Darwin-L Message Log 39: 36–69 — November 1996

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 November 1996. 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 39: 36-69 -- NOVEMBER 1996
-----------------------------------------------

DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

Darwin-L@raven.cc.ukans.edu is an international network discussion group on
the history and theory of the historical sciences.  Darwin-L was established
in September 1993 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 academic professionals in these fields.
Darwin-L is not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles
Darwin but instead addresses the entire range of historical sciences from an
interdisciplinary perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical
linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology,
systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical
anthropology, historical geography, and related "palaetiological" fields.

This log contains public messages posted to Darwin-L during November 1996.
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 some administrative messages and personal messages 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 on the Darwin-L Web Server at
http://rjohara.uncg.edu.  For instructions on how to retrieve copies of this
and other log files, and for additional information about Darwin-L and the
historical sciences, connect to the Darwin-L Web Server or send the e-mail
message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@raven.cc.ukans.edu.

Darwin-L is administered by Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu), Center for
Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts and Department of Biology, University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A., and it
is supported by the Center for Critical Inquiry, University of North Carolina
at Greensboro, and the Department of History and the Academic Computing Center,
University of Kansas.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:36>From wilcox@unm.edu Fri Nov 15 13:22:55 1996

Subject: New journal, call for papers
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 96 12:25:16 -0700
From: Sherman Wilcox <wilcox@unm.edu>
To: <darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu>

EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION
An International Multidisciplinary Journal
John Benjamins Publishers, Amsterdam

A new journal, entitled EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION (EOC), is to be
published by John Benjamins Publishers, Amsterdam, under the general
editorship of Sherman Wilcox, Department of Linguistics, University of
New Mexico.

EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION will be published twice a year in 1997, to
become quarterly, and will contain articles, review articles, book
reviews, short notes, and discussions. Volume 1, 1997, ca. 300 pp.

EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION is a broadly-conceived journal covering not
only the origins of human language but also the evolutionary continuum of
communication in general. The journal therefore accommodates studies on
various species as well as comparative, theoretical, and experimental
studies. This multidisciplinary approach will integrate research from a
variety of disciplines, such as: linguistics; evolutionary biology;
artificial life; primatology; ethology; neuroscience; cognitive science;
biological, developmental, and comparative psychology; social and
biological anthropology; philosophy; archaelogy; and palaeontology.

EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION will provide a forum in which scholars from
these rapidly expanding fields of evolution and communication can share
their research within a multidisciplinary, international perspective.

EDITORIAL BOARD: The editorial board includes two Associate Editors:
Barbara J. King (Dept. of Anthropology, College of William and Mary), and
Luc Steels (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Free University
Brussels). Scholars wishing to write book reviews should contact David
Armstrong (EOC Book Review Editor), Gallaudet University, Office of
Budget & Auditing, 800 Florida Ave. NE, Washington DC 20002. In addition,
the editorial board consists of:

Bennett G. Galef, Jr. (Department of Psychology, McMaster University)
Kathleen Gibson (Department of Basic Sciences, University of Texas,
 Houston)
John Haiman (Linguistics Program, Macalester College)
Christine M. Johnson (Department of Cognitive Science, University of
 California, San Diego)
Michael J. Ryan (Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin)
Chris Sinha (Department of Psychology, University of Aarhus)
Eors Szathmary (Collegium Budapest)
Michael Tomasello (Department of Psychology, Emory University)
Aladdin Yaqub (Department of Philosophy, University of New Mexico)
Anne C. Zeller (Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo)

EDITORIAL POLICY: EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION encourages international and
interdisciplinary contributions, is open to a broad variety of
theoretical views, and will give preference to work which integrates data
with conceptual and methodological concerns. Manuscripts should be
submitted in 4 copies to Sherman Wilcox, Department of Linguistics,
University of New Mexico, 87131.  Tel. 505-277-6353/Fax 505-277-6355.
Email: wilcox@unm.edu.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: For information about subscribing to EVOLUTION OF
COMMUNICATION, contact John Benjamins Publishing Company, P.O. Box 75577,
1070 AN Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel +31.20.6762325/Fax
+31.20.6739773. Email: Anke.Delooper@benjamins.nl

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION is now seeking articles,
including articles for the premier issue of the 1997 volume.

EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION World Wide Web home page:
 http://www.unm.edu/~wilcox/EOC

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:37>From Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Fri Nov 15 13:47:32 1996

Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 20:44:33 +0100 (MET)
From: Eugene Leitl <Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
To: dslavin@emory.edu
Cc: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 707

On Fri, 15 Nov 1996 dslavin@emory.edu wrote:

> Your point is well taken, economics is perhaps no more able to predict
> the behavior of a single entity in the system, any more than quantum
> physics can predict the precise location and velocity of a particle.

(btw, QM does not know particles, just the Holy & Mysterious Schroedinger
 wavefunction)

Ergodic systems are fundamentally unpredictable. Ergodicity is defined as
certain state-space behavior (smearing of contiguous region all over the
space in course of system evolution) of a system. A class of problems, e.g.
meteorologic, economic, or ecosystem predictions are (transiently or
permanently) ergodic, hence inherently unpredictable.

Take ecosystems, for example. A major contribution to the fitness
function is the impact of members of the same and other species. Hence
the Hamiltonian fluctuates wildly over time (Red Queen phenomenon; what was
fit yesterday, is worse than worthless today. The conjectured major reason
for the invention of sex). Trajectories are divergent, amplifying initial
errors cumulatively (the proverbial butterfly effect). If we'd replay
the Earth biological evolution, we'd wind up with something utterly
different. At least that's the current ALife dogma.

ciao,
'gene

P.S. Just jumped the wagon, and lacking any etiquette whatsoever

_____________________________________________________________________________
mailto: ui22204@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de | transhumanism >H, cryonics,        
mailto: Eugene.Leitl@uni-muenchen.de    | nanotechnology, etc. etc.          
mailto: c438@org.chemie.uni-muenchen.de | "deus ex machina, v.0.0.alpha"     
icbmto: N 48 10'07'' E 011 33'53''      | http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~ui22204

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:38>From dslavin@emory.edu Fri Nov 15 14:08:43 1996

Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:08:14 -0500
From: dslavin@emory.edu
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: economics and QM

Eugene Leitl wrote:

> (btw, QM does not know particles, just the Holy & Mysterious Schr"odinger
>  wavefunction)
>
> Ergodic systems are fundamentally unpredictable. Ergodicity is defined as
> certain state-space behavior (smearing of contiguous region all over the
> space in course of system evolution) of a system. A class of problems, e.g.
> meteorologic, economic, or ecosystem predictions are (transiently or
> permanently) ergodic, hence inherently unpredictable.
>
> Take ecosystems, for example. A major contribution to the fitness
> function is the impact of members of the same and other species. Hence
> the Hamiltonian fluctuates wildly over time (Red Queen phenomenon; what was
> fit yesterday, is worse than worthless today. The conjectured major reason
> for the invention of sex). Trajectories are divergent, amplifying initial
> errors cumulatively (the proverbial butterfly effect). If we'd replay
> the Earth biological evolution, we'd wind up with something utterly
> different. At least that's the current ALife dogma.
>
> ciao,
> 'gene
>
> P.S. Just jumped the wagon, and lacking any etiquette whatsoever

Glad you jumped in.  I'm only using the state of physics here as an
analogy.  What you say about chaos theory may be true, however there is
a line between the theoretical and the practical, and this discussion
began over any the question of any applicable models which may be coming
out of the the bionomics approach to economics.  There is a lot of math
out there besides calculus, after all.  I'm not suggesting that fractal
transforms are going to be able to predict whether I blow my savings on
Christmas presents.  (Change the coefficients and I might just hold up a
gas station instead!)  However, the economic models we have in place are
going to be seen as somewhat primitive one day.  Tracy's comments aside
about the main value of economic science being to explain phenomena, I
still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
explanations, I call that religion.

Devorah Slavin
dslavin@emory.edu
--
Devorah Slavin
dslavin@emory.edu
I FORWARD ALL SPAM TO THE IRS @ www.ustreas.gov/mail/bpd.html
and call National Fraud info Center at 1-800-876-7060
-------------------
"If you put a little pyramid on top
does it make something post-modern?"

