maybe there is hope for this strategy after all.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:4>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sat Jan 1 22:48:32 1994
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 1994 23:52:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Major anniversaries for the historical sciences, 1994-1999
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
I append here a list of some major anniversaries for the historical sciences
that will be coming up in the next few years. Some of the persons included in
the list are major and some are minor, while others are major in themselves but
have minor associations with the historical sciences. In the latter case such
anniversaries provide an opportunity to remind people that Newton, for
example, was a chronologist as well as a mathematician, and that Descartes
wrote on the origin of the Solar System as well as the foundations of
knowledge.
I genuinely believe that such anniversaries provide many opportunities to
advance the cause of the historical sciences in a whole variety of ways.
Anniversaries of the birth or death of major figures often merit meetings,
conferences, and books, of course, but the anniversaries of less well-known
figures can be commemorated with a book exhibit in a campus or local library,
a special lecture or two in a course, a departmental party (!), a popular
magazine or newspaper article, a reference in a research paper, a radio
profile, even a message to a network discussion group. ;-) All of these
things add up, and each one is an opportunity to spark a student's or
colleague's interest. This year (1994) is a particularly important one for
all of us here because May 24th will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of
William Whewell, one of the patrons of Darwin-L for his characterization of
our topic, the palaetiological sciences.
More information about the people listed here can be found in standard sources
such as the _Dictionary of Scientific Biography_. As my collection of items
for "Today in the Historical Sciences" expands I will expand this anniversary
list as well, and will post occasional revisions of it.
Bob O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
---------------------------------
Major Anniversaries for the Historical Sciences, 1994-1999
1994:
Jan 10: Forster, Johann Georg Adam (200th d)
Jan 13: Garnot, Prosper (200th b)
Jan 16: Middendorf, Aleksandr Fedorovich (100th d)
Jan 28: Collinson, Peter (300th b)
Feb 24: Johnson, Douglas William (50th d)
Mar 16: Boue, Ami (200th b)
Mar 20: Lesson, Rene-Primevere (200th b)
Mar 25: Engler, Adolf (150th b)
Apr 27: Jones, William (200th d)
May 8: Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent (200th d)
May 24: Whewell, William (200th b)
Jun 7: Whitney, William Dwight (100th d)
Jun 19: Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Etienne (150th d)
Aug 1: Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de (250th b)
Aug 7: Michel-Levy, Auguste (150th b)
Aug 15: Fries, Elias Magnus (200th b)
Aug 20: Moench, Conrad (250th b)
Sep 9: Lonsdale, William (200th b)
Sep 25: Cordus, Valerius (450th d)
Nov 1: Cayeux, Lucien (50th d)
Dec 2: Mercator, Gerardus (400th d)
1995:
date ?: Gerard, John (450th b)
Jan 5: Jaccard, Auguste (100th d)
Jan 7: Fabricius, Johann Christian (250th b)
Jan 29: Nehring, Alfred (150th b)
Feb 11: Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle (200th b)
Mar 21: Arduino, Giovanni (200th d)
Apr 14: Dana, James Dwight (100th d)
Apr 19: Ehrenberg, Christian Gottfried (200th b)
May 15: Czerski, Jan (150th b)
May 16: Metchnikoff, Elie (150th b)
May 21: Bessey, Charles Edwin (150th b)
Jun 23: Williamson, William Crawford (100th d)
Jun 29: Huxley, Thomas Henry (100th d)
Jul 4: Eichwald, Karl Eduard Ivanovich (200th b)
Aug 19: Merrett, Christopher (300th d)
Aug 21: Dall, William Healy (150th b)
Oct 13: Houghton, Douglass (150th d)
Oct 24: Neumayr, Melchior (150th b)
Oct 30: Merriam, John Campbell (50th d)
1996:
Jan 6: Goodrich, Edwin Stephen (50th d)
Feb 10: De la Beche, Henry Thomas (200th b)
Feb 14: Milne, Edward Arthur (100th b)
Mar 7: Michaux, Andre (250th b)
Mar 20: Freiesleben, Johann Karl (150th d)
Mar 20: Grabau, Amadeus William (50th d)
Mar 31: Descartes, Rene (400th b)
Apr 30: Broili, Ferdinand (50th d)
May 3: Britten, James (150th b)
May 28: Daubree, Gabriel-Auguste (100th d)
Jun 15: L'Heritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis (250th b)
Jul 1: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (350th b)
Jul 9: Beyrich, Heinrich Ernst (100th d)
Aug 8: Giard, Alfred (150th b)
Sep 19: Harlan, Richard (200th b)
Nov 7: Jepson, Willis Linn (50th d)
Dec 12: Lesueur, Charles-Alexandre (150th d)
Dec 22: Bory de Saint-Vincent, Jean Baptiste Georges Marie (150th d)
1997:
Jan 7: Karpinsky, Alexandr Petrovich (150th b)
Jan 26: Flett, John Smith (50th d)
Feb 7: Jordan, (Claude Thomas) Alexis (100th d)
Mar 10: Scrope, George (200th b)
Mar 26: Hutton, James (200th d)
Apr 2: Dillenius, Johann Jacob (250th d)
Apr 12: Cope, Edward Drinker (100th d)
Apr 14: Jennings, Herbert Spencer (50th d)
May 15: Lankester, Edwin Ray (150th b)
May 21: Muller, Fritz (100th d)
May 24: Deshayes, Gerard Paul (200th b)
May 28: Herbert, William (150th d)
May 30: Naumann, Karl Friedrich (200th b)
Sep 17: Litke, Fyodor Petrovich (200th b)
Nov 14: Lyell, Charles (200th b)
Nov 24: Horn, Georg Henry (100th d)
Dec 23: Jussieu, Adrien Henri Laurent de (200th b)
1998:
date ?: Bock, Jerome (500th b)
date ?: Hildegard of Bingen (900th b)
Feb 6: Leuckart, Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf (100th d)
Feb 25: du Toit, Alexander Logie (50th d)
Mar 10: Playfair, John (250th b)
Apr 11: Bower, F. O. (50th d)
Apr 12: Jussieu, Antoine-Laurent de (250th b)
Apr 20: Logan, William Edmund (200th b)
Jul 2: Clarke, William Branwhite (200th b)
Aug 7: Hall, James, Jr. (100th d)
Sep 25: Elie de Beaumont, Leonce (200th b)
Sep 25: Mortillet, Louis-Laurent Gabriel de (100th d)
Dec 9: Forster, Johann Reinhold (200th d)
1999:
Jan 26: Morton, Samuel George (200th b)
Feb 5: Lindley, John (200th b)
Feb 7: Hedwig, Johann (200th d)
Mar 7: Celakovsky, Frantisek (200th b)
Mar 19: Naudin, Charles (100th d)
Mar 29: Nylander, William (100th d)
Apr 12: Heim, Albert (150th b)
Apr 28: Lesson, Rene-Primevere (150th d)
May 16: Emmons, Ebenezer (200th b)
May 17: Jenner, Edward (250th b)
May 23: Bartram, John (300th b)
Jun 20: Clift, William (150th d)
Jul 1: Flower, William Henry (100th d)
Aug 11: Barrande, Joachim (200th b)
Aug 16: Lartet, Louis (100th d)
Aug 17: Jussieu, Bernard de (300th b)
Aug 28: Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (250th b)
Sep 7: Le Monnier, Louis-Guillaume (200th d)
Sep 25: Werner, Abraham Gottlob (250th b)
Nov 19: Dawson, John William (100th d)
Dec 16: Kylin, Johann Harald (50th d)
Dec 23: Catesby, Mark (250th d)
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:5>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Mon Jan 3 11:55:42 1994
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 1994 12:59:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: January 3 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
JANUARY 3 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1822: WILLIAM NYLANDER is born at Uleaborg, Russia (now Oulu, Finland).
