Dear Glenn,
> While I don't condone your outdated andropocentric language (e.g. 'we
men,'
as if no women are significant or
> present, e.g. Janice et al.) or old school approach to contemporary
science
and religion dialogue, I do think at
> least one formulation in your message is quite delicious and worthy of
elaboration.
I don't live in a world of political correctness or even one of
daintiness.
Ever worked with a driller (man or woman of course)?
> Glenn wrote: 'When Adam is.' Not 'when Adam was' or 'when Adam could
be.'
Can it really have been said so
> simply and superbly?
> This trio of words could (if it would) turn into a sort of 'theme
> song'
for
philosophers, anthropologists,
> psychologists, sociologists and theologians to indeed come together in
questioning topics such as
> 'consciousness,' 'identity,' 'original (self)-awareness,' and 'common
descent' from a non-origins-of-life
> perspective. Why? Because human-social sciences do not deal primarily
with
such empirical-quantitative
> measures as natural sciences adhere to in their disciplinary policy
manuals
(c.f. 'modern' science).
>
> Origins, meaning, purpose and teleology are indeed significant to
human-social sciences - and yet many social
> scientists have forgotten or marginalized these things, in part due to
evolutionary logic based on materialism and
> scientism. The fact in this case is that we can't blame naturalists as
being anti-origins, anti-meaning, anti-
> purpose or anti-teleology because the author of the statement 'When
Adam
Is' is apparently a (type of)
> naturalist himself! I am left wondering if the author's view of
anthropology includes cultural and/or linguistic
> anthropology or simply physical anthropology?
GRM:I loved the question!!! O course it may be due to you not looking at
the
things I have written very closely. I have web pages on linguistic
anthropology http://home.entouch.net/dmd/babel.htm. The previous Pathway
paper is entitled, The Origin of Language, and I have a paper in the
PSCF
reporting on some linquistic anthro issues,
<http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Morton.pdf>
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Morton.pdf so, I think I cover
linguistic anthropology
And I do have lots of info on ethnology and cultural anthropology (not
as
much as physical), I do view anthropology as including those fields.
But
like anything, one can't be expert in everything so one must pick and
chose
his areas. However, I would point out that I have made some posts on
cultural anthropology, looking at some of the customs of the Scots and
the
Chinese. Look up my post, Night of the Xi, which is an account of one
of
the most interesting nights I spent in Beijing. You might also look up
an
earlier post on getting a haircut in China.
I am unsure of your definition of naturalist. If you use the 19th
century
definition, then I am. I have rather large collection of fossils and
ethnological artifacts from around the world (my wife makes me keep them
in
my office/library). I have 8 masks from around the world, a slingshot
carved
into the shape of a female from the Thai forest peoples, I have various
Buddhist paraphenalia, some folk scultures of various gods, shoes
belonging
to a woman with bound feet, a cap worn by childrend in China to protect
them
from demons (the hat looks like a demon) and various musical instruments
from China and prayer wheels from Tibet. In that sense, I am a
naturalist.
However, I suspect you might be speaking of my world view as in
naturalistic
philosophy. I would not qualify for that as I believe in miracles. I
do
however believe that one should strive for truth, and by truth, I mean
verifiable truth. Truths, which are made up internal to one's mind and
which
can't be tested against anything, may be true, but we will never KNOW
that
they are true. In that sense, I am a naturalist since I believe natural
explanations are the only ones which can be tested against reality. And
if
we are not looking for reality, the only other alternative is to say we
are
looking for non-reality.
> Nevertheless, what a wonderful mix of ontology, epistemology, space
> and
time, simplicity and complexity,
> historical realism, social understanding and individual meaning this
expression by Glenn brings! It simply
> beckons the import of hermenuetics!
GRM: Thank you, I lay out my hermeneutics in the first paper in the
series,
HOwever since we are speaking anthrospeak I would note this,
traditionally
hermeneutics are rules written by the powerful elites who don't want the
repressed to interpret things differently or in a novel fashion. Such
rules
are used to repress free thought and ensure neoconservative elite power
preservation!! How is that for a post-modern statement of cultural
anthropological relativism! Hope you enjoyed that brief moment of
anthrospeak.
BTW, while I never had formal education in geology, I actually did have
formal education in anthropology--physical as well as a course in stone
tools
> The responsibility really belongs to all scientists, scholars and
everyday
people to discover 'when Adam is' - in
> her or his own heart or mind, in a laboratory, at the library, or on a
field trip or expedition!
Well, this is true anthro-speak. It is why I left philosophy grad
school
because there was simply too much of this view that all views are
created
equal--except of course, when they violate political correctness. I
would
suggest, we are all allowed to have our own personal private
interpretation
of the facts, but only the delusional have their own personal private
set of
facts. Either there was an Adam or there wasn't. Fuzzy logic doesn't
apply
here.
> Arthur Custance's
> notion of a 'second Adam' then adds urgency to re-including discourse
about
Adam beyond the confines of the
> evolutionary paradigm.
Custance does have some interesting ideas of Adam, but Custance didn't
have
the genetic information available to him that we do today. He knew
nothing
of the chromosomal similarities to the chimps, he knew nothing of the
pseudogenes that unite us to the apes. His separation of Adam actually
ignored information available in that day, that the personality doesn't
lie
in the cell. Thus, any apologetics today which fails to be
evolutionary, is
doing what I simply detest among Christians--stopping up the ears so
that no
contradictory evidence can be heard. See Morton's Demon for this
phenomenon. http://home.entouch.net/dmd/mortonsdemon.htm
glenn
They're Here: The Pathway Papers
Foundation, Fall, and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm
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Received on Fri Oct 27 02:01:11 2006
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