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:39>From GRANSOM@ucrac1.ucr.edu Mon Nov 18 11:30:29 1996

Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 9:30:19 -0800 (PST)
From: GREG RANSOM <GRANSOM@ucrac1.ucr.edu>
To: DARWIN-L@RAVEN.CC.UKANS.EDU
Subject: Leibowitz and Margolis seminar on path dependence

The economists Stan Leibowitz and Steve Margolis are
conducting a fascinating seminar on the Economic History
e-mail list at: eh.res.@cs.muohio.edu
which may me of interest to some on Darwin-L.
The following forwarded message is one of the more
interesting of recent posts.  The archive for these
conversations can be found at: http://cs.muohio.edu/

-- greg ransom

Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 11:36:21 -0500
From: Douglas.Puffert@econhist.vwl.uni-muenchen.de
Subject: EH.R: Path-dependence, railway gauge, and inefficiency
To: eh.res@cs.muohio.edu

================= EH.RES POSTING ================
   As I more or less promised a few days ago, here are some reflections on
path-dependence in the context of railway track gauge (the distance between
the rails) and the sense in which the process of allocation sometimes
produced inefficient results.  Again, this is based on my dissertation
research, which I am now turning into a book manuscript and some articles.
I would greatly welcome feedback to sharpen or correct my analysis.  (In
this context, of course, I would particularly welcome "positive feedback"
that yields "increasing returns" to all.)
   The standard gauge of most of the world's railways, 4' 8.5" (1435 mm.),
was taken from the primitive mining railways of northern England
(Northumberland), essentially because a steam engine / locomotive
engineer from the mines became the builder of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, opened in 1830, which became the single most important technical
model for subsequent railway development.  The engineer, George Stephenson,
and his protoges introduced the gauge to several parts of Britain and the
Continent, and other Continental and North American railways also followed
his example.  (In America, however, several engineers adopted the similar
but rounder measures of 4'9", 4'10", and 5'0", leading in the latter two
cases to some later difficulties.)  Beginning in the mid-1830s, locomotive
and railway engineers introduced a variety of broader gauges for technical
reasons related either to temporary features of locomotive technology or
to spurious arguments concerning stability, speed, and other factors.
Beginning in the 1860s, locomotive and railway engineers introduced a
variety of narrower gauges both due to real technical reasons (chiefly
the ability of narrow-gauge railways to make sharper curves, follow the
contours of rugged landscape, and reduce the costs of bridges, tunnels,
cuttings, and embankments) and, again, due to spurious technical arguments.
   Railway promoters and engineers felt free to introduce new gauges to
countries or continental land-masses for two reasons:  (1) Most early
railways were introduced to serve particular local (or at best national)
needs, and the costs of later incompatibility or conversion of gauge were
not recognized.  (2) In cases where the costs of incompatibility were
recognized, it was still sometimes expected that the newly introduced
gauges would offer advantages in operating cost and performance greater
than the costs of incompatibility.  In several cases, promoters expected
their broad- or narrow-gauge lines to outcompete established Stephenson-
gauge railways.  In no case did they succeed.
   I argue that the extent of uniformity or diversity of gauge in particular
countries and continents depended on the "random" draws of engineers (or
other agents) who chose the gauges of the first railways in different parts
of the larger regions.  Australia suffers from diversity of gauge today
largely because of a stubborn Irish engineer and a stubborn English engineer
who each wanted to adopt the gauge of their homelands (that's a bit of an
oversimplification, but essentially correct).  In retrospect, it seems
that the widespread influence of George Stephenson assured less diversity
in Continental Europe than might have been the case.
   Liebowitz and Margolis raise some good arguments against using a
"stochastic arrival process" to model early competition among products or
techniques subject to network externalities.  They note, for example,
that this approach implicitly assumes lack of certain forms of foresight.
Nevertheless, I believe that I have shown the relevance of this modeling
approach in the case of railway gauge--precisely because agents did not
realize what national and continental railway networks would one day
become (and also because they overvalued the importance of adopting
particular gauges).  I do not, therefore, argue that markets "failed" in a
meaningful sense of the term or that prudent government intervention could
have yielded a better outcome.
   I do argue for two forms of path-dependence:  (1) At the local level, new
lines nearly always adopted the gauge of established nearby lines.  Thus,
the initial railway line in a region nearly always set the pattern for what
followed.  Furthermore, the sequence of events mattered.  In the southern
U.S., the early network spread out from the early 5'0"-gauge line in South
Carolina, not from the 4'8.5"-gauge lines of Virginia and North Carolina.
Thus the broader gauge became the regional standard (also in much of the
latter two states).  (2) At the larger level, what happened in one place
affected what happened elsewhere, primarily through the mobility of
engineers and the diffusion of engineering traditions.
   At the largest level, it's hard NOT to see the selection of Stephenson's
gauge as a path-dependent or "contingent" matter.  (By the way, I think
Liebowitz and Margolis misunderstand Stephen Jay Gould's use of the term
"contingent."  It's a very old philosophical concept referring to things
that just happen to be the case, in contrast to things that are "necessary"--
or in our terms, the result of a systematic optimization process with a
unique equilibrium.)  Before Stephenson, the gauge of 4'6" was used on a
system of pre-modern public railways in Scotland and was recommended by a
popular engineering text.  In consequence, it was provisionally adopted by
promoters of both the first two American railways.  Furthermore, for a time
the proposed contractor for the Liverpool and Manchester railway was an
engineering firm that proposed to use a gauge of 5'6".  It appears to be
very much a "historical accident" that Stephenson and the gauge were
chosen for the railway and thus set the pattern for most of the world.
   In case anyone cares, I've talked to some modern railway engineers who
say that a somewhat broader gauge would be better, but that it really
doesn't matter much.  I gather that some South African railways engineers,
who have expanded the performance envelope of the 3'6" gauge, are ready to
argue for a narrower optimum.  Some examples of "revealed preference:  Recent
railways in new regions (isolated mining areas of Australia and Africa) have
adopted 4'8.5", arguably due to the market for equipment.  Japan departed
from its 3'6" gauge for the Shinkansen (high-speed) line, 4'8.5".  (But
Japan is also now developing a narrow-gauge Shinkansen that ties into its
broader network.)

   Early diversity of gauge within many regions (the U.S. and Britain, for
example), has been resolved.  In some cases, the mechanism was essentially
the "bandwagon" described in some of the network externalities literature:
agents that stand to gain most from converting do so first, which in turn
increases the incentives for others to convert, and eventually decentralized
agents have a common standard.  In other cases, however, diversity was
resolved through entrepreneurial activities that internalized network
externalities--the mechanism that Liebowitz and Margolis expect to find.
The Pennsylvania Railroad bought up lines in both New Jersey and Ohio and
converted them from the local to the emerging national standard.  The
Illinois Central bought the Mobile and Ohio, converting the latter to the
northern standard gauge and changing the incentives faced by the remaining
southern railways, who then made a coordinated decision to convert together.
   I certainly couldn't name a case where the inability to internalize
externalities is preventing efficiency-improving resolution of diversity.
I take it for granted that the 5'0" Russian system (including lands formerly
in the Russian and Soviet Empires) is too big to be worth converting.  The
5'6" Spanish railways were turned down in their request for public funds
(estimated at several billion dollars) to convert to the European standard,
but they are reducing the cost of potential future conversion by installing
cross ties with fittings for the narrower gauge whenever ties have to be
replaced.  India, with two gauges, is resolving its diversity on a
case-by-case basis, with a view to providing common-gauge links on
commercially important routes.  Australia, with three gauges, is proceeding
in a somewhat similar way.

   It's clear that diversity of gauge, including the diversity that was
eventually resolved, has had very large costs that would have been avoided
had various regional histories proceeded along different potential paths.
(Likewise, some potential paths would have had still higher costs.)
Estimating these costs raises the sorts of complicated issues that arise in
counterfactual analysis, and I have not found time to pursue either lower-
or upper-bound estimates.  If anyone is interested, I might suggest looking
at the Australian case (both past and present), in part because some past
government advisory panels and current transportation engineers there
appear to have done some of the necessary calculations.