Following medical study at the University of Helsinki, from which he will
graduate in 1847, Nylander will travel extensively throughout Finland and
will devote himself exclusively to botany and entomology. In 1848 he will
go to Paris to study lichens at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and will
soon become one of the world's leading lichenologists. He will be appointed
to the first professorship of botany at the University of Helsinki in 1857,
but dissatisfaction with his position there will lead him to emigrate to
France, where he will remain until his death in 1899.
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences. For
information send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:6>From BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk Mon Jan 3 18:05:41 1994
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 94 01:04:42 DNT
From: Finn N Rasmussen <BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk>
Subject: Linguistics controversy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
-- The recent controversy over Greenberg/Renfrew has pushed some
writers to compare the controversial views with cold fusion and creationism.
I wonder if this is really really relevant, after all?
Cold fusion is not a historical event that may or may not have happened.
If it can't be repeated, nobody will believe it EVER happened. Creationism
can hardly be referred to as a historical theory either, it is at best a
religious doctrine, but most often just a kind of entertainment like UFOs,
reincarnation, Elvis-seen-in-outer-space and similar stuff. One should
think that the linguistic theories in question were meant to do more than
just entertain.
Finn N Rasmussen, Botanical Laboratory, Univ. of Copen-
hagen, Denmark (botcfnr at vm.uni-c.dk)
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:7>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Tue Jan 4 08:32:22 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 08:32:22 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
This discussion on historical linguistics sounds a lot like discussions in my
field of paleoanthropology (among others): mainline researchers plagued by a
nonsensical theory that won't go away because "proof" and "disproof" are
impossible, if not meaningless. I spent much of last semester in an extended
email discussion of the aquatic ape hypothesis, for example. The archaeology
list has been lamenting the airing on network television of a theory that the
Sphinx was made in Atlantis.
Is this a parallel case? I am only an interested spectator on the topic. I have
read the SA articles, but not closely; I have read recent books by Mallory and
Renfrew on Indo-European origins (and found them fascinating as I did
discussions of the attempt to recreate the Mother Tongue); and I have read
something of the Greenberg controversy in CA and Science. But I do not feel in
a position to draw my own conclusions on these topics. Are Renfrew's ideas so
clearly off the wall in the perspective of other linguists as those of Elaine
Morgan are for anthropologists? If so, why is it so difficult for
linguists/paleoanthropologists to communicate this to outsiders, even to
scholars trained in critical analysis in other fields? I can be swayed when I
sense the weight of the discipline leaning heavily to one paradigm or another,
but that is very difficult for an outsider to perceive based on a few SA or
secondary articles and books. Note that the authors of such articles, _on both
sides of the argument_, are writing with similar styles and convictions--
asking the reader to have informed faith, not an independent critique.
How can we expect the general public, who is still unable to separate science
from mysticism, to evaluate such controversies? Usually we don't. We tell them
what to believe. That is the sense in these recent comments on Renfrew and in
my own messages about aquatic apes. There is a smooth continuum from good
theory and practice to bad theory to poppycock to uninformed faith (the worst
of all, from my perspective as an academic). We struggle with difficulty to
guide our colleagues along this landscape, usually without knowing exactly
where we are ourselves.
What do we tell the general public? This appears to be a problem common to all
the sciences for any internal debate. I no longer am convinced that education
is the answer, short of turning them all into professional academic linguists
or paleoanthropologists (God forbid). I really do not want to get into the
question "How do we know what we know?", but I am afraid that is what we are
facing.
Any thoughts or optimism on this?
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
(Henry, Duke of Gloucester, upon receiving The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire:) "Another damn, thick, square book. It's always scribble, scribble,
scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?"
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:8>From GOLLAV@axe.humboldt.edu Tue Jan 4 12:19:52 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 10:24 PST
From: GOLLAV@axe.humboldt.edu
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
John Langdon asks, re the objections that we historical linguists have
to Renfrew, Greenberg, etc., and parallel problems in other fields:
> why is it so difficult for linguists/paleoanthropologists to communicate
> this to outsiders, even to scholars trained in critical analysis in other
> fields? I can be swayed when I sense the weight of the discipline leaning
> heavily to one paradigm or another, but that is very difficult for an
> outsider to perceive based on a few SA or secondary articles and books.
> Note that the authors of such articles, _on both sides of the argument_,
> are writing with similar styles and convictions-- asking the reader to
> have informed faith, not an independent critique.
The overwhelming weight of the disciplinary paradigm is against Greenberg's
grandiose and slipshod scheme of wide linguistic interconnections, while
Renfrew is a non-linguist who has blustered into a field he knows little
about. It OUGHT to be the business of the editors of the responsible
generalist publications--and unuversity presses--to appropriately marginalize
their statements, however eloquent and convincing their rhetoric. But this
responsibility is not being appropriately exercised. The editor-in-chief of
_Scientific American_ , persuaded that Greenberg is a persecuted genius, has
taken up his cause. Stanford University Press -- over the objections of some
in that university's Department of Linguistics, let it be said -- has seen
fit to publish not only Greenberg's stuff (he is, after all, a senior member
of the Stanford faculty) but, far worse, Merritt Ruhlen's "A Guide to the
World's Languages," a book that has all of the trappings of a standard
reference work but is, in fact, simply a parroting of Greenberg's views.
(Ruhlen is too marginal a figure to hold down an academic job, and his
principal employment seems to be funding generated by Greenberg) The field,
as a colloquy among professionals, has long since made up its mind about this
nonsense and expressed its collective disapprobation in review after review;
the problem is that this consensus is ignored by a couple of important
"gatekeepers".
A group of us, broadly representing "establishment" opinion in linguistics,
last summer appealed to Jonathan Piel, editor of _Scientific American_, in
a group letter. In reply, Piel called us a "posse" and refused to print our
"well known objections" to Greenberg and Ruhlen's work.
It is not clear what we should do. I suppose we could write popularized
debunking articles and try to get them published in rival magazines, like
_Discover_ or _Natural History_. A couple of us have considered using
_Lingua Franca_ as a vehicle for exposing the bias of _Scientific American_.
Probably most effective of all would be to take up Bob O'Hara's challenge and
start producing a fairly steady stream of readable articles on solid work in
historical linguistics. The problem is, none of us has the popularizing
talent of an S. J. Gould, and even if we had such a paragon among us, it's
a lot easier to spin a web of seductive but baseless hypotheses than to
depict the doubts and cautions of real historical understanding.
Let me put it to the non-linguist readers of DARWIN-L: what would attract
YOUR attention in an article on historical linguistics? What would you most
like to hear from us?
--Victor Golla
Humboldt State University
Arcata, California
gollav@axe.humboldt.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:9>From Mike.Dickison@vuw.ac.nz Tue Jan 4 13:12:31 1994
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 1994 08:15:47 +1300
From: Mike.Dickison@vuw.ac.nz
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Hello all from a newcomer
Hello all, I'm new to Darwin-L so here's a short bio. My name's Mike
Dickison from Wellington, New Zealand. Presently working on philosophy of
biology at Victoria University, formerly at the Museum of New Zealand, now a
freelance science writer inter alia. Most interested in paleoecology,
practical environmental ethics, and evolutionary theory.
Re the popular linguistics debate: Some recent writers on popularising
science suggest that *educating* the public isn't the way to help them
distinguish between good science and sloppy science. They advocate not
teaching people science, but teaching them *about* science. Voters that are
not economists are still expected to assess the claims of rival economists
at election time. Jurors in a court have to deal with expert testimony. Of
course it is entirely debatable how well either of these processes work. But
*everyone* in academia has a field they would like the public to know more
about, and it seems a bit much to expect non-scientists to learn about all
of them.
