Re: Evidence for "Big Bang Theory"
Bruce D. Scott (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de)
30 Apr 1995 20:07:41 GMT
Carl said something most apropos to anthropology...
Carl J Lydick (carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU) wrote:
: In article <556@landmark.iinet.net.au>, gil@landmark.iinet.net.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
: =
: =In article <D7nr44.AGA@crash.cts.com>, Robert Roosen (roosen@crash.cts.com) writes:
: =>Carl,
: => Go to the library and look up Trophim Lysenko. The success of a
: =>theory depends in part on its political popularity, as an entire
: =>generation of Russian geneticists learned to their dismay.
: => Lysenkoism used to be a commonly used term in science--before it
: =>became a standard technique of the "political" scientists who are
: =>presently setting most public funding policies.
: =>Robert
: =>
: =
: =You don't honestly expect Lyddick or Scott or any of the others to
: =swallow such a tale, do you?
: =
: =Such "political" scientists (cf "political scientists", both here in
: =Australia simply "bureaucrats") such as they would hardly be expected
: =to concede policy here in public, would they?
: Ah, I see! Gil has made the mistaken assumption that the physical sciences are
: conducted the way he approaches anthropology.
Indeed. When faced by something totally alien to one's cultural experience
the usual response is to compare it to something familiar and thereby
placing it into a well-defined place in one's belief system. For example,
the Papuans contacted by the 1930 expedition (Mick ??, damn, I am
forgetting the name) placed the newcomers into their system by initially
taking them for deceased relatives, before coming to know what they were.
And many devout Ami-Christians "explained" the presence of the original
peoples by taking them for one or more "lost tribes of Israel". It is
often like this in first contacts.
[half a :-)]
--
Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik odorless and transparent
bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de -- W Gibson
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