Douglas Puffert
University of Munich
============ FOOTER TO EH.RES POSTING ===========
For information, send the message "info EH.RES" to lists@cs.muohio.edu.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:40>From daaf@cerium.demon.co.uk Mon Nov 18 04:03:48 1996

From: Danny Fagandini <daaf@cerium.demon.co.uk>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 707
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 23:09:44 GMT

dslavin@emory.edu wrote:

>  any more than quantum physics can predict the precise location and
> velocity of a particle.

careful.  The precision is formidable, though only if the prediction
is limited to one of those two properties (BTW momentum rather than
velocity).

danny
daaf@cerium.demon.co.uk

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:41>From AMACHADO@psythird.psych.indiana.edu Fri Nov 15 19:04:10 1996

From: "Armando Machado" <AMACHADO@psythird.psych.indiana.edu>
Organization:  Indiana University Psych Department
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 11:19:44 CST
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 707

>Devorah Slavin wrote:

With all respect, your assertion reminds me very much of the medieval
"scientific" approach known as "saving the appearances," a psychological
slight of hand that enabled a medieval astronomer, for example, to
explain phenomena without refuting biblical "truths".  The most familiar
example is the use of imagined "epicycles," theoretical extra rotations
of planets, to explain the retrograde motion of mars. This would "save
the appearences", (that is, explain the phenomena), without proving
anything, and without disproving the bible.  Not surprisingly with these
tools, Medieval astronomy could do nor more than observe phenomena and
propose systems to explain them.  Despite centuries of fine tuning,
these models failed to have much use for predicting astronomical
events.  When Copernicus et al proposed a simple--and
predictive--heliocentric universe, it was taken up in due time by all
reasonable people.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Although somewhat incidental to your main argument, with which I
agree, I believe that your reference to epicycles and medieval
astronomical theories is potentially misleading. Epicycles and other
geometric devices were invented by ancient astronomers to account for
observed celestial phenomena. What is amazing about the geocentric theories
that used these devices is how accurate they really were. A contemporary
astronomer once remarked that he did not know why anyone (Copernicus and
others) would even want to develop better theories given that the ones
around were amazingly accurate (taking into account the precision of
the measuring instruments of the time)! Some people suspect that Copernicus
was motivated more by aesthetical and religious reasons than by the
"lack of predictive power" of Ptolomy's account.

I believe that the problem of ancient astronomical theories is not
that they tried to save the face, but that they never derived their
geometric devices (epicycles, equants, deferens, etc.) from more
fundamental physical principles. To speak somewhat abusively, the
geometric constructions were axioms, not theorems. Later, with
Newton, the geometric constructions  (e.g., elliptic planetary
orbits) became theorems derived from more primitive laws. If my
memory does not betray me,  Copernicus himself did not get rid
immediately of the epicycle idea, and many mistical beliefs still
contaminated Keples's third law (the harmony and music of the
spheres).

But who is the "blame" Ptolomy or even the medieval
astronomers for not grounding their hypothetical constructs on the
laws of physics? What physics? Most of the physics knowledge of the
time was simply wrong.

The situation is not unlike that of the early part of this century
when knowledge in genetics was accumulating faster than knowledge of
developmental processes. In the face of evidence not predicted by
extant knowledge (e.g., sex-linked transmission), geneticists
postulated many new hereditary factors,  just to save appearances we
might say. Like epicycles (or should we say flies?), hereditary
factors multipled so quickly that Morgan had to confess his great
distress -- no wonder we can "explain" so much, he said, for all we
have done is to postulate hypothetical factors to explain some facts
and then use these factors to explain the facts from which they were
derived. Unfortunately, and unlike in many other places, history
proved Morgan wrong.

Prediction is certainly critical to science, but so is parsimony and,
yes, aesthetics, the harmony of the entire edifice.

Armando Machado

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:42>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Tue Nov 19 22:10:22 1996

Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:10:15 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: ASC survey of systematics collections (fwd from TAXACOM)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

--begin forwarded message--------------

Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:36:21 -0500
From: Elaine Hoagland <elaine@ASCOLL.ORG>
Subject: TRED

ASC Surveys of Research Systematics Collections and Individual Taxonomic
Researchers:  Your Participation is Needed!

The Association of Systematics Collections has developed a Survey of
Research Systematics Collections and Information, the results of which will
be made available to users of systematics resources over the world wide
web.  We hope that your Collection will participate in the survey, so that
information about your Collection and its resources can reach colleagues
worldwide.  Participation in the database will give your institution higher
visibility with government agencies and the public, and may lead to new
opportunities.  It will help ASC document needs and develop policy options
for support of collections by governments and the private sector.

This on-line database is a modern approach to providing the same kind of
data ASC has collected in the past.  In fact, responses to this survey will
eventually become part of a longitudinal series of data.. You may respond
=to the survey by contacting ASC for a form, filling it out and mailing or
faxing it back.  Or PREFERABLY, you may go to ASC's web site
(http://www.ascoll.org/SURVEY/), download the survey, fill it out, and send
it to ASC.

Each administratively-separate collection is to complete the survey and
return it to ASC..  Although ASC's initial distribution of the survey has
focused on North American institutions, ASC is willing to include
information from institutions outside the region.

The collections resources database is one of two that are sponsored by the
Biological Resources Division of the USGS (formerly the National Biological
Service) in cooperation with a group of  6 US federal agencies and the
Smithsonian-NMNH, which compose the Interagency Taxonomic Information
System (ITIS).  Many federal agencies and other resource management
organizations have a strong need for taxonomic information or services that
are scientifically credible and readily accessible.  The Research
Collections and Information Database (RCID) will provide an entry point for
these many users.

The first database, the Taxonomic Resources and Expertise Directory (TRED),
has also been distributed, and the responses are now being entered into the
database.  TRED is designed to contain information about individual
systematists and taxonomists (and their databases) needed by those seeking
taxonomic expertise.  It  will be available for searching on the Internet.
If you have not provided data for the TRED, it is not too late.  Please
call up the ASC web site for information and a copy of the survey.

Send the completed Research Systematics Collections survey and TRED forms
to:

The Association of Systematics Collections          Fax:  (202) 835-7334
1725 K St. NW Suite 601                             Phone: (202) 835-9050
Washington, DC 20006-1401                           Email: asc@ascoll.org

--end forwarded message----------------

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:43>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Tue Nov 19 22:11:29 1996

Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:11:21 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: CFP: Economic History
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

--begin forwarded message--------------

THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONVERSATION OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
Fifty-Seventh Annual Economic History Association Meeting

                        CALL FOR PAPERS

The 1997 Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association will be held
at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, New Brunswick, New Jersey, September 12-14,
1997.  The theme of the program is "The Interdisciplinary Conversation of
Economic History."  Members of the program committee are: Elyce Rotella
(Chair), Naomi Lamoreaux and Anne McCants.  The committee especially
encourages proposals for papers and sessions that show an openness to
talking and listening across disciplinary borders.

To propose a paper, send three copies of a 3-5 page abstract and a 150
word abstract suitable for publication in the Journal of Economic History
to Elyce Rotella by January 15, 1997.   The committee welcomes proposals
for entire sessions as well as for individual papers.  Session proposals
should include abstracts for each paper in the session.  The committee
reserves the right to assign papers to sessions and to accept some papers
from a proposed session if the entire session is not accepted.  For full
consideration, proposals must be received by January 15, 1997.  Submissions
must include the full name, mailing address, departmental affiliation,
telephone number(s), fax number, and E-mail address of each author.
Notices of acceptance will be sent to the individual paper givers by March
14, 1997.  Deadline for completed papers to be sent to discussants is
August 22, 1997.

Those interested in being considered for the 1997 E.H.A. program are
welcome to enter into conversations (E-mail encouraged) with any of the
members of the Program Committee:

                Elyce Rotella (Chair)
                Economics Department - 105 Wylie Hall
                Indiana University
                Bloomington, IN 47405
                (812)855-7858   (812)855-3736 fax
                ROTELLA@INDIANA.EDU

        Naomi Lamoreaux                        Anne McCants
        History Department - UCLA              History Department - MIT
        (310)825-0225                          (617)258-6669
        LAMOREAUX@ECON.UCLA.EDU                AMCCANTS@MIT.EDU

--end forwarded message----------------

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:44>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Tue Nov 19 23:49:29 1996

Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 00:49:21 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: CFP: Recoveries from Mass Extinctions
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

--begin forwarded message--------------

Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 13:54:58 +0100
From: Petr Cejchan <recovery@gli.cas.cz>
Subject: cfp: RECOVERIES '97

Please forward this message to your colleagues or other persons
of interest!