Any thoughts? Mike Dickison, adzebill@matai.vuw.ac.nz
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:10>From delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu Tue Jan 4 13:16:01 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 10:58:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott C DeLancey <delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
On Tue, 4 Jan 1994, JOHN LANGDON wrote:
> This discussion on historical linguistics sounds a lot like discussions in my
> field of paleoanthropology (among others): mainline researchers plagued by a
> nonsensical theory that won't go away because "proof" and "disproof" are
> impossible, if not meaningless. I spent much of last semester in an extended
> email discussion of the aquatic ape hypothesis, for example. The archaeology
> list has been lamenting the airing on network television of a theory that the
> Sphinx was made in Atlantis.
>
> Is this a parallel case? ... Are Renfrew's ideas so
> clearly off the wall in the perspective of other linguists as those of Elaine
> Morgan are for anthropologists?
Yes. Actually I think that the cases are very parallel, in that neither
Morgan's nor Renfrew's ideas are self-evidently absurd (unlike, say,
creationism or von Daniken-type stuff). To properly evaluate them you
have to know enough about the relevant discipline to understand how they
present better-grounded explanations, and how the outsiders' hypotheses
are necessarily inconsistent with these explanations. In Renfrew's case,
he badly wants to eliminate "invasions" or other population movements as
elements of an explanation for linguistic distribution (or anything else).
So he therefore has to insist that the differentiation between Celtic and
Germanic, for example, must have occurred in situ, as part of a secondary
differentation of an originally more homogenous Indo-European-speaking
population. The problem is that everything we know about historical
linguistics and sociolinguistics argues that it couldn't have happened
that way, that the developement of differences as radical as those
that distinguish Celtic from Germanic within 2-3 millenia could only
happen if the two populations were isolated from one another for a
substantial period.
> If so, why is it so difficult for
> linguists/paleoanthropologists to communicate this to outsiders, even to
> scholars trained in critical analysis in other fields?
Because there isn't a nice simple story that we can tell to set against
theirs. The informed conviction that Renfrew (or Morgan) can't be right
comes not from having read one or two textbooks that give the party line,
but from having a wide enough knowledge of actual history or prehistory to
know what kinds of things do happen and what kinds of things don't.
The case of Greenberg is even more difficult, in that it is entirely
possible that some of his claims about wide-ranging genetic relationships
could be true (whereas Renfrew's story of the Indo-Europeanization of
Europe simply could not be). The problem with Greenberg is his methodology--
he has simply not presented adequate evidence for any of his claims, or
given any convincing reason to believe that his methods are capable of
producing such evidence. This is something which other scholars should
be able to handle, but it's a *really* hard notion to get across to the
general public: "Well, he could be right about some of that, for all
we know, but if so it's just by accident"!
Scott DeLancey delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:11>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Tue Jan 4 17:56:43 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 19:00:05 EST
Making a case (to the public, or to a nonspecialist) against a
superficially plausible 'hypothesis' is even harder than trying to explain
that "it goes against everything else we know in the field."
Those outside a given field are more likely to root for the perceived
maverick, out of sheer irrational "They laughed at Columbus" sympathy.
The kicker in the situation is that every once in a while, Columbus is
right after all; or Wegner (?sp) with his plate tectonics; or <fill in the
blank>.
In the sociology of the professions, it's almost a given that advances
will come from those on the margin, rather than those identifiable as "the
establishment" of a particular field. Charles Darwin, with his provincial
background and non-U (though well-to-do) status, is a paradigmatic instance.
It's an uphill battle, all the way, both against the patently absurd and
the superficially plausible. One must present the case, however, and the
proposed "in order for that to be true, the following would have to be
false" seems to me to be a pretty good (though non dramatic) format.
--bayla singer
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:12>From ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Tue Jan 4 19:44:17 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 19:19:44 EST
From: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca (Donald Phillipson)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Hello all from a newcomer
Mike Dickison (adzebill@matai.vuw.ac.nz) wrote from New Zealand
>Re the popular linguistics debate: Some recent writers on popularising
>science suggest that *educating* the public isn't the way to help them
>distinguish between good science and sloppy science. They advocate not
>teaching people science, but teaching them *about* science. Voters that are
Canada announced 1987 "Innovaction" of which one element was the declared
commitment that citizen knowledge of science was prerequisite for sound
national science policy. (Sounds fishy to me as a historian, but there it
is.) The backup for this was special research contracts to investigate
knowledge of science, about a dozen awarded since that date, mostly to
academics new to the field. Surprisingly, since attention had been
focussed 15 years earlier on mass media and adults, this recent research
concentrates on school curricula and children.
No clear pattern has yet emerged, either of what has been learned or what
political use it might be: but I try to monitor this and can report here
if there is any demand for such information. There has been a change of
government so anything could happen at the client level. It was not
encouraging to see how divergent were projects actually awarded grants.
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4050 Hall's Road, Carlsbad |
| Springs, Ont., Canada K0A 1K0; tel: (613) 822-0734 |
| "What I've always liked about science is its independence from |
| authority"--Ontario Science Centre (name on file) 10 July 1981 |
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:13>From ronald@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu Tue Jan 4 20:45:11 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 16:48:29 HST
From: Ron Amundson <ronald@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
A couple of comments on Bayla Singer's interesting observations on why
it's hard to convince non-specialists of the flakiness of some fringe
theories. While I generally like the approach, the cases are
extremely shaky.
> Those outside a given field are more likely to root for the perceived
> maverick, out of sheer irrational "They laughed at Columbus" sympathy.
> The kicker in the situation is that every once in a while, Columbus is
> right after all; or Wegner (?sp) with his plate tectonics; or <fill in the
> blank>.
Wegner was interesting and didn't deserve the scorn he got. But he
did not invent plate tectonics -- he actually seems to have believed
that continents plowed through ocean floors. Plate tectonics is a
very different notion. Wegner was vindicated in _some_ of his views,
but not by any means was he essentially correct. Similar points could
be made about Columbus -- I hope Bayla is not basing her comments on
that old chestnut about how people used to believe the world was flat
before Columbus! (Turns out Washington Irving invented that myth.)
> In the sociology of the professions, it's almost a given that advances
> will come from those on the margin, rather than those identifiable as "the
> establishment" of a particular field. Charles Darwin, with his provincial
> background and non-U (though well-to-do) status, is a paradigmatic instance.
I suspect that readers of this list will be aware that Darwin had made
a _very_ good name for himself doing mainstream geology and
biogeography long before he published his evolutionary views. He was
by no means a fringe figure in British science.
Actually, I think that the popular myth that's behind the difficulty
Bayla is discussing is expressed in Bayla's own "given" -- that
advances come from the fringe. In fact (I suspect) we build heroic
stories about intellectual high-achievers which _depict_ them as
underappreciated fringe geniuses. These myths are so appealing that
the public then coopts them and applies them to the next flaky theory
that comes along.
Frank Sulloway (in discussion, I don't know if he's published on the
topic) talks about the mythic structures of our tales of intellectual
heroes. Very Homeric. Everyone begins with a journey of trial and
discovery, whether it's Darwin and the Beagle or Freud and his
"lonely" psychoanalytic self-explorations.
So I agree that myths about scientists is what motivates public
acceptance of fringe theories. But I disagree with Bayla that there
is a kernel of truth inside the myth. It's nonsense through and
through.
Cheers,
Ron Amundson
ronald@uhunix.bitnet
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:14>From Michael_Kenny@sfu.ca Tue Jan 4 20:50:35 1994
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 18:53:54 -0800
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: Michael_Kenny@sfu.ca (Michael Kenny)
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
Not to change the subject away from the fascinating linguistics
controversy, but does anyone with an intellectual-historical bent know
anything about the public response to Robert Chamber's proto-evolutionary
*Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation* (1844)? My understanding is
that the work was extraordinarily popular and echoed around all over the
place.
