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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (35690)	4/22/1999 11:49:00 PM
From: Rick Julian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Fact is, Christine, for all of our intellectual posturing and preening, we don't knowJack. Empirical evidence, schmempirical evidence, primary sources . . .my ass. Half the time I can't explain to myself what just happened between me and another. I often chuckle imagining the outlandish explanations future (say two centuries from now) bistorians will concoct when they uncover tv remote controls, microwave ovens, . . . I guarantee their explanations will bear little resemblance to reality. This is not meant to discount the value of our historical speculations--occasionally our arrows actually graze their targets. But we get so cocky and confident with our "evidence" and our historical interpretations . . . when usually (in the big picture) we're doing little more than reading tea leaves. (p.s. I doknow Jack Shit, and I madam, am no Jack Shit.)

To: Grainne who wrote (35690)	4/23/1999 2:32:00 AM
From: Krowbar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Christine, there is a town just North of Austin, Leander, where the remains of a woman reported to be at least 15,000 years old were found about 20 years ago. It was known about locally, but I have never seen it mentioned elsewhere. She is jokingly referred to as "Leanderthal woman". The stretch of hwy 35 between San Antonio and Dallas roughly follows the Eastern edge of a huge area of limestone, which most of West Texas is composed of. On this edge are numerous large freshwater springs that suddenly appear out of the ground. At San Marcos it is such a large amount that it is actually the start of the San Marcos river. Naturally these areas must have seemed like paradise for animals and humans alike, and many ancient remains of each have been found in these areas. It could very well be where the oldest American remains will be found. Del

To: Grainne who wrote (35690)	4/23/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Christine, the last thing I want to do is to get involved in a debate about cocaine mummies. But if I were you, I would be skeptical about anyone who maintains that the only reason his or her theory/discovery is not generally accepted is because it is opposed/suppressed/slandered by a "tightly controlled" -- and controlling -- Conservative Establishment (Academe, Official Medicine,you name it), out of disreputable motives. Every charlatan and half-baked scientist in the world uses this argument. The fact is that their theories are rejected simply because their proofs aren't rigorous enough to satisfy their peers. Occasionally, of course, theories are rejected -- at first -- simply because accepting them would mean accepting an entirely new "paradigm", i.e., radically revising our entire view of a subject or field. But that is true in a very small minority of cases. BTW, I hold no particular brief for "academics" in general. But I think it preposterous to say that they reject bold new theories simply because they are "intellectual cowards, afraid of jeopardizing their tenure." It is very difficult to lose tenure, once you have it. You might lose it for reasons of character -- i.e., if you have been seducing all your female grad students -- but not for supporting someone else's theories. It is sort of like being President. Joan

To: Grainne who wrote (35690)	4/23/1999 8:44:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Working from memory here, Christine, but I understand that the Powers That Be among Native Americans (yes, there are some) don't want archeologists to dig up Native Americans, and want the ones that have been dug up to be reburied, so there's no point in digging them up. Archeologists just want to wait until this movement dies down. Everyone knows that skeletons with features that are different from Native Americans, and more similar to Europeans, have been found below the level they should be. There was a long article in the New Yorker a year or two about it.