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT - CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - CALL FOR PAPERS

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
RECOVERIES '97
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The final meeting of the UNESCO IGCP Project 335
"Biotic Recoveries from Mass Exctinctions"

September 12-14, 1997
Prague, Czech Republic

________________________________________________

PLEASE, POINT YOUR WWW BROWSER TO:
http://www.gli.cas.cz/conf/recovery/recovery.htm
________________________________________________

About the project

In the history of the Earth (including the recent), numerous events of
ecosystem collapses occurred that were followed by recoveries and
origination of new ecosystems. This significant transformation could be
realised in numerous ways. The project aims to be a platform for the study
of survival and recovery of the biosphere, and restructuring of global
environments, following mass extinctions.

The project outlines are:
   (1) to study patterns of extinction/survivorship of organisms during
       the mass extinction events;
   (2) to analyse the evolutionary and ecological strategies that allowed
       clades and communities to survive and initiate subsequent biotic
       recoveries;
   (3) to study the structure of the deep-crisis ecosystem;
   (4) to elucidate the recovery initiation mechanisms;
   (5) to find the time, space and functional patterns of the recovery;
   (6) to refine the data and tools for this discipline;
   (7) to develop general models by means of comparison of individual
       global crises in Earth's history;
   (8) to apply these (predictive) models to better understanding the
       modern environmental and biodiversity crises.

This international project is headed by Douglas H. Erwin, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C., and Erle G. Kauffman, University of Colorado,
Boulder. Over sixty countries are involved in the project.

Audience

The meeting should bring together palaeobiologists, palaeontologists,
biologists, ecologists, systems theorists, and other persons that are
interested in the topic.

Organisers

The conference is held under the auspices of the Geological Institute,
Academy of Sciences, and is organised by:

Petr Cejchan & Jindrich Hladil
Geological Institute, Academy of Sciences
Rozvojova 135
CZ 165 02 Praha 6 Lysolaje
Czech Republic

Venue

The conference will be held at the new IKEM Conference Building, Videnska
800, Prague 4, Czech Republic, two bus-stops away from the Metro line C
station "Kacerov", ca. 20 minutes off the city centre.

--end forwarded message----------------

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:45>From YTL@vms.huji.ac.il Wed Nov 20 01:19:52 1996

Date: Wed,  20 Nov 96 9:15 +0200
From: <YTL@vms.huji.ac.il>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Images of Copernicus

I am very grateful to Deborah Slavin and others for providing me with some very
rich material for a study that I am preparing, tentatively entitled *Images of
Copernicus in Late Twentieth Century Anti-Religious Polemics*. The disparity,
to use an overly mild term, between the image of Copernicus and the Copernican
achievement that one finds in these postings, and the sobre appraisal of
Copernicus on the part of historians of astronomy is flabbergasting.
I'll just made a few points: It was Plato who is reported to have
instructed the astronomers of his day to *save the appearances*; the epicycles
are not rotations of the planets, but geometrical devices used to account for
their observed motions; and epicycles have nothing to do with the bible.
Epicycles are not mentioned in the bible, nor in the Qor'an; and anyway, why
should Plato, Ptolemy, Apollonius, *et al* want to save the bible. Copernicus's
system was more complicated, not less so than that of Ptolemy; moreover, his
system uses so-called superepicycles, though Ptolemy's does not; etc., etc.
There is a very extensive literature on all of this and I won't take up more
space rehearsing these well-known facts. I'll just make two quick observations:
(1)Copernicus has been appropriated by some groups of people to serve as an
image of the heroic fighter against religion, without any consideration for the
biography and writings of the historical Copernicus. (2)The polemics that one
encounters these days are unfortunate in that they show a tendency to transform
science from a dispassionate inquiry which simply isn't interested in what
religion (or the bible) does or doesn't say on a given issue (which is how
things ought to be IMHO), into an enterprise which defines itself as the
antithesis of religion, with all the implications (dogmatization, entrenchment,
intolerance, etc. etc.).

Tzvi Langermann
Microfilm Institute, National Library
Jerusalem

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:46>From junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu Wed Nov 20 08:09:12 1996

To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: economics and QM
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:06:09 -0500
From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu>

dslavin@emory.edu writes:

: I
: still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
: foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
: explanations, I call that religion.

And if someone wants control over a chaotic system, I call that magic.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
                     URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:47>From charbel@ufba.br Wed Nov 20 14:57:59 1996

Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:49:34 -0300
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: Charbel Nino El-Hani <charbel@ufba.br>
Subject: DARWIN-L digest 709

Devorah Slavin wrote:

>Glad you jumped in.  I'm only using the state of physics here as an
>analogy.  What you say about chaos theory may be true, however there is
>a line between the theoretical and the practical, and this discussion
>began over any the question of any applicable models which may be coming
>out of the the bionomics approach to economics.  There is a lot of math
>out there besides calculus, after all.  I'm not suggesting that fractal
>transforms are going to be able to predict whether I blow my savings on
>Christmas presents.  (Change the coefficients and I might just hold up a
>gas station instead!)  However, the economic models we have in place are
>going to be seen as somewhat primitive one day.  Tracy's comments aside
>about the main value of economic science being to explain phenomena, I
>still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
>foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
>explanations, I call that religion.

When one considers the ability to predict as the only, or at least the main
goal of scientific enterprise, I feel like we are drifting into a Baconian
view of science: knowledge is justified as a tool for controlling nature,
and nothing more. One objection raised against such a view is that the only
consequence is not that power will have to be based on knowing, but also
that knowing can be justified only by power. Nevertheless, I agree that
practical efficacy is one of the criteria we can use to appraise the success
of a theoretical model, but the range of phenomena it can explain can also
lead to another possible criterion (Darwin, for instance, used a similar
line of argument to justify the hypothesis of natural selection).. I would
not say that someone is committed to religion if he or she sees explanation
as a goal of scientific activity. A scientific theory is a tool not only for
predicting a priori the outcomes of causes, but also for explaining effects
a posteriori. Indeed, all prediction is ultimately based on some explanation.
On the other side, one could say, following this line of reasoning, that
chaos theory will debunk science, if unpredictability is one of its chief
implications. And this is not the case, certainly.

Charbel Nino El-Hani
Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil.
e-mail:charbel@ufba.br

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:48>From charbel@ufba.br Wed Nov 20 15:02:16 1996

Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:56:15 -0300
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: Charbel Nino El-Hani <charbel@ufba.br>
Subject: DARWIN-L digest 709

Armando Machado wrote:
>Although somewhat incidental to your main argument, with which I
>agree, I believe that your reference to epicycles and medieval
>astronomical theories is potentially misleading. Epicycles and other
>geometric devices were invented by ancient astronomers to account for
>observed celestial phenomena. What is amazing about the geocentric theories
>that used
>these devices is how accurate they really were. A contemporary astronomer
>once remarked that he did not know why anyone (Copernicus and others)
>would even want to develop better theories given that the ones
>around were amazingly accurate (taking into account the precision of
>the measuring instruments of the time)! Some people suspect that Copernicus
>was motivated more by aesthetical and religious reasons than by the
>"lack of predictive power" of Ptolomy's account.

This is basically correct. I would also like to point out that the
transition from Ptolomaic astronomy to Copernican astronomy wwas not that
easy. Galileo, in his defense of Copernicus' theory, had to change the basic
assumptions of Aristotelian Physics to advance arguments for Copernican
theoretical system. It was necessary a whole new physics to ground
Copernican astronomy. This can be seen in Feyerabend's Against Method.

>I believe that the problem of ancient astronomical theories is not
>that they tried to save the face, but that they never derived their
>geometric devices (epicycles, equants, deferens, etc.) from more
>fundamental physical principles. To speak somewhat abusively, the
>geometric constructions were axioms, not theorems. Later, with
>Newton, the geometric constructions  (e.g., elliptic planetary
>orbits) became theorems derived from more primitive laws. If my
>memory does not betray me,  Copernicus himself did not get rid
>immediately of the epicycle idea, and many mistical beliefs still
>contaminated Keples's third law (the harmony and music of the
>spheres).

This is also right. The Copernican heliocentric system had the same amount
of epycicles needed in the Ptolomaic system.

>But who is the "blame" Ptolomy or even the medieval
>astronomers for not grounding their hypothetical constructs on the
>laws of physics? What physics? Most of the physics knowledge of the
>time was simply wrong.

This is in agreement with the need for a new physics to ground Copernican
astronomy.

>Prediction is certainly critical to science, but so is parsimony and,
>yes, aesthetics, the harmony of the entire edifice.