Michael Kenny
Dept. of Sociology/Anthropology
Simon Fraser University
Michael_Kenny@sfu.ca
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:15>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Tue Jan 4 21:20:16 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 22:23:36 EST
I must agree with Ron, and apologize for a bit of sloppy thinking. In my
post, I conflated disciplinary 'fringe-ness' with social marginality. It
is social marginality that seems to throw up genuinely creative mavericks.
Sometimes, however, disciplinary marginality goes along with social: thus
the 'kernel of truth' behind the myth.
Nor did I really intend to evoke the flat-earth business re Columbus: I
simply wanted to wave my hand at a generality, namely, public (lay and
learned) sympathy for the maverick. Alas, my shorthand figure was too
glib for this audience.
I also agree that we (the nonspecialist public, again) do tend to invent
marginal backgrounds for our 'heroes' where none really exist. Edison
saved us the trouble, and created his own legend. However, Morse and Bell
were truly marginal to the electrical-science/technology field, and was
Robert Fulton to that of steam engineering.
--bayla
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:16>From SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu Wed Jan 5 11:52:09 1994
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: "Gerard Donnelly Smith" <SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
Date: 5 Jan 94 09:52:14 PST8PDT
Subject: Indo-European Homeland
Just finished reading the long debate concerning historical
linguistics and would appreciate clarification. Seems the debate
rests on the assumption that Grimm's First Sound Shift incorrectly
devoices "p," "t," and "k". This error, apparently corrected by
Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, places the origin of the Indo-European
language in western Asia rather than Central Europe. Gamkrelidze and
Ivanov argue that Renfrew's study of the dissappearance of the
megalithic cultures support their argument, although there is little
archeological evidence that shows an esablished culture in western
Asia for the time period they postulate for the origin of Indo-
European. Supposedly future DNA studies will validate their theories.
Both geographical locations are based on the distribution of "salmon,"
"turtle," "beech," plus words denoting argriculture technologies and
landscape.
My question: If, as argued by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, the Indo-
Europeans developed the chariot as early as the third millennium
B.C., would it not be possible for a small aggressive population to
dominate the surrounding non-wheeled cultures, thus imposing their
langauge? In other words, does the spread of horse-draw
technology either support or undermine the theory under discussion?
Dr. Gerard Donnelly-Smith e-mail: smitgm@hawkins.clark.edu
English Department phone: 206-699-0478
Clark College
Vancouver, WA 98663
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:17>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Wed Jan 5 12:13:19 1994
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 1994 13:18:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Help sought for the new OED (fwd from LINGUIST)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
----- begin forwarded message ---------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 11:22:58 -0600
From: The Linguist List <linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Subject: 5.19 Appeal: Help on the new Oxford English Dictionary
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 09:55:11 GMT
From: ahughes%pride@oup.co.uk (Alan Hughes)
Subject: A New OED
An Appeal to the Scientific Community
Work has recently begun at Oxford University Press on a comprehensive
revision of the Oxford English Dictionary, to be published in 2005.
As part of the process of revising and updating the Dictionary, we would like
to encourage scientists who have information relevant to the OED to draw it
to our attention.
Such information may include:
1) the coinages of particular scientific words
2) factual errors in their definitions
3) scientific words and meanings not in the OED
4) earlier referenced examples of words and meanings already
treated in the dictionary (and later examples of those described
as obsolete)
Category 4 is especially useful: the OED is a historical dictionary
which attempts to trace every word and meaning back to its earliest known
use in the English language, as well as giving references to the coinages of
foreign precursors of English words.
As an example, Professor Joshua Lederberg has mailed us about the omission
of C. S. Peirce's philosophical sense of `abduction', not recorded in the
OED, and his own coinage of the words `eugram' and `eugraphy'.
Please email oed3@oup.co.uk, or write to the Chief Science Editor, Oxford
English Dictionary, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. And pass this
message on to whomever may be interested.
Alan Hughes
Chief Science Editor January 1994
----- end forwarded message -----------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:18>From ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Wed Jan 5 12:32:12 1994
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 94 13:35:30 EST
From: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca (Donald Phillipson)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
Michael Kenny of Simon Fraser Univ. wrote 4 Jan. 94
>controversy, but does anyone with an intellectual-historical bent know
>anything about the public response to Robert Chamber's proto-evolutionary
>*Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation* (1844)? My understanding is
Excellent introductory account in Peter Bowler's Fontana History of the
Environmental Sciences.
(If only SFU had some historians of science...!)
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4050 Hall's Road, Carlsbad |
| Springs, Ont., Canada K0A 1K0; tel: (613) 822-0734 |
| "What I've always liked about science is its independence from |
| authority"--Ontario Science Centre (name on file) 10 July 1981 |
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:19>From hantuo@utu.fi Wed Jan 5 12:32:50 1994
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: hantuo@utu.fi (Hanna Tuomisto)
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 1994 20:36:00 +0200
John Langdon wrote:
>This discussion on historical linguistics sounds a lot like discussions in my
>field of paleoanthropology (among others): mainline researchers plagued by a
>nonsensical theory that won't go away because "proof" and "disproof" are
>impossible, if not meaningless. I spent much of last semester in an extended
>email discussion of the aquatic ape hypothesis, for example.
I admit that I was one of the other persons involved in those discussions.
And after all the argumentation, it still is not clear to me why the
aquatic ape theory is called a "nonsensical theory". There is nothing
inherently impossible in an ecological transition between land and water.
There are examples of animals that have made the transition from land to
water, there are animals that have made the transition the other way round,
and there are animals that exploit successfully both habitats. There are
even primates that do so. And since humans do have quite a few anatomical
and physiological characteristics that are otherwise found only among
aquatic or semiaquatic animals, I see nothing unsound in proposing that the
environment that shaped them has to some extent shaped us.
If we cannot prove or disprove either theory, and neither of them
contradicts any natural laws, on what basis is one of them called nonsense?
Why not just admit that there are two rival theories?
>How can we expect the general public, who is still unable to separate science
>From mysticism, to evaluate such controversies? Usually we don't. We tell
>them what to believe. That is the sense in these recent comments on Renfrew
>and in my own messages about aquatic apes.
That's not the way how the aquatic ape theory has been promoted, though.
Especially Elaine Morgan has made a considerable effort in collecting and
presenting evidence from many different fields ranging from anatomy,
physiology and medicine to paleontology and geology. Her evidence is all
there, for anyone to evaluate. Most of the counterarguments are also found
in her books, which makes the evaluation even easier. This is in striking
contrast to the mainstream articles on human evolution, which typically do
not even care to mention that an alternative theory has been proposed. The
only printed critiques I have seen against the aquatic theory were one book
(extended congress abstracts) and a couple of book reviews. They mainly
concentrated on ridiculizing the theory, not on presenting evidence.
There might be a parallel between the cases of Renfrew/Greenberg and Morgan
(I know nothing about linguistics and cannot evaluate the science in that
debate), but from some recent postings I have understood that the linguists
at least have considered R/G seriously enough to write articles in which
those views are argued against.
Hanna Tuomisto e-mail hantuo@utu.fi
Department of Biology Fax +358-21-6335564
University of Turku Phone +358-21-6335634
FIN-20500 Turku, FINLAND
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:20>From ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Wed Jan 5 12:43:13 1994
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 94 13:43:10 EST
From: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca (Donald Phillipson)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Linguistics controversy
Reply-To: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca
Bayla Singer wrote from Penn U 5 Jan. 94
>I also agree that we (the nonspecialist public, again) do tend to invent
>marginal backgrounds for our 'heroes' where none really exist. Edison
>saved us the trouble, and created his own legend. However, Morse and Bell
>were truly marginal to the electrical-science/technology field, and was
>Robert Fulton to that of steam engineering.
