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Tuesday Roundup: Noah's Bloodline Revisited and Skepticism vs. Science

7/15/2014

42 Comments

 
Editor's note: This post has been