Charbel Nino El-Hani
Institute of Biology, Federal Universityof Bahia, Brazil.
e-mail: charbel@ufba.br

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:49>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Nov 21 00:30:36 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 01:30:29 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: November 21 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

NOVEMBER 21 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1881: AMI BOUE dies at Voslau, Austria.  Born in Hamburg in 1794, Boue had
declined to enter his family's shipping business and had instead emigrated to
Scotland at the age of twenty.  He studied geology, botany, and medicine at
the University of Edinburgh, and eventually returned to the Continent where he
participated in the founding of the Societe Geologique de France in 1830.

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.
Send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@raven.cc.ukans.edu or connect to
the Darwin-L Web Server (http://rjohara.uncg.edu) for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:50>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Fri Nov 22 16:37:51 1996

Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 17:37:44 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: November 22 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

NOVEMBER 22 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1787: RASMUS KRISTIAN RASK is born at Braendekilde, Denmark.  Following
two years of study in Iceland, Rask will publish _Undersogelse om det gamle
Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse_ (_Investigation on the Origin
of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language_, 1818), which will demonstrate the
relationship of the Scandinavian languages to Latin and Greek.  He will later
bring the Celtic languages into the Indo-European family, and will recognize
that Basque and Finno-Ugaric are independent of this group.  Rask will master
more than 25 languages by the time of his death in 1832, and he will be
remembered as one of the founders of comparative Indo-European linguistics.

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.
Send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@raven.cc.ukans.edu or connect to
the Darwin-L Web Server (http://rjohara.uncg.edu) for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:51>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Sun Nov 24 15:33:03 1996

Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 16:32:37 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Economics, prediction, narration, adaptation
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

I'm pleased to see the discussion of economics here in the last few days.
It is a topic we have touched upon once or twice but never spent a great deal
of time on.  I'm sorry that I've been so occupied with other duties that I
haven't been able to join in the discussion as much as I usually like to.
(And to interject a small list-ownerly editorial note: I encourage people to
do their best to edit and cleanly format messages, especially if they are
replying to a previously posted message.  Many subscribers get Darwin-L in
digest format, and the digests are much easier to browse when all messages
are as compactly rendered as possible.)

A brief comment on explanation and prediction first.  There are certainly
large domains of inquiry (scientific and otherwise) where prediction is not
the object.  In fact, Darwin-L itself is devoted to precisely those domain of
inquiry: fields concerned with reconstructing the past rather than predicting
the future.  I have no doubt that many economists are employed for the
purpose of predicting the future directions of economic variables, but there
are also economists who are historically oriented, and who study, say, the
monetary practices of ancient Rome or the price of gold in the nineteenth
century, sometimes by statistical means (cliometricians) and sometimes
through more qualitative historical methods.  Greg Ransom posted a nice
bibliography on the role of narrative explanation in economics here some time
ago, and it is available in the Files section of the Darwin-L Web Server
(http://rjohara.uncg.edu) appended to my general bibliography on narrative
in the historical sciences.  One particularly thought-provoking introduction
to the issue of prediction versus explanation is Stephen Toulmin's book
_Foresight and Understanding_ (1961) -- I recommend it to anyone interested
in the subject.

It is clear that there are a number of similarities (both sociological and
substantive) between economics and evolutionary biology.  I wonder, though,
if anyone has made a point-by-point comparison as we made here on a number of
occasions between historical linguistics and evolutionary biology.  Let me
venture a small beginning; by keeping it small at the start we might be able
to make progress while avoiding generalizations that are too facile.  One of
the principal phenomena of evolution is the adapation of organisms to their
environments.  Is there a specific phenomenon in economics that corresponds
to evolutionary adaptation?  One thing that might is the tendency, in a free
market, for the cost of production to come to approximate the cost of sale of
any product.  Is this an appropriate comparison?  If it isn't, what would the
economic equivalent (assuming there is one) of evolutionary adaptation be?

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)      |
Cornelia Strong College, 100 Foust Building  |  http://rjohara.uncg.edu
University of North Carolina at Greensboro   |  http://strong.uncg.edu
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.      |

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:52>From dslavin@emory.edu Thu Nov 21 07:37:50 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 08:37:28 -0500
From: dslavin@emory.edu
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 710

>Wed, 20 Nov, Peter D. Junger wrote:

> dslavin@emory.edu writes:
>
> : I still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
> : foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
> : explanations, I call that religion.
>
> And if someone wants control over a chaotic system, I call that magic.
>
> --
> Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
> Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu

Indeed, I am sure you might.  With respect, I will point out that
medicine too, was once considered magic, the nature of the universe, a
matter of religion, germs ridiculous, evolution heresy, and the bulk of
science part of the unknowable plan of God.

Many people spend their lives working out how to best control systems
which are inherently chaotic.  People who seed clouds, plan traffic
flow, "regulate" the economy--and even people who try to anticipate the
long term effects of changes in the legal system, Peter, all must
confront chaos, and predict and control it to the best of our puny
ability.

Devorah Slavin
dslavin@emory.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:53>From BIOL-WAJ@nich-nsunet.nich.edu Thu Nov 21 07:41:35 1996

To: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu, darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: "Bill Johnson"  <BIOL-WAJ@nich-nsunet.nich.edu>
Organization: Nicholls State University
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 7:44:53 CST
Subject: Re: economics and QM

Peter Junger wrote:
>>: I still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
>>: foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
>>: explanations, I call that religion.

>>And if someone wants control over a chaotic system, I call that magic.

What useful predictions can be made about the future case of some
phenomenon if there is no understanding (brought about by explanation)
of that phenomenon to begin with? Religion substitutes 'Pie in the Sky'
for explanation.

Bill Johnson
Nicholls State University
Thibodaux, LA  70301
biol-waj@nich-nsunet.nich.edu

-Science is practical philosophy, seeking to explain reality
 as we know it!-

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:54>From dslavin@emory.edu Thu Nov 21 08:33:59 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 09:33:35 -0500
From: dslavin@emory.edu
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 710

> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:49:34 -0300
> From: Charbel Nino El-Hani <charbel@ufba.br>
>
>When one considers the ability to predict as the only, or at least the
>main goal of scientific enterprise, I feel like we are drifting into a
>Baconian view of science: knowledge is justified as a tool for
>controlling nature, and nothing more.
>---regretful snipping---
>Nevertheless, I agree that practical efficacy is one of the criteria we
>can use to appraise the success of a theoretical model, but the range
>of phenomena it can explain can also lead to another possible criterion
---little snip---

Agreed.  Explanation, (may we say "forming a hypothesis"?) is a key step
in the scientific process.

>I would not say that someone is committed to religion if he or she sees
>explanation as a goal of scientific activity.

Neither would I.  Commitment to a religion is another thing.  I used the
term religion as a symbol for what is not science (shall we not start a
thread on this, everyone?)--no scientific rigor, ability to predict
results, no tests which can be repeated by peers, no qualities of method
associated with empirical science, (which is not without flaws I will
say up front).  In my post I related religious explanations to
economics--can either be science, if improved predictability is not part
of the progress of knowledge in the field?

>A scientific theory is a tool not only for predicting a priori the
>outcomes of causes, but also for explaining effects
--snip--
>chaos theory will debunk science, if unpredictability is one of its
>chief implications. And this is not the case, certainly.

Your comments are most insightful.  A fatalistic attitude about chaos
theory as refuting the very knowabiltiy of systems is of limited
interest and use to scientists, (as defined as empiricists).

There is an interesting, (and endless) thread being cross-posted to some
of the science and history newsgroups about what is a science (and can
the study of history be a science).  Anyone interested in this topic in
a general way is invited to email me for the addresses. 

> Armando Machado wrote:
> >Although somewhat incidental to your main argument, with which I
> >agree, I believe that your reference to epicycles and medieval
> >astronomical theories is potentially misleading. Epicycles and other
> >geometric devices were invented by ancient astronomers to account
> >for observed celestial phenomena. What is amazing about the geocentric
> >theories that used these devices is how accurate they really were.
---snip--
> >Some people suspect that Copernicus was motivated more by aesthetical
> >and religious reasons than by the "lack of predictive power" of
> >Ptolomy's account.