We are all tempted to swing from the one extreme (orthodox hero-worship)
to the other (no one's a hero.) The way out of this is to find defensible
criteria for "hero," "marginal," etc., as precise as possible. You may
here be right about electricity qua physical science (I don't claim to
know;) but it would be very rash to say innovators like Morse let alone
the holder of the most patents in history were "marginal" in technology.
You know your criteria are good when some other user applies them to an
individual or case you've never heard of and reaches the same result you
would.
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4050 Hall's Road, Carlsbad |
| Springs, Ont., Canada K0A 1K0; tel: (613) 822-0734 |
| "What I've always liked about science is its independence from |
| authority"--Ontario Science Centre (name on file) 10 July 1981 |
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:21>From WILLS@macc.wisc.edu Wed Jan 5 16:40:19 1994
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 94 16:40 CDT
From: Jeffrey Wills <WILLS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: What a non-Renfrew account might consider
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
My archaeological colleague (a Cambridge man who remembers when Colin Renfrew
started going to the library each day to learn about Indo-European) John Bennet
replies to Victor Golla's inquiry:
>>Let me put it to the non-linguist readers of DARWIN-L: what would attract
>>YOUR attention in an article on historical linguistics? What would you most
>>like to hear from us?
>>
>>--Victor Golla
>> Humboldt State University
>> Arcata, California
>> gollav@axe.humboldt.edu
>In response to the last paragraph of the stuff you forwarded to me, I would
>like to see a systematic rival account of why Renfrew's reconstruction will
>not work in terms of (1) the likely social groups involved in the pre-state
>age and (2) the timeframe involved. I'm more interested in trying to nail
>down the I-E aspect as a first step, since it must be better documented
>than other language families. You may forward to the list, if you like.
>John Bennet, Dept of Classics
>908 Van Hise Hall, UW-Madison,
>1220 Linden Dr.
>Madison, WI 53706, USA
>Tel: 608/262-3320 or /262-2041
>Fax: 608/262-8570
>EMail: ddjlb@macc.wisc.edu
Jeffrey Wills, wills@macc.wisc.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:22>From GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU Wed Jan 5 22:09:36 1994
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 1994 22:12:43 -0600 (CST)
From: GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 111
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
I think I really must put my oar in here, even tho' my point is not only
about the 'margins', it's on the margins.
It's quite easy to argue that significant discoveries have been made by
workers on the margin of the field in which they made the discovery. However,
[and this is an important "however"] the typical case involves someone who
is NOT marginal in some OTHER field. Thus, at least in the past, it has
been possible for physicists to make discoveries in biology (Pasteur, for
example), accountants to make discoveries in chemistry (Lavoisier, for
example--note slight cheeky-tongueness here, please), mathematicians to
make discoveries in cosmology (Milne, for example) and bicycle engineers
to make discoveries in aeronautics.
In _Theory of Science_ I argue that being a card-carrying member of a
paradigmatic guild tends to blind one to non-paradigmatic experiences in
guild-sanctioned phenomena. Note I say "tends" here. Exceptions, and
interesting ones at that, exist. But the tendency is real. After all, what
the hell use is an expensive scientific education if you can't see the
world as your fellow guild-members do?
BTW, my office shares a wall with the guy who did the startup on the
Wegener industry. I might be sick and tired by now of all the stories of
Al on the Ice Floes of Greenland, but I'm still alert enough to be wary of
bandyings-about of his name. His case is lusciously complex, and doesn't
adequately compress and simplify to the uses it's so often put. Maybe we
ought all be leery of using The Wegener Case in anything less than a
three-screensfull analysis... But this is just an idiosyncratic notion of
mine, and no one else need pay attention; nor most likely will they!
Interesting discussion. Why, tho', is it so hard for the Truth--in linguistics
or anyplace else--to be as sexy as the False??
George
ggale@vax1.umkc.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:23>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Jan 6 00:33:13 1994
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 1994 01:39:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: January 6 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
JANUARY 6 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1736: FRIEDRICH CASIMIR MEDICUS is born at Grumbach, Rhineland, Germany.
Following study in Tubingen, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg, Medicus will work as
a physician at Mannheim and oversee the creation of a botanical garden there
in 1766. Turning from medicine to botany, he will become a bitter enemy of
Linnaeus, and will attack the work of the Swedish botanist at every turn,
supporting instead the botanical systems of Tournefort, Linnaeus's principal
opponent. Medicus's botanical garden will be heavily damaged during the
bombardments of Mannheim in 1795 and 1799, and it will be dissolved shortly
after his death in 1808.
1912: ALFRED WEGENER (1880-1930) reads his paper "Die Herausbildung der
Grossformen der Erdrinde (Kontinente und Ozeane) auf geophysikalischer
Grundlage" ("The geophysical basis of the evolution of large-scale features
of the earth's crust") before the Geological Association of Frankfurt am Main.
It will appear in expanded form in 1915 as _Die Entstehung der Kontinente und
Ozeane_, the first modern exposition of the theory of continental drift.
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences. For
information send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:24>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Thu Jan 6 00:58:26 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 111
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 94 2:01:48 EST
Dear George,
At the end of a thought-provoking message, you ask why the Truth isn't as
sexy as the False -- may I suggest that it's similar to why the Good isn't
as sexy as The Bimbo? ;-) Or is that what you had in mind when you posed
the question?
Now that you recall it to my mind, I do know that the Wegener story is as
knurly as the Columbus story -- altho I probably am nowheres near as
<familiar> with it as you are. Aint it the truth that -all- those nice
stories we learn are really knurly, once you get close to them? Edison's
about as much a btich as Newton.
Started teaching yesterday: please answer me, why the kids seem to have
gotten younger faster than I've gotten older?
--bayla
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:25>From abrown@independent.co.uk Thu Jan 6 09:00:59 1994
From: Andrew Brown <abrown@independent.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 94 14:16:46 GMT
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 111
I have to say, that as a professional journalist who followed with
interest the great aqautic ape war in this group, I saw nothing to
suggest that Hanna Tuomisto was defending a crank argument.
If I were writing a story about it, I would naturally try to talk to
John Langdon and try to get him to explain himself better. But he did not
to my layman's eye demolish Hanna's substantive points at all.
I admit to a certain bias, sionce I have been reading Elaine Morgan
since 1972 or thereabouts. But it is my professional skill to
understand other people's professional skills, and on the basis of what
I have so far seen, Hanna has had the better of the argument.
In case anyone is worried, I am not proposing to write about this
group: I just thought this might be of interest in a discussion on why
scientific debates are misunderstood by the outside world.
Andrew Brown
Religious Affairs Correspondent,
The Independent
London
England
Tel (office) 071-956-1682
email: abrown@independent.co.uk
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:26>From antdadx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu Thu Jan 6 12:06:31 1994
From: antdadx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Deborah Duchon)
Subject: Malthus
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 08:41:09 -0500 (EST)
Greetings-
I've been a lurker on this list for a few months, and decided to
"come out." As a MA level research associate in cultural anthropology,
most of what is discussed here is new to me.
But I have returned to school for a PhD, and am starting out with a
course titled Human Population Ecology. Our first assignment is to read
Malthus, which I have started. It occurred to me that other members of
this list might have some intersting insights to offer on Malthus and
possibly even suggestions for further reading.
Thanks in advance---
Deborah Duchon
antdadx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu
Georgia State University
404/651-1038
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:27>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU Thu Jan 6 12:14:46 1994
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 12:14:46 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON" <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 111
Sorry to post this to the list, but I was unable to access Andrew Brown
directly.
