Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bill:

On 7/10/07, Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Karl wrote:-
>
> >Post-modern science is regressing to pre-modern science, which is
> >based on theory as taking precedence over observation. In
> >pre-post-modern science, sitting around and making thought
> >experiments, often including mathematical models, is considered more
> >authoritative than physical experiments.
>
> All this shows is that you are completely out of touch.

Not at all. But you may claim that I oversimplified, that in today's
world, we deal with people who are still in the arena of pre-modern
science, many who still practice modern science, and many who practice
post-modern science. What makes it even more confusing is that many
people practice both modern science and post-modern science, and they
don't recognize that they are mixing the two up.

The reason I simplified is because I did not see reason to get into a
long discussion on B-Hebrew on this subject.

> ... Science is moving
> into what some people are calling ``the data era''. We are being deluged
> with data from all manner of observational apparatus. Data flow rates are
> often multi-gigabytes per day from single instruments. The cutting edge of
> science is in data analysis from the observational and experimental data
> being collected today.

Modern science has always been about data, the only difference is that
the modern tools allow us to collect and analyze a lot more data than
we could in the past.

> ... Perhaps you are confusing sciences in general with
> Hebrew language study where the basic data pool (i.e. the collection of
> texts) has grown usually only by the addition of variant readings and only
> occasionally by an new inscription. Under these circumstances multiple
> competing theories could well be expected to play a great role than in
> areas where data is plentiful and increasing amounts are becoming
> available on a daily basis.
>
> Bill Rea, ICT 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                    (/'

The amount of data is not the question here, rather how the data is
treated. True, with Biblical Hebrew, we have only a limited amount of
data that is not growing. The data available in a living language is
constantly expanding. It is how we treat the data that determines
whether we do a linguistic study, or an ideological exercise. The same
is true in all areas of study.

Karl W. Randolph.