Agreed, with reservations.  Please see my other article in reference to
Latrin council's problem with this "accuracy".  Copernicus sat on this
council 10 years or so before writing his key work, so he may have had
religious motivation for wanting more predictability--there must have
been great anxiety for the devout if they could not be sure of the
calender, and were thereby unable to confidently follow observence of
church holidays.

Radical neither in his politics or his philosophy, Copernicus=92s work is
heavily Ptolomeic and conserves themes such as the reverence for the
circle and a spherical heavens.  Epicycles come into play in his
astrology as the time-honored and decidedly unrevolutionary way to
resolve astrological discrepancies.  (I have written more in this vein
in my other posting.)  If his work broke with a traditional view of the
universe by placing the sun at the center, his theories could be
rationalized because the Copernican view increased the harmony and
simplicity of the universe.  And of course, his hypotheses could be seen
as simply another scheme to "save the appearances", as I have said, and
a scheme with practical application:  Reinhardt uses Copernican devices
to finally reform the calendar, (without believing a word of it was
"real" one assumes).

In my other posting, there is also a citation there that provides a good
explaination of epicycles and the problems refining them.  Copernicus
may indeed have had religious or at least traditional motivations and
views.  Some historians have suggested that took the idea of a sun
centered universe from classical Pythagorian cults, rather than any
radical views of his own.

---big snip, so sorry---

>It was necessary a whole new physics to ground Copernican astronomy.
>This can be seen in Feyerabend's Against Method.

Completely true, and thanks for providing a referance.  Richard Westfall
(see citation in my other post) makes a similar assertion.

> >I believe that the problem of ancient astronomical theories is not
> >that they tried to save the face, but that they never derived their
> >geometric devices (epicycles, equants, deferens, etc.) from more
> >fundamental physical principles. To speak somewhat abusively, the
> >geometric constructions were axioms, not theorems.

I can't agree with you more.  This is exactly why I felt that this kind
of science was analogous to modern economic science, which also is
limited in empirically established principals.  This is the main point
of my previous article.  If anyone would care to respond to this point I
would be most interested in exploring the problem of economic science
further. 

---snip---
> > But who is the "blame" Ptolomy or even the medieval
> >astronomers for not grounding their hypothetical constructs on the
> >laws of physics? What physics? Most of the physics knowledge of the
> >time was simply wrong.

So true, so true.  I wonder what of our science and mathmatics will be
found to have mislead us three centuries from now, and what new tools
will we have for understanding and controlling chaotic systems.  Perhaps
we will not even see them as chaotic, but as being withen another
paradigm.  Or perhaps we will see ("simple" chaotic theory as suspended
within a more subtle system, much as "simple" Newtonian physics
co-exists with the physics of Einstein and Schroeder (also, see my post
in response to Mr. Junger's comments on chaos and magic).
---snip--
Thank you for your coherent and interesting post.

Devorah Slavin
dslavin@emory.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:55>From snoe@ivy.tec.in.us Thu Nov 21 11:17:08 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 12:21:52 +0500
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: snoe@ivy.tec.in.us (Stephen Noe)
Subject: Re: Images of Copernicus

>(2)The polemics that one encounters these days are unfortunate
>in that they show a tendency to transform
>science from a dispassionate inquiry which simply isn't interested in what
>religion (or the bible) does or doesn't say on a given issue (which is how
>things ought to be IMHO), into an enterprise which defines itself as the
>antithesis of religion, with all the implications (dogmatization,
>entrenchment, intolerance, etc. etc.).

Yes indeed.  I continually experience this in discussions of Darwinian
evolution.  Unfortunately, the assertion that there are legitimate areas of
scientific inquiry, legitimate areas of religious inquiry, and that the two
do not necessarily overlap, gets me condemned by all sides.  (At least my
evangelical promise to pray for my conversion! ;^) )

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:56>From tbh@tesser.com Thu Nov 21 12:47:22 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 11:47:32 -0700
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: tbh@tesser.com (T. B. Harms)
Subject: the ultimate goal is control??

Devorah Slavin wrote:
>...  However, the economic models we have in place are
>going to be seen as somewhat primitive one day.  Tracy's comments aside
>about the main value of economic science being to explain phenomena, I
>still maintain the ultimate goal is control over the economy.  The
>foundation of our science is predictability.  If someone just wants
>explanations, I call that religion.

The ultimate standard for science is effective conformance with the
subject-matter of science, often just called 'correspondence with reality.'
That may or may not provide predictability -- depending on the reality in
question.

I wrote a bit on that previously.  What I'm more interested in responding
to this time is the assertion that "the ultimate goal [for economic
science] is control over the economy."  This is exactly what I had worried
about: the sort of prediction which is expected runs directly contrary to
the realities of economics.

However, this also gives me an opportunity to show how the frame of mind
known as bionomics (which was the origin of this discussion) can help
correct the error:  It makes no better sense to expect the goal of
economists to be control over an economy than to expect ecologists to
strive for control over an ecosystem.  The two disciplines are closely
parallel in this regard.  Translate this into predictions if you like, but
the basic insight dispenses with the claim at hand.

There are further problems which can easily be detected with the notion of
controlling the economy.  From the perspective of cybernetics and
psychology it appears to be a misapplication of the notion of control.  And
from the perspective of political philosophy, it is a call for
totalitarianism.  All in all, the presumption seems most problematic.

Tracy Bruce Harms                                       tbh@tesser.com
Boulder, Colorado                                       caveat lector!

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:57>From abrown@lazy.demon.co.uk Thu Nov 21 15:51:47 1996

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 18:30:10 +0000
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: Andrew Brown <abrown@lazy.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Images of Copernicus

At 09:15 20/11/96 +0200, Tzvi Langermann wrote:
> I'll just make two quick observations:
>(1)Copernicus has been appropriated by some groups of people to serve as an
>image of the heroic fighter against religion, without any consideration for
>the biography and writings of the historical Copernicus.

Just a small point. Wasn't the historical Copernicus ordained? I think he
was a Canon of some cathedral?

Andrew Brown
Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Independent, London
Tel: +44-171-293-2682

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:58>From straker@unixg.ubc.ca Sun Nov 24 21:45:07 1996

Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 19:44:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Stephen Straker <straker@unixg.ubc.ca>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Images of Copernicus

> Just a small point. Wasn't the historical Copernicus ordained? I think he
> was a Canon of some cathedral?

No, never ordained.  A Canon is an administrator of a Cathedral
District's temporal affairs; at least in Cops' case this was true.  He
never conducted a mass.  He certainly studied theology and law as well as
obtaining an MD.

Stephen Straker             straker@unixg.ubc.ca
Arts One // History         (604) 822-6863
University of British Columbia  / FAX: (604) 822-4520
Vancouver, Canada  V6T 1Z1

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:59>From snoe@ivy.tec.in.us Mon Nov 25 08:18:28 1996

Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 09:23:14 +0500
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
From: snoe@ivy.tec.in.us (Stephen Noe)
Subject: Re: Images of Copernicus

Stephen Straker  wrote:
>> Just a small point. Wasn't the historical Copernicus ordained? I think he
>> was a Canon of some cathedral?
>
>No, never ordained.

Minor correction.  In the Catholic Church, Roman and Eastern rites, and
Orthodox Church, one is ordained through a series of steps, lector-
subdeacon-deacon-priest.    He may not have been ordained a _priest_,
but he certainly was an ordained member of the Church heirarchy.
My memory of Church History (pre-VaticanII, we still discussed the
Protestant Rebellion!) says that Nikolas Kopernic was commissioned by the
Church to determine a better method to calculate the date of Easter.  The
Old Testament methods (originally for setting Passover) had become
ineffective, even with the overlay of Ptolemaic astronomy.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:60>From Eliana@attach.edu.ar Mon Nov 25 10:13:19 1996

From: Eliana Montuori <Eliana@attach.edu.ar>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Date: 	Mon, 25 Nov 1996 12:40:54 -0300
Subject: A list on Bowlby
Organization: Attachment Research Center

Dear all,

The Attachment Research Center, where I work, wants to sponsor a list
on John Bowlby's life and works, exclusively. I would like to know if
any of you would be interested in this project.

My private e-mail is Eliana@attach.edu.ar

All the best

Eliana Montuori, MD
Attachment Research Center
Fax: +54-1 812 5432
http://www.caen.it/psicologia/spa_emjc.htm

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:61>From dslavin@emory.edu Mon Nov 25 05:27:40 1996

Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 06:27:19 -0500
From: dslavin@emory.edu
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 712

My thanks to O'Hara and Harms for bringing the discussion back around to
economics.  Regarding that subject, I certainly agree that there are
many lines of inquiry which are both interesting and useful without
experimental results that are repeatable.  However, those lines of
inquiry may not fall into the catagory of what we think of as empirical
science.