Dear Mr. Brown, I am trying hard to resist a lengthy reply. Permit me to state
that the majority of our exchange took place off the list. If you wish copies
of the more complete arguments (about 30 messages), I can forward them to you.
JOHN H. LANGDON email LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY FAX (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227
(Henry, Duke of Gloucester, upon receiving The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire:) "Another damn, thick, square book. It's always scribble, scribble,
scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?"
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:28>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Jan 6 12:51:29 1994
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 1994 13:57:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Darwin-L gopher archive now available
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
I am pleased to report that the Darwin-L message logs and other files stored
on the ukanaix computer can now be browsed and retrieved via gopher. Gopher
software is available at most Internet sites, and it provides a user-friendly
way of navigating around the network. Assuming you have gopher running on
your local mainframe, just type:
gopher rjohara.uncg.edu
at the system prompt and you will be magically transported to the new Darwin-L
archive. If you don't have gopher or don't know whether you do or not you
should contact your local computer center. Because this gopher archive is
running on my personal computer (a Mac LC) it is possible that the nodename
"rjohara.uncg.edu" may not be recognized my your mainframe, in which case
you can try the numeric version of the address:
gopher 152.13.44.19
which should work just as well. (For those who don't understand what I mean:
each internet node, such as "iris.uncg.edu" or "ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu", has
a numeric equivalent, say "143.22.15.09". When you gopher or telnet to some
particular node, the computer actually looks up "iris.uncg.edu" in a database
and retrieves the numeric equivalent, and then the computer itself uses the
numeric equivalent to make the connection -- the alphabetic addresses are
for the convenience of the human users. "rjohara.uncg.edu" is simply the
alphabetic version of "152.13.44.19"; if your computer is not able to locate
my machine under the name "rjohara.uncg.edu", try "152.13.44.19" instead.)
In addition to the Darwin-L logs and related files, I have gathered together
a number of links to other network sites of interest to historical scientists
and these can also be explored via the Darwin-L gopher. Among these other
sites are the Smithsonian Natural History Gopher, the Bryn Mawr Reviews, the
United States Geological Survey, the Michigan Classical Archeology Gopher,
and the Harvard and Oxford University Library Catalogs.
Because the Darwin-L gopher does run on my own personal computer (under the
wonderful Gopher Surfer software distributed by the University of Minnesota),
it is very easy to maintain, but it may also more vulnerable to occasional
crashes. If you have any problems with the archive please let me know and
I will see what I can do. If you haven't used gopher very much before, you
might want to try it out at your local site for a while before burrowing to
the Darwin-L archive, just so the navigational commands will be familiar.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:29>From GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU Thu Jan 6 22:39:17 1994
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 1994 22:42:33 -0600 (CST)
From: GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 112
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Now that Bob has his gopher running, I might add one suggestion to those
whose comp supp people haven't installed gopher at their site: there are
ways around that limitation. Everyone has access to telnet, and some sites
are kind enough to let you co-opt their telnet works to run gopher for you.
It's simpler than it sounds. If you'd like a suggestion or two, just write
me here at home, and I'll send you a file.
George Gale
ggale@vax1.umkc.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:30>From BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk Fri Jan 7 17:27:20 1994
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 94 00:28:26 DNT
From: Finn N Rasmussen <BOTCFNR@vm.uni-c.dk>
Subject: Langdon vs. Tuomistu, Brown and Occam's shaving foam
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Why are some hypotheses preferred for others by the scientific
community? The answer is (or ought to be) quite simple:
because they are more parsimonious, i.e. they need the fewest
possible assumptions to explain the observations at hand.
Science has rather consistently adhered to this principle at
least as far back in time as the first written records of
science. The formulation of the principle is usually ascribed
to William, marginal barber in Occam c. 1350.
Of course the most parsimonious theory will also be the
least fantastic, and unfortunately lay people will most often
prefer the most fantastic and entertaining hypothesis if they
have a choice. Even scientists may occasionally lose the grip
of Occam's razor and reach for the shaving foam instead. The
deep, nebulous mystery has a strong attraction. A cloudy
theory or model may also be more convenient than simple,
boring stringency. This was very evident in the polemics about
cladistic versus "evolutionary" classification in systematic
biology in the early sixties: the evolutionists accused the
cladists for being "simplistic".
It occurs to me after following the aquatic ape controversy
in this list that the "terrestrial ape theory" is vastly more
parsimonious than its aquatic competitor, as judged from the
arguments that has appeared in the list (I am a systematic
botanist and had no preconceived ideas of this particular
subject). I am amazed that Andrew Brown or anybody else could
arrive at the opposite conclusion.
There is another - and much more dangerous - attractor in
some "unscientific" theories: the political analogy. The
church did not prefer the geocentric view of the world because
it was the most entertaining hypothesis, but because of the
centristic analogy between the universe and the human society,
in particular, the structure of the church. The Bolsheviks
discarded selectionism, not because "dialectic evolution" was
more fantastic, but because they liked the analogy between
dialectic materialism in development of societies and the
evolution of species. Isn't there a shot of this stuff in the
Aquatic Ape thinking too? I have not read Morgan's book, but
one gets the impression from the debate here that Morgan is to
some extent politically flavoured.
Could Occam help in the Greenberg/Renfrew case? Wouldn't it
clarify the status of the ideas to simply tabulate the pro's
and cons?
Finn N Rasmussen, Botanical Laboratory,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:31>From PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA Fri Jan 7 17:37:10 1994
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 1994 18:39:58 -0500 (EST)
From: MARC PICARD <PICARD@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: Aquatic apes revisited
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
A few months ago, I inquired about a documentary I had seen some years
back called WATER BABIES. I learned from the discussion that ensued that
it stemmed from a theory that had been propounded mainly by Elaine Morgan
who had picked up on an idea first put forth by Sir Alister Hardy that
our ancestors had been aquatic apes.
I would now like to report that I have just finished reading Morgan's
THE AQUATIC APE: A THEORY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (Souvenir Press, 1982), and
that I find this theory of human evolution utterly fascinating and
EXTREMELY convincing. What I would like now is for someone to suggest
some work that argues in the same dispassionate, systematic and
methodical way against this theory and in favor of some other interpretation
(savannah, neoteny, or whatever). Let me just say one thing right now, though:
THIS BETTER BE GOOD!
Marc Picard
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:32>From jlipps@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU Fri Jan 7 18:58:41 1994
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 94 17:04:24 PST
From: jlipps@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU (Jere Lipps)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Aquatic apes revisited
How about all ape fossils are terrestrial? Or is that too late in their
phylogeny to satisfy you?
J. H. Lipps
Museum of Paleontology
UC Berkeley
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:33>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Fri Jan 7 23:21:40 1994
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 1994 00:27:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Greenberg and other controversial beliefs
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
I came across this book in the library recently and thought it might
be of some interest in the context of our discussions of aquatic apes
and other controversial beliefs:
Harrold, Francis B., & Raymond A. Eve (eds). 1987. _Cult Archeology and
Creationism: Understanding Pseudoscientific Beliefs about the Past_. Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press.
I only glanced at it (and noticed that there was no index), so can't give
a full review, but if anyone else is familiar with the book perhaps we can
be treated some commentary on it.
With regard to the linguistics controversies that have been discussed, I am
leery of making a comparison with creationism, which is a very different case
it seems to me. But it is certainly possible to find examples in systematics
and evolutionary biology of work that was very poorly done, but was done by
prominent people and has gotten a lot of attention. The most conspicuous
recent case is that of Charles Sibley, who has been publishing work on bird
phylogeny for a number of years, work based on DNA hybridization studies.
