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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (35763)	4/25/1999 12:41:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

If I'm following this discussion accurately, Christine has said What is harder to accept is the pretense of those scientists... who... refuse to dig any deeper because they don't want to stir anything up. and you are disagreeing with her on this, taking the position that you have yet to see a single case of that sort of thing in biochemistry, genetics or evolutionary science... I have seen grant money doled out for political reasons. And I did weigh in on this discussion (https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=9116408) but can't resist commenting again. The last para in my post was this: ...i've never seen a real life situation involving the allocation of money and power in which personal agendas did not play a major role. I feel sure this is true in science as well as in other fields. There is in fact a homily among scientists that new science never changes any minds; it must wait to prevail until the invested generation of scientists is replaced by a new, disinterested one. Chuzz, I bolded your comment about funding being doled out for political reasons, and mine that new science waits to prevail until the invested generation is replaced by a disinterested one. They're related. I want to emphasize the point that when funding is doled out for 'political reasons,' the money is going to an entrenched power-camp (of research directions or ideas) and being denied to a competing camp. The homocysteine guy was mugged and left for dead by the cholesterol guys, though he was right and they were wrong, and it was about money and power. The well-funded cholesterol doctors had to retire or die before the science counted. The resistance to the news on duodenal and gastric ulcers being caused by the Helicobacter pylori infection was similarly unscientific. I have a personal friend who suffered agonies for years with gastric ulcers. I read about the H.pylori study in an 'alternative' publication, she took it to her ulcer specialist, he said it couldn't be a bacterium. She suffered for another couple of years (to my annoyance refusing to consult another doctor) before her doctor agreed to give antibiotics a try, and cured her. I think it's naive to think that scientists are any more delighted now than they ever were to see things stirred up, if the stirring stirs them to the end of the line awaiting funding and publication. I agree with Christine that it is far from the case that the only agendas in effect in the world of science are scientific ones.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (35763)	4/25/1999 2:09:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

Chuzzlewit, I do follow archaeology, in an interested and gentle fashion. I was planning to be an archaeologist, and majored in anthropology until I realized that I didn't really enjoy digging all that much, and that it was not an easy field to be in and have a family at the same time. I do sometimes read scholarly archaeological journals. However, you must realize that there is a very conservative, maintain-the-status-quo thrust in archaeology, and therefore you would not be aware of all the debate if you only read those. I did cite this transcript of the Curse of the Cocaine Mummies yesterday. Did you read it? One of the most interesting things about it is that archaeologists are discussing fairly openly the dissent in their profession, and its risks to academic reputations: lime.weeg.uiowa.edu If archaeologists are actively involved in a popular program or article, doesn't it somewhat blur the distinction between these and archaeological journals? Certainly, if you studied the journals over time you would see that many assumptions are incorrect, even though they indeed sound scholarly, and that their conclusions are later debunked. Science presented on television and in the popular press can be either good or bad. Certainly, the fact that it is presented publicly is not in itself a reason to discount it entirely. I have seen very interesting science on television, for example a debate between archaeologists as to whether Neanderthals interbred with Cro-Magnon man or died out, one of the hottest topics in archaeology in the last few years. My husband told he had heard on public radio last week that the remains of a four-year-old boy (I think) had just been reported, with features of both groups, but I have not seen anything about it yet in the written press. Certainly, archaeological findings are widely reported because they are of interest to many people. I thought the cover article in Newsweek was provocative and informative. Did you read it, or simply assume that because it was in a mainstream publication, it had no value whatsoever? It is full of quotes by academic anthropologists and archaeologists. Are they wrong or unworthy because they are speaking in the popular press? newsweek.com Did you read the transcript I cited about the Celtic-appearing peoples in China? This is also quite scholarly, even though it appeared on television: pbs.org