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Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:06:52 +0300
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From: Dorin Cheptea <dorin.cheptea@gmail.com>
To: Wikipedia statistics <folks@wikipedometer.net>
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	Content preview:  Very interesting what Carl Nordling writes. Let us
	derive some practical conclusions from it: 1) We should strive for the
	inclusion in [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] of the following conclusion:
	"Stalin used the Pact as a means to start a World War." [...] 
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	Content preview:  Very interesting what Carl Nordling writes. Let us
	derive some practical conclusions from it: 1) We should strive for the
	inclusion in [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] of the following conclusion:
	"Stalin used the Pact as a means to start a World War." [...] 
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Very interesting what=A0Carl Nordling writes. Let us derive some
practical conclusions from it:

1) We should strive for the inclusion in [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]]
of the following conclusion: "Stalin used the Pact as a means to start
a World War."

2) There are many other examples similar to the ones provided by
Nordling. By no means what he says is singular.

3) That longstanding theories are not certain is no reason to support
alternative theories that may be bigger non-sense, and even no reason
to definitively reject an established theory before a better
alternative theory explaining the facts is found.

This is all I have to say now. The rest are just examples:

Perhaps the most classical example of a long-standing theory that was
proven later to be entirely false was the ether. As we all now know
there is no ether. Although Mickelson has proven experimentaly the
absence of ether wind, waves and other such stuff, he kept his results
almost secret for 30 years because he was afraid he would be then
disregarded by the scientific community. His experiments were
obviously correct, and the ether theory to which hundreds of
scientific works were dedicated in nothing but rubbish. Moreover, the
coming of being of the theory of relativity underlines how difficult
it is for a scientist to go against the assumed truth. Henri Poincare
has had the theory of relativity developed years before Einstein come
to it, but feared so much he would make himself a fool that he did not
publish it. After his death (1912), his older manuscripts were found
and they contained the special relativity theory in a more
mathematical form than the one put forward by Einstein, and containing
already elements of the general theory of relativity. The same theory
was independently constructed by Hendrik Lorentz, and by Hermann
Minkowski. The general theory of relativity is more due to David
Hilbert than to Einstein himself. In fact, the mathematical part is
due entirely to Hilbert. It is also a fact that one of the original
papers of Einstein does not contain several key points that are
currently ascribed to him in that key paper. That however should not
undermine Einstein as an important contributor to the theory. First of
all, it is Einstein who broke the ice when it was at the braking
point, and talked so laud that people got more courage. It is also
true that Einstein was the first to publish (but not first to
discover) many of the key things, and that for most of them he
sincerely believed noone had discovered that before him. His courage
was largely due to the fact that at the beginning he had no
reputation, hence nothing to loose. Einstein is one of the authors of
the theory, but not the sole author. The theory was a collaborative
result, although the collaboration at times was on very unfriendly
terms.

I would like to mention about Big Bang Theory. It is not true that
alternative theories are completely disregarded as Nordling says. In
2006 I read in French "Science et Vie" (the largest French-language
Science-popularization magazine, something like English-language
"Science" and "Nature", but with a French editorial touch to it.) a
comprehensive treatese of alternative theories. It seems that 95% of
physicists and astronomers subscribe to Big Bang Theory. But the other
5% also publish and hold conferences. Unfortuanately not together with
the other 95% when it comes to this issue. It also must be underlined
that Big Bang Theory does explain much better that other theories a
number of phenomena. The truth is that simply there is no sufficiently
good explaining theory yet. Many (most?) of those that believe in Big
Bang Theory admit that substantial corrections are acceptable. It is
however true that the predictions of Big Bang theory about the first
several thousand seconds are somewhat more confusing than
illuminating. Nordling's layman explanation presents space and time as
absolutely interchangeable, a view held basically by nobody. Every
scientist believes in some form of causality. The simplest way to
express and imagine causality is linearity of time. But that is not
completely true, as we know that space and time are intertwined a lot.
Yet we fail so far to produce an alternative way to express
mathematically the causality. This is not directly needed to explain
particular observed phenomena, but it is needed for a comprehensive
theory, that would provide for a better (yet possibly never ideal)
explanation of the physical reality.