For example, my current research project involves historical
epidemiology.  Examining the historical evidence, I will draw some
conclusions about what happened in the past and its relevence.  Another
historian may look at the same evidence and draw a different conclusion.
Both of us will highlight issues in history, epidemiology and human
attitudes past and present.  This however is history, not science.  No
matter how many times we examine the data, we may never reach a point of
"proof".

Regarding ecology, ecologists may gather data rather than run tests in a
lab, it is true.  However, as scientists, I would venture to guess that
this data will be used in support of a theory, like "movement of turtle
populations in Florida is causing red snake population reduction."  It
will require repeated measurements by this scientist and others to
establish a connection.  There may be great disagreement.  Some may say
the snakes are affected by something else.  However, if a scientist can
confine the turtles to the area and snake populations go up, then a link
is established more clearly.  Causality of course must also be tested.
It may not be possible to confine these turtles.  Perhaps they are
moving because the quality of their environment is being reduced by a
new shopping mall.  It may not be possible to run the tests on these
particular turtles.  However, the possiblity of running the test on
other turtles exists.

By contrast, IN GENERAL, (and I emphasis the existence of exceptions to
this), in general, those of us working with historical data cannot go
back in time, check the measurements and run tests.  There can be no
scientific method.

Therefore, I can say that while ecology as a whole involves some very
complicated systems, it is a science, producing testable theories with
the goal of UNDERSTANDING (I agree).  This understanding will add to our
understanding of ecology and be APPLIED, perhaps by suggesting changes
in the next shopping mall, or ways to protect snakes.  But even if it is
not applied, the test can be run by another scientist to determine if it
holds up.  This is science.

This brings us back to the original discussion.  Economics also works
with complicated systems.  An economist may come up with a theory.  Now
can it be tested? (A) can the test be repeated to see if it holds up?
(B).  If yes, then the tests are providing predictive value:  When
such-and-such is true, and we test it in this manner, then the result
will be x.  Now my question was, can the Bionomics approach add anything
to the ability of economists to come up with theories that can withstand
testing--can it improve predictablity.  This seems to bother some people
who want to deny that ecomonics has prediction as its goal.  Fine I say,
but then it can hardly be called hard science--It would simply be a set
of paradigms for examining the past.  Another approach to history.

Devorah Slavin
dslavin@emory.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:62>From wmontgom@nasc.mass.edu Mon Nov 25 13:11:45 1996

Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 14:10:25 -0500 (EST)
From: William Montgomery <wmontgom@nasc.mass.edu>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Cc: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu, darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: economics and QM

There has been much talk of "control over the economy" as a proper goal
for economics.  Control by whom?  In whose interest?  This is beginning
to sound ominous.

Bill Montgomery
WMontgom@nasc.mass.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:63>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Tue Nov 26 12:58:01 1996

Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 13:57:45 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Meeting: Representations of Time in the 18th Centiry (fwd)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

--begin forwarded message--------------

Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 10:10:16 +0100
From: Thierry Belleguic <thierry@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA>

CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR XVIIITH CENTURY STUDIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO, (16-19 OCTOBER 1997)
"REPRESENTATIONS OF TIME IN THE XVIIITH CENTURY"
CALL FOR SESSIONS (Call for papers will be issued in January 97)

Possible orientations:
1) Epistemology of Time in the 18th Century How does science in the
XVIIIth century approach the question of time?  What instruments are at
its disposal, what theories exist?  To what extent and according to what
modalities do epistemological theories in the XVIIIth century propose a
reflection on time?  What place is given to the notion of time in the
"new cosmologies" in the new science of geology, and in the emerging
reflexion on biological classification?

2) Representations of Time The goal is not to infer a mechanical
relationship between epistemology and aesthetics, but rather to consider
both of these in terms of a co-occurrence or of a reciprocal influence.
In other words, how is time conceived of and represented within specific
semiotic systems such as painting, sculpture, music, architecture and,
of course, literature?  What does it mean to think about and to
represent time in painting and in sculpture?  What is the significance
of the poetics of the ruin, of Neo-classicism, in terms of an aesthetics
of temporality?  What topoi of time (its passage, suspension, beginning,
end) are expressed in poetry and literature?  How does the novel
conceptualize its actantial and narrative progress?  To what extent are
the diverse musical theories which confront each other in the XVIIIth
century a symptom of diverging conceptions of time?

3) Conceptions of History Part one: the emergence of history as a social
science.  The history of ideas situates the emergence of history as a
social science during the XVIIIth century.  What conceptions of time and
its passage appear in the wake of the new science of history?  Part two:
"fin de siecle".  To what extent is the "fin de siecle" a privileged
moment for reflecting on time?  What political, philosophical,
aesthetic, literary (etc) movements are born and what are the conclusions
to be drawn about the understanding of time which informs them?  Part
three: history and the XVIIIth century.  A reflection on time in the
XVIIIth century also implies a study of its periodization.  In this
sense, the XVIIIth century in France, marked by the French Revolution,
is very different from the XVIIIth century in England or Germany.  This
examination will lead to a consideration of the way in which the XIXth
and XXth centuries represent the XVIIIth century (epistemological and
ideological presuppositions, etc).  An examination of our own
presuppositions as "specialists" of the XVIIIth century will be most
pertinent to this reflection, and a roundtable considering contemporary
XVIIIth century studies would be most appropriate.

4) Varia Any other topic related to the problem of time and its
representation in the XVIIIth century.  Please note that the above
suggestions are simply an invitation to consider the problem of time in
its diversity: geographic (England, Spain, Italy France, etc); periodic
(beginning, end of the century, and their relationship to temporality),
etc.  Comparative studies and syntheses are welcome.

5) Open sessions In accordance with the tradition of the society, papers
not dealing directly with the theme of the colloquium will be welcomed
and included in the program.

THE WORKSHOP PROPOSALS ARE TO BE SENT BEFORE DECEMBER 31 TO:  Thierry
Belleguic, SCEDS/CSECS  '97 Conference, University of Western Ontario,
Department of French, London, Ontario, N6A 3K7.
Email address:csecs97@bosshog.arts.uwo.ca
Tel.: 519-661-2163 ext (5721)
Fax.: 519-661-3470
Conference Web Site: http://www.uwo.ca/french/csecs97.html

Thierry Belleguic                    Til: bureau: 519- 661-2111 (5721)
Assistant Professor                  secritariat: 519-661-2163
Dipartement d'Etudes frangaises      Tilicopieur: 519-661-3470
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada
N6A 3K7

--end forwarded message----------------

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:64>From mghiselin@casmail.calacademy.org Wed Nov 27 12:30:19 1996

Date: Wed, 27 Nov 96 10:54:08 PST
From: mghiselin@casmail.calacademy.org (Ghiselin, Michael)
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 713

          Economics as a Natural Science

          The goal of economics, like that of every other science, is
          the understanding of the natural world.  The aspect of the
          natural world that it seeks to understand is anything that
          has to do with resources.  Control of the economy is of no
          more interest to economists than control of birds is of
          interest to ornithologists.  And no less.  Like biology,
          economics is both a nomothetic science and an historical
          one.

          Michael T. Ghiselin
          Center for the History and Philosophy of Science
          California Academy of Sciences
          Golden Gate Park
          San Francisco, CA 94118

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:65>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Nov 28 00:31:00 1996

Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 01:30:57 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: November 28 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

NOVEMBER 28 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1876: KARL ERNST VON BAER dies at Dorpat (now Tartu), Estonia.  Though he will
be best remembered for his work on embryology conducted while a professor at
the University of Konigsberg, von Baer ranged widely through natural history
and related fields.  Moving from Konigsberg to St. Petersburg in 1834, he held
various offices in the Russian Academy of Sciences, and contributed to the
founding of the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Entomological
Society.  In addition to his many publications in comparative anatomy and
embryology, von Baer wrote extensively on anthropological, ethnographic,
and even archeological subjects, such as the manufacture of bronze and the
itinerary of Odysseus.

