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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
  • Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:18:21 +0100

On 28/03/2007 18:38, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
... Well,
can you imagine, though, an astronomy forum where various participants keep
bringing up ideas such as that the earth is flat, and this becomes a
topic of discussion because all opinions are equal. While some
hobbyist astronomers
and even serious scholars might find value in such a forum, there is
no question
that the level of discussions and the amount that the hobbyists can learn from
the scholars will be severely limited. Here too, perhaps you may
think that the scholars offer "little comparable value" but in reality
you are probably missing
a whole lot by not hearing their silenced voices.

The problem with this analogy is that many of us do not accept that there is any analogy between our views and those that the earth is flat. Indeed any suggestion of a similarity might well be viewed as offensive ridicule.

Might I suggest an alternative scientific analogy, that of a discussion of Wegener's continental drift hypothesis before the 1960s, i.e. before it quite rapidly changed from being something ridiculed by scholars into scientific orthodoxy? Scholars at the time might well have found little value in such a forum, but that doesn't tell us much about the truth value of the hypothesis.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://www.qaya.org/blog/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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