What Scott DeLancey wrote of the Greenberg situation could almost be applied
to the Sibley case word for word:
The case of Greenberg is even more difficult, in that it is entirely
possible that some of his claims about wide-ranging genetic relationships
could be true (whereas Renfrew's story of the Indo-Europeanization of
Europe simply could not be). The problem with Greenberg is his methodology:
he has simply not presented adequate evidence for any of his claims, or
given any convincing reason to believe that his methods are capable of
producing such evidence. This is something which other scholars should
be able to handle, but it's a *really* hard notion to get across to the
general public: "Well, he could be right about some of that, for all
we know, but if so it's just by accident"!
Sibley's work (his comprehensive summary is _Phylogeny and Classification of
Birds_, Yale Univ Press, 1990) has been very sloppy, he has rarely published
the un-massaged data that are behind his conclusions, and his analytical
techniques are either inappropriate or overextended, and there is reason to
believe that he doesn't really understand them very well himself. But as
Scott was saying with respect to Greenberg, Sibley's conclusions are not
really contradicting established views, because in many cases he is drawing
conclusions that go beyond anything that has yet been established, so there
isn't yet any counter position to set up against him. It is possible,
therefore, that some of his conclusions may actually be right. But then if
one generated trees randomly it is possible that some of them might be right,
too. (This comparison exaggerates the case, but it makes the point.) Sibley's
work generated news articles in _Science_ (as did Greenberg's), and he also
published a summary of it in _Scientific American_, believe it or not. His
proponents have tended to be people who are biologists, but who are not
systematists; and since his work uses DNA (very fashionable), well, it must
be right.
I wrote a critical review of Sibley's book that some might find interesting
in the context of these discussions; I think the linguists involved in the
Greenberg debate might even find that Sibley and Greenberg share some
methological weaknesses. The citation is:
O'Hara, Robert J. 1991. [Review of _Phylogeny and Classification of Birds:
A Study in Molecular Evolution_]. _Auk_, 108(4):990-994.
If you can't find it in your local library you can send me a snailmail
address and I'd be glad to send you a reprint. Most of the relevant news
articles and the early uninformed positive reviews are cited in my review.
Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:34>From T20MXS1@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU Fri Jan 7 23:33:17 1994
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 94 23:36 CST
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: mike salovesh <T20MXS1@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU>
Subject: On going beyond evidence and method ---
Scott DeLancey, speaking of Greenberg's linguistic work on alleged
wide-ranging genetic relationships among language families that
most linguists see as unrelated, faults Greenberg's methodology:
>>Well, he could be right about some of that, for all we know,
>>but if so it's just by accident!
As a former linguistic researcher (and present-day social anthropolo-
gist), I'd like to add a historical footnote. Edward Sapir, in his
time, proposed wide-ranging linguistic relationships for North
America that were faulted on exactly the same grounds. In general,
he turned out to be right. Morris Swadesh--Sapir's student, and
Greenberg's friend--did the same damned thing. Here we have three
extraordinary linguists who made outstanding contributions to their
science, all somehow given to proposing the same kind of hypotheses.
(Yes, and going overboard in claiming that they were demonstrated--
not demonstrably, but DEMONSTRATED--to be true.)
I know that Greenberg's methodology is dubious in the extreme. I
used to tell Morrie Swadesh that his was, too. But I've learned
not to bet against these guys: they're so often right!
Question: How do we believers in knowing how you know deal with
the kind of genius that comes up with right answers by no method we
can handle, or perhaps no method at all save genius?
mike salovesh, Anthro Dept, Northern Ill Univ
<t20mxs1@niu.bitnet> OR <t20mxs1@mvs.cso.niu.edu>
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:35>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Sat Jan 8 05:10:13 1994
From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: On going beyond evidence and method ---
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 94 6:13:33 EST
Mike salovesh raises the question of how to deal with what might be called
'inspired guesses.'
Well, how do we deal with, e.g., Lucretius and atomic theory?
The ideal (normative?) way is to accept an idea as a hypothesis until it
is rigorously proven by accepted methods. Coming back to Wegener: I
clearly remember gazing, in my elementary school years (late 1940s), at
the map of the world and thinking how well South America would fit into
Africa, etc. How much credit should I get, who not only didn't publish,
but had not the foggiest idea that I should even -think- about a way such
movement could possibly have happened?
We can take my daydreams as one end of a spectrum: Wegener and the
brilliant-guesser linguists went further, but in the judgement of their
disciplinary peers not quite far enough. I have had sober scientific
doctors tell me that I -<could not have had>- experiences I described
(vertical double-vision) because there was no causative mechanism they
could think of! [Before anyone comes back on this one, I have since been
properly advised as to mechanism, etc.]
There were many theories of evolution before Charles Darwin: we credit
only his, generally, since he proposed as well a mechanism that came close
to being the one most generally accepted today (though there have been
important modifications). There were many incandescent electric light
bulbs developed before Edison's, and he himself developed many
improvements afterward, to the point where it is extremely difficult for
the knowledgeable historian to say "this is 'the' light bulb patent."
Perhaps if we agree on why we look for single heros, we can decide on
criteria, and on how to deal with the inspired guessers :-)
--bayla
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:36>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU Sat Jan 8 10:55:20 1994
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 1994 07:08:13 -0800 (PST)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Greenberg and other controversial beliefs
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
I posted a message a couple of days ago in repsonse to V. Golla's
question about what non-linguists would like to see in an article
discussing the theories of Greenberg, Refrew, etc.
My suggestion was that arguments against their theories concentrate on
evidence and logic (whether of theirs or a competing theory's) and
refrain from ad hominem attacks, including calling people "creationists"
or slobs, or dismissing them as lucky even if they are right, and so
on and on.
The tendency to rely on ad hominem argument seems to be broadening
and accelerating on Darwin-L. That's really too bad.
Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837 tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:37>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sat Jan 8 12:50:47 1994
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 1994 13:56:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: January 8 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro
JANUARY 8 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES
1823: ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE is born at Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales. Following
an apprenticeship to his brother as an assistant surveyor and an interval of
school teaching, Wallace will propose to his friend Henry Walter Bates that
they take advantage of their common interest in natural history and become
commercial collectors. Although their first expedition to South America will
be successful, their ship and nearly all their collections will be destroyed
by fire on the return voyage to England. Undeterred, Wallace will depart on a
second expedition to the Malay Archipelago in 1854. In March of 1858 on the
island of Gilolo, in the midst of a malarial fever, Wallace will conceive of
the idea of evolution by natural selection, and will immediately send a
manuscript to Charles Darwin that will contain a nearly perfect summary of
Darwin's own views, which were then unpublished and which Wallace had never
seen. On the advice of Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker, Darwin will consent to
publish, under the pressure of this coincidence, two extracts from his own
work in progress, along with the manuscript of Wallace, in the _Journal of
the Proceedings of the Linnean Society_. Wallace paper, "On the tendency of
varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type", will conclude thus:
"We believe we have now shown that there is a tendency in nature to the
continued progression of certain classes of _varieties_ further and further
from the original type -- a progression to which there appears no reason to
assign any definite limits -- and that the same principle which produces this
result in a state of nature will also explain why domestic varieties have a
tendency to revert to the original type. This progression, by minute steps,
in various directions, but always checked and balanced by the necessary
conditions, subject to which alone existence can be preserved, may, it is
believed, be followed out so as to agree with all the phenomena presented by
organized beings, their extinction and succession in past ages, and all the
extraordinary modifications of form, instinct, and habits which they exhibit."
Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:38>From jlipps@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU Sat Jan 8 18:23:26 1994
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 94 16:29:10 PST
From: jlipps@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU (Jere Lipps)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: On going beyond evidence and method ---
Wegener was, in my opinion, no inspired guesser, lucky, or dreamer. He had
considerable data, when he proposed continental drift in 1915, that suggested
that the continents might have been together at one time. He developed an
hypothesis to account for that data, which was by and large in North America
but not in South America or Africa and parts of Britian, rejected for lack of
a mechanism. The evidence included much more than the fit of the continents
on a map. In fact he stated: "I was impressed by the congruency of both sides
of the Atlantic coasts, but I disregarded it at the time because I did not
consider it probable." Instead, he looked at other evidence: paleobiogeography
of certain fossil and living groups, distribution of mountain ranges,
similarity of sedimentary rocks in S. America and Africa, etc. He believed
that continental drift was the best hypothesis to explain quite a few lines of
evidence. It turned out that he was right about the former position of the
continents and that his interpretation of the evidence was right too. He
didn't have the right mechanism so his theory in full must be rejected. But he
was no fool, no guesser, no dreamer. He was a good practitioner of science.
We have many other lesser examples of data explained by the wrong hypothesis
that later on turned out to be nearly correct. In fact, most of us have
probably been in the same boat on a minor problem or two.
In fact, I see no harm in this kind of hypothesis-making, or even a little
inspiration or dreaming in science. Darwin recognized it too, when he
wrote in the Descent of Man (p.606): False facts are highly injurious to
the progress of science for they endure long; but false views, if
supported by some evidence, do little harm for everyone takes salutory
pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward
error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.
Very true, I think, and the "salutory pleasure" part may even account for
why so many people, good and bad scientists, as well as lay people, jump on
ideas that experts may find atrocious. So, it gets us excited, we work
harder, and the road to truth is opened. Wegener did it. Even the idea
of plate tectonics, when first proposed, spawned a large number of papers
mostly in support, but still some were skeptical. Also true with the
aquatic ape idea to some extent, asteroid impacts killing the dinosaurs, etc.
etc. It's one of the fastest ways we make progress in science. This
desire to jump on the bandwagon or propose other bandwagon may also account
for the decline in the stature of taxonomy, where it is difficult to
catch the fancy of very many people at a time. I don't see much harm in
the public running with wild ideas either, for there are many of them proposed
in general books, National Enquirer, etc. They almost always die, because
people who like them, soon find yet another one to champion. We have
hope with these people, because many of the valid scientific ideas are even
more fantastic and fun than what others make up. Trouble comes from those
with conservative religious beliefs that cannot be subjected to debate at
all.
Jere Lipps
Museum of Paleontology
UC Berkeley
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:39>From hantuo@utu.fi Sat Jan 8 18:42:10 1994
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: hantuo@utu.fi (Hanna Tuomisto)
Subject: Re: Aquatic apes revisited
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 02:45:11 +0200
Finn Rasmussen wrote:
>Why are some hypotheses preferred for others by the scientific
>community? The answer is (or ought to be) quite simple:
>because they are more parsimonious, i.e. they need the fewest
>possible assumptions to explain the observations at hand.
That's exactly what John Langdon kept telling me during our lengthy
discussions about human evolution. And I kept telling him exactly the same
thing. Which means that we agree on the principle how the controversy
should be resolved, and yet we keep getting at diagonally opposing
conclusions.
> It occurs to me after following the aquatic ape controversy
>in this list that the "terrestrial ape theory" is vastly more
>parsimonious than its aquatic competitor, as judged from the
>arguments that has appeared in the list
Elaine Morgan wrote a very recommendable book about this in 1990 called The
Scars of Evolution: What Our Bodies Tell Us about Human Origins. I'll quote
from page 5 of the Penguin Books edition:
"Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: (1) why do they
walk on two legs? (2) why have they lost their fur? (3) why have they
developed such large brains? (4) why did they learn to speak?
The orthodox answers to these questions are: (1) 'We do not yet know'; (2)
'We do not yet know'; (3) 'We do not yet know', and (4) 'We do not yet
know'. The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without
affecting the monotony of the answers."
Ask a question, and the generally accepted theory does not give you any
answer. I know there are plenty of suggestions for individual traits, but
none of these have become generally accepted, and most of them won't fit
very well together because they require noncompatible assumptions. There
seem to be only two things that everybody agrees upon: 1) humans and chimps
share a common ancestor, and 2) humans became different from the chimps
because they moved out to the savanna while the chimps stayed in the
forest. But it has been incredibly difficult to figure out where all our
apomorphies came from, because ecologically they make little sense in the
savanna environment. Therefore most hypothesis are based on behavioral
patterns, such as foraging, family structures or sexual selection. Needless
to say, such characteristics don't fossilize, so the hypothesis are based
on no hard evidence. That's why they can be so many and so diverse.
But if we accept one basic assumption, namely that the ancestors moved to
the seashore instead of the savanna, it all starts to make sense. We have
plenty of analogous cases for several traits among aquatic or semiaquatic
animals, and even such traits that cannot boast with convergent evolution
can often be explained in a physiologically and anatomically logical way.
This applies, for example, to the four questions presented above.
On balance we have the terrestrial theory with lots of ad hoc assumptions
but few answers on the one side, and the aquatic theory with one ad hoc
assumption and lots of answers on the other.
Which is more parsimonious?
>I have not read Morgan's book, but
>one gets the impression from the debate here that Morgan is to
>some extent politically flavoured.
Her first book (The Descent of Woman, 1972) attacked the male chauvinism
that prevailed in paleoanthropology in the sixties. The aquatic ape was
presented there mainly as a polemic alternative to the prevailing doctrine.
But her two latest books (The Aquatic Ape, 1982, and Scars) concentrate on
scientific evaluation of the different theories about human evolution on
the basis of the available evidence.
But in a way you are right, I suspect that many people reject AAT mainly
because they are afraid that supporting it would label them as supporters
of feminism. Just like in the discussion around heroes in science a few
days ago it appeared that people tend to judge theories on the basis of the
person who proposes them in a "take it or leave it" fashion. Either you
believe everything, or you believe nothing. Evaluation of ideas just as
hypothesis with no personal label on them is really difficult, although
that should ideally be the way science takes.
>Wouldn't it
>clarify the status of the ideas to simply tabulate the pro's
>and cons?
It certainly would. The problem is that the proponents of the terrestrial
theory refuse to present their evidence. As far as I know, there is exactly
one book where such an evaluation has been attempted (apart from Morgan's
books, but those of course do not count since she reached the "wrong"
conclusion). The book is called The Aquatic Ape: Fact or Fiction, edited by
Roede et al., published in 1991 by Souvenir Press. Frankly, I was rather
disappointed at the quality of the chapters that the terrestrial side
presented there.
Jere Lipps asked:
>How about all ape fossils are terrestrial? Or is that too late in their
>phylogeny to satisfy you?
It's hominid fossils that matter here. Most of the fossils were found in
the savanna, but not formed there. Savanna is a non-depositing environment
that does not preserve fossils well. Hence, fossils are formed mainly in
rivers, lakes, seashores, caves and in connection with volcanic eruptions.
It is often claimed that the aquatic theory lacks any support from fossil
evidence, or even that the fossils show that the early hominids were
terrestrial, not aquatic. To me, this seems a rather strange interpretation
of the fact that the most important hominid fossils have been found among
fish bones and turtle shells.
Hanna Tuomisto
PS. Sorry for the long reply, John. I know you have seen much of this before.
_______________________________________________________________________________
<5:40>From abrown@independent.co.uk Sun Jan 9 07:12:23 1994
From: Andrew Brown <abrown@independent.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 94 21:58:26 GMT
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: On going beyond evidence and method ---
There is a rather obvious point about why "dissidents" (yes, those are
scare quotes) get publicity.
Newspapers are about news. The steady, settled state of scientific or
scholarly opinion in a field will not become news until something
happens to set it into high relief -- either an internal argument or an
external discovery. Both together are definitely news.
Andrew Brown
_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 5: 1-40 -- January 1994 End
