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Re: CFV: sci.philosophy.natural moderated
Will Wagers (wagers@computek.net)
27 Nov 1995 03:01:55 GMT
<reposted to eliminate formatting problem>
>|>> >Newsgroups line:
>|>> >sci.philosophy.natural Ancient natural philosophy.(Moderated)
>|>>
>|>> The proposed name for the group is misleading. The full line
>|>> quoted above indicates that the intended content is not
>|>> natural philosohy but history; and the charter makes that clear.
>|>> A better name could be sci.history.philosophy.natural or
>|>> sci.philosohy.natural.ancient -- there should be some indication
>|>> about the actual content.
Dear Contributors,
The point about the name of the group was discussed previously.
Neither the charter nor the rationale for the newsgroup makes
any mention of history.
There seem to be some people who feel that anything in the past
is history (belongs in a history category). But, using this rule of
thumb, archaeology, palaeontology, cosmology, etc. would belong
under history as well. What distinguishes these areas from
history is science - the use of scientific methods to investigate
past objects and events. The proposed newsgroup is dedicated to
the use of scientific methods to properly interpret ancient
science, especially as it affected ancient myth, philosophy, and
theology. Thus, I feel it would be misleading to put it anywhere
but under .sci. Even the history of science is normally documented and interpreted by scientists, rather than by
historians per se.
Also, the group's purpose is multi-disicplinary. Contributions are
sought from scientists in a large number of specialties,
historians, linguists, philosophers, theologians, etc.
There has been some discussion of the RFD under news.groups,
but a great deal of it was via e-mail, where a surprising number
of people who are interested in ancient natural philosophy do not
have direct access to or do not frequent newsgroups. The
majority of this correspondence was from scientists (e.g. the
latest is a group of neurobiologists), not historians.
Besides, the time for such discussions is in the RFD stage. It
seems a bit unrealistic to jump in at the last moment with a
proposed name change. This proposal means something to a
group of enthusiastic people who are anxious to use it. I hope
that anyone making suggestions is as interested in the subject
as we are.
Sincerely,
Will wagers@computek.net
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