Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Bill:

This is a methodology that has been called "incestuous" in 
the way it can suppress unpopular theories. All the 
scholars feed on each other, read the same journals, so 
that when someone advances a new idea, even with evidence 
supporting it, it is often rejected out of hand because it 
contradicts what is expected. This is not a conspiracy for 
the purpose of suppression, just a knee jerk reaction among 
a too ingrown field of study.

Another reaction is merely to brush off a theory because 
the person who advances it has not "paid his dues" in 
having gotten his PhD and/or holds to a minority 
ideological position. In such cases, the rejection is 
personal, not according to data. Yet it happens all the 
time even within this system.

Already, when I was in college longer ago than I care to 
admit, it was a common belief that most significant new 
discoveries were made by new comers to a field: either 
those who were just graduating and/or transferring from 
another field.

An example of the above is the dating of Egyptian pharaohs 
which was thoroughly hashed out on this forum a while back; 
the "scholarly consensus" is that Raamses II lived about 
1200 BC while some scholarly mavericks now put him about 
900 BC. Many traditional scholars simply sniffed and didn't 
even look at the data. Others argue that their results are 
correct because of .... I merely sat back and watched the 
argument.

Concerning the rules for recognizing "jumk science", a lot 
of junk science is published even after "peer review", 
because some big name scientist proposes it, while true, 
careful science is rejected for reasons above.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Rea" <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>
> 
> Karl wrote:-
> 
> > I've noticed that when you see someone who has a PhD and
> > a reputation, that you seem to accept his words almost as
> > canon. Hence you go into kniptions trying to justify the
> > statements of the "experts" that you espouse. I question
> > everyone, including myself. Give me a good argument based
> > on the language, and I may change how I understand the
> > text: merely quoting "experts" aint goin te cut th'
> > butter.
> 
> I'm not intending to pick on Karl as this sentiment is trotted
> out many times by many people. While this attitude is superficially
> attractive, in practice it's a dead end. Some have said that truth
> isn't decided democratically, but in reality that's exactly how
> our current understanding is reached. Researchers publish in
> peer-reviewed journals, those articles are read by other
> researchers and cited in articles of their own. Citation indexes
> help us to find out which of the multitude of articles are
> important as they are cited many times, and which are of little
> significance as they are rarely cited. Over time a consensus grows.
> That's how its actually done. The whole academic structure of degrees,
> journals and so on is not the hindrance to the advancement of knowledge
> that some (usually the ones not getting published) claim. It is a well
> tested system which, while not perfect, works remarkably well.
> 
> New and radical ideas are advanced within this framework all the
> time -- witness Rolf's theory which has been debated here on an off
> for a number of years. Rolf earned a Ph.D. for a new and, currently,
> controversial understanding of the Hebrew verbal system.
> Whether it has the merit Rolf claims or lack of merit Peter claims
> is not decided by either Rolf or Peter. It will be decided by the
> community of Hebrew scholars over time as they examine the evidence and
> weigh it up against other understandings of the Hebrew verbal system.
> There is nothing conspiratorial in this. It is the best way we know
> of establishing which ideas have value and which do not.
> 
> As skeptics often say - extraordinary claims require extraordinary
> evidence. That saying is not designed to exclude new ideas, it merely
> reflects the actual requirement for a extraordinary new idea to
> supplant a currently accepted idea.
> 
> Questioning ``experts'' is fine if you have what it takes to
> actually critically examine what they say. If someone says that
> because they don't have a Ph.D. in a particular field they can
> look at it more objectively and so their ideas have special merit
> usually that person is a crank and can be safely ignored.
> 
> See the seven warning signs of crank science:-
> 
> http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm
> 
> Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
> E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz               </   New
> Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332       /)  Zealand
> Unix Systems Administrator                   (/'

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