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.
Send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@raven.cc.ukans.edu or connect to
the Darwin-L Web Server (http://rjohara.uncg.edu) for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:66>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu Thu Nov 28 08:18:37 1996

Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 08:09:18 -0500
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu (Darwin List)
From: "Jeremy C. Ahouse" <ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu>
Subject: reconstructing Q

DarwinL,

	The Dec 1996 issue of the Atlantic monthly has an informative cover
story on the project to reconstruct the Q document. Q is a hypothetical 1st
century Greek text that served as the literary source for the Christian
gospels. Q is short for 'Quelle', German for 'source.'

	"There must be something there, so we're projecting back from the
texts we have, trying and trying to get some kind of understanding of what
it was." - James Robinson Q Project co-editor

	The article mentions several methods used for
recovering/reconstructing the text, by looking at shared passages in later
texts. This sounds similar to a cladistic problem of polarizing traits to
infer ancestral character states. Though here there is no obvious outgroup
and cladistic methodology usually starts with the polarized traits and then
recovers the nested connections.

	I hope that one of the Darwin-list members who is more familiar
with the Q project (which will produce a 1 volume translation of the
reconstructed Q, designed for the English speaking public, a 1 volume Greek
text for scholars, and about 60(!) 300 pg volumes describing the detailed
reconstruction over the next 15 years) can tell us more about the
reconstructive methodology.

	- Jeremy

        Jeremy C. Ahouse
        Biology Department
        Brandeis University
        Waltham, MA 02254-9110
ph:     (617) 736-4954
fax:    (617) 736-2405
email:  ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu
web:    http://www.rose.brandeis.edu/users/simister/pages/Ahouse

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:67>From lbeltran@servidor.unam.mx Thu Nov 28 00:46:13 1996

Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 00:47:10 -0600 (CST)
From: "Lopez Beltran, Carlos" <lbeltran@servidor.unam.mx>
To: darwin-l@raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 713

On Wed, 27 Nov 1996 mghiselin@casmail.calacademy.org wrote:

>           Economics as a Natural Science
>
>           Control of the economy is of no
>           more interest to economists than control of birds is of
>           interest to ornithologists.  And no less.  Like biology,
>           economics is both a nomothetic science and an historical
>           one.

These lapidary statements are neither "nomothetic" nor "historical". They
are overwhelmingly couterinductive. Living in a country where economists
have been set loose to make unchecked decisions over the economy can
leave no doubt about the level of self-deception about the status (and
applicability) of their knowledge in which economists (and I mean real,
PhD-carrying, academics) live. Other scientists are usually much more
careful about the steps, and complexity implied in the application of
their models and representations to real-life situations. Why not
recognize the hybrid status of Economy, between witchcraft and maths, and
the centrality (obsession) with control (money, money...)it was born with?
CLB

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:68>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Thu Nov 28 23:32:10 1996

Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 00:32:06 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Conference on logical reasoning (fwd)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

--begin forwarded message--------------

Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 20:23:22 -0600
From: "Lopez Beltran, Carlos" <lbeltran@servidor.unam.mx>
To: "'DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu'" <DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu>

International Meeting
Logic and Mathematical Reasoning
Mexico City, September 30th - October 2nd, 1997

Organized by
Departamento de Matematicas de la Univ. Nac. Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico)
Departamento de Filosofia de la Univ. Autonoma Metropolitana (Mexico)
Centre Francois Viete dHistoire et de Philosophie des Sciences, Univ. de

Nantes (France)
Department of Mathematical Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax,
Virginia (USA)

Scientific Committee
Carlos Alvarez (UNAM), Jean Dhombres (C. F. Viete), Marco Panza (C. F.
Vi=E8te),
Daniele C. Struppa (G. Mason Univ.), Guillermo Zambrana (UAM)

Our meeting will be dealing with the following general question:

What makes of a reasoning a mathematical reasoning?

        This question might be formulated in one of the two following ways:
        1) As a normative question. It would be then necessary to provide
an answer, stating how a reasoning should be in order to be classified
as mathematical.
        2) As a historical question. The answer should then be given by
stating the particular attributes of mathematical reasoning as they
occur in history.

        A closer look at these two approaches seems to show that neither
one is completely satisfactory. The first is based on the assumption
that mathematical reasoning should satisfy certain conditions that finally
appear as completely arbitrary. The second one requires that we should
trust history as being able to provide by itself the object of our
reflection. It is our belief that the two approaches should work
together: the object of the epistemological research on the nature of
mathematical reasoning comes out along with this same research through
the possibility of finding an intrinsic characteristic which is common
to all ways of reasoning displayed in texts and books considered as
mathematical. This is why we think that no philosophy of mathematics is
possible if it is conceived independently of the history of mathematics,
and, in the same vein, no history is possible without philosophy.
        Therefore, the problem we address is how to recognize an
intrinsic characteristic which is common to those ways of reasoning
occurring in mathematical literature. It seems to us that this
characteristic can be expressed as a logical structure, even if the term
logic used here has to be embedded into a broader sense and refered not
only to meaning it has in formal modern logic.
        Above all, our concern is not history of logic, nor history of
the formalization of mathematical reasoning. Rather we want to study the
forms of certain arguments, inferences, or discourse recognized as
mathematical and investigate their differences or similarities.
        Participation in this meeting is open to every scholar who wishes
to give a 40 minutes talk. Please send a one page abstract before April
30, 1997, with the included Registration Form. The acceptance of the
manuscript will be decided by the scientific committee within a month
after reception of the abstract. =09
        The abstract and the registration form should be sent to one of
the following addresses:
- Carlos Alvarez, Departamento de Matematicas, Fac. Ciencias, UNAM.
Mexico D.F., c.p. 04510 M=E9xico;  e-mail alvarji@servidor.unam.mx
- Marco Panza, Centre F. Viete, Univ. Nantes, Fac. des Sciences, 2 rue de
la Houssiniere, 44072 Nantes 03, France;  e-mail
panza@unantes.univ-nantes.fr
        It is possible to send a one sheet abstract, together with the
following information:
        Name, Institution, Adress (including electronic adress) to the
conference adress: logical@hardy.fciencias.unam.mx
        It is also possible to connect to the meeting home page at:
http://hardy.fciencias.unam.mx:80/logical
and submit the abstract and the registration form by using the relative
links
        Admission fee is fixed at $50.00 U.S. ($15.00 US for students).
This fee should be paid in Mexico City just before the conference.

        The meeting will take place in Mexico City. Participants may
lodge in one of the several hotels in the city with prices ranging
between $30.00 and $70.00 US A list of hotels close to the meeting center
will be sent with the acceptance of the talk. The organizing committee
will be in charge of reservations. It is possible to eat in Mexico City
at a good restaurant, prices range between $15.00-25.00 US

        At the present moment, confirmed speakers for plenary lectures are:

Jean Dhombres (Universite de Nantes)
Solomon Feferman (Stanford University)
Michel Otte (University of Bielefeld)
Hourya Sinaceur (CNRS Paris)
Jean Michel Salanskis (Universite de Lille)
Daniele Struppa (Georg Mason University)

--end forwarded message----------------

_______________________________________________________________________________

<39:69>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu Fri Nov 29 00:36:36 1996

Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 01:36:30 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: November 29 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

NOVEMBER 29 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1627: JOHN RAY is born at Black Notley, Essex, England.  He will attend
Trinity College, Cambridge, and will become one of the leading naturalists
and antiquarians of his generation.  Ray's earliest works will be in botany,
and his catalog of Cambridge plants, _Catalogus Plantarum Circa Cantabrigiam
Nascentium_ (1660), will set a standard for local floras.  He will be best
remembered for his influential volume on natural theology, _The Wisdom of God
Manifested in the Works of Creation_ (1691), but Ray will span the entire
range of historical inquiry from the creation of the world in _Miscellaneous
Discourses Concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World Wherein the
Primitive Chaos and Creation, the General Deluge, Fountains, Formed Stones,
Sea-Shells Found in the Earth, Subterraneous Trees, Mountains, Earthquakes,
Vulcanoes, the Universal Conflagration and Further State, are Largely
Discussed and Examined_ (1692), to the history and geography of the English
language in _A Collection of English Words Not Generally Used, With Their
Significations and Original, in Two Alphabetical Catalogues, the One of Such
as are Proper to the Northern, the Other to the Southern Counties_ (second
edition, 1691).

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.
Send the message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@raven.cc.ukans.edu or connect to
the Darwin-L Web Server (http://rjohara.uncg.edu) for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 39: 36-69 -- November 1996                             End