A third example I want to provide is from a domain I know least about
among these: human anthropology. Currently it has been proven beyond
reasonable doubt that humans as we are know emerged from a bottle-neck
population phenomenon about 74,000 years ago, after the eruption of
volcano (now lake) Toba in Sumatra. Statistical data suggests that a
pre-existing population of ca. 1,000,000 homini was reduced to about
2,000, from which we all descend. This confirms the previously
proposed [[Out of Africa Theory]], except that the original theory was
very vague timewise and content-wise. Now, my point is that despite
these well established facts, we can notice several examples when
things totally contradicting the already established scientific facts
are presented as still valid:
- older skeletons belong to other species, not to humans. For example
it is sheer non-sense and hypocrisy to mention in articles about human
history anything older than 74,000 years ago.
- there are several key differences between the population before and
after the bottle-neck, great enough not only to speak of the becoming
of a different species, but to support usage of term "humans" only for
what was after 74kya, and the term "homini" for everything that was
before that. Yet, we see countless examples when people are simply too
tangled in the web of old (false) theories that they still speak of
"humans" when they mean species 1 or 2 million tears ago.
- if you look at any movie (even National Geographic!!!) depicting
Neanderthals, you would see them with cloves pondering on pieces of
fur. This is tantamount to picturing the savages met by Cristofor
Columbus with laptops. The timing of genetic mutations in the human
lice was one of the first things that concurred the Toba eruption.
Cloves appeared 74kya. No other species had any, absolutely any piece
of clothes. Fur was totally useless to them. They would see usefulness
for them in fur no more than they would see in uranium.
- several other features fundamentally distinguish "humans" from
"homini", yet their importance are downplayed in the populatization
articles. The most important thing, THE thing that created the man is
collaboration (out of necessity). Only individual able of very high
degree of collaboration survived. That period of time saw the
beginning of language and family. Of course, they existed before, but
were not essential to survival. 74kya every individual that survived
was highly oriented towards communication through language and to
creating a man-woman hearth (all lone individuals as well as all loose
groups extinguished). And of course, 74kya they communicated with
clicks nor words, and only had about 300 different sound
combinations/meanings/"words" (compare to only 20 for Neanderthals).
And of course, a family does not mean anything in the modern sense of
the word. It simply means that the two individuals would raise the
children together (and all children would be 100% brother and sisters,
not half-brothers/sisters); it won't happen that the father would
leave for more than a prolonged hunt.
- Another fundamental feature is art. To put it simply, no pictures,
no crafted things, no nothing for other species than the humans.
Neanderthals did not paint anything, did not have any tool even as
simple as a spear or something for the most elementary fishing (they
fished only with hands, like bears do), but only picked up stones and
sticks. Also, AFAIK there is no conclusive proof that homini mastered
fire. It seems that some of them were able to move fire from place to
place (e.g. lit a dry branch), an maybe able to keep the fire burning
for some times. But it is not clear at all that any of them actually
could produce fire. Some (most?) anthropologists assume they did, but
apparently noone has a conclusive evidence.

Dorin

2009/7/17 Miacek and his crime-fighting dog <miacek08@googlemail.com>
>
> Read this http://www.vho.org/tr/2004/1/Nordling28-39.html - find the
> name Carr there. There are similar cases of ''scientists against
> science'' these days, too. Typical example would be Gorodetsky, though
> he's admittedly a petty figure.
>
> M.
>
> On 14/07/2009, Digwuren <digwuren@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 22:04, Miacek and his crime-fighting dog <
> > miacek08@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> i agree that Siebert is a rather difficult case, exactly due to his
> >> professional approach. He is constantly POV-pushing that e.g. MRP was
> >> some inevitable step for ''buying time in order to build defences''
> >> etc. - a completely nonsensical POV, but alas supported by many
> >> Western academics.
> >
> >
> > Supported? =A0Consistent, perhaps, but supported?
> >
> > --
> > Andres Soolo
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia statistics discussion list
> folks@wikipedometer.net
> http://wikipedometer.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/folks

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