Re: Date limit set on first Americans

Philip Deitiker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 00:00:40 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John
> Wilkins) wrote:
> 
> 
> >I have nothing to say about the foregoing. I wonder why, in this
> >context, you do.
> 
> Because getting published and having a widely required work
> widely used are two separate things. The argument really
> stands that Darwin would not be published, that is a
> non-issue now-a-days, he would be published, somewhere in
> some form. The real issue is how long would people take to
> recognize the full potential of his work and apply it to
> what they are doing. In the case of Kimura as an example,
> after 50 years and being widely discussed the issue of drift
> is still neglected. In the case of Mendel and the other
> fellow you mentioned its the same thing, the need arises,
> Darwinian evolution, signs from the animals genetics and all
> of a sudden Mendel is the father of genetics. Of course you
> can say scientist are not good historians, but as a matter
> of fact we are living the current histories and
> unfortunately I see scientist making a whole lot of blunders
> that were made in the 1900s. Thus I bring it up to make a
> point, publishing is not the problem. It really depends on
> how widely scientist read, its the use and uptake of
> published material. How good our scientist at scanning what
> they need to scan. Publication is not the problem, the
> problem is what should be published and what should be read,
> and what should be read should be taken to heart. 

That is a good attitude, or rather it would be if more textbook
histories were accurate. Scientists frequently spend a lot of time
reinventing old wheels in part because the histories are inaccurate
enough, and whiggish enough, to misrepresent the *actual* errors of the
past and to laud and sanctify the heroes. To get an idea of this I
strongly recommend chapter ten of Hull's _Science as a Process_ (in fact
I strongly recommend the entire book, but it's 573pp+ index and
preface)..

In my own thesis I find not only that the history of the species cocnept
is false as usually presented, but that the "same" solutions and ideas
are continuously reinvented or recycled endlessly, it seems, from
Epicurus and Aristotle onwards. Yet when I talk to specialists about
this, they are entirely unaware that the idea of a species as an
individual, for example, was invented in the 14th C, or that species
were considered to be distributional types throughout the middle ages.
> 
<snip personal anecdotes, with the caveat that the singular of "data" is
*not* "anecdote" even in the social sciences>

> The power of the machine is when everyone gets onto the same
> page and pushes forward. When people drag their feet in
> old-thinking and with closed minds then science can drag of
> for years for the simplist problems. And outsiders and
> unproffessionals start reaching better conclusions than they
> do, this is where science gets in trouble. Molecular
> Anthropology is a very troubled feild, there are some signs
> that it is coming around, but the real hang ups are in
> applying the basic consequences of evolution (just as in the
> biology paper) that were outlined 50 to 150 years ago. 

Well, my supervisor has said that molecular systematics is revisiting
the ultimately fruitless ideas of biogeography of 50 years ago, looking
for ancestors and centres of origin, too. Perhaps you are right, but in
the end it is use (and contrariwise, disuse) of scientific ideas that
counts...
-- 
John Wilkins
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
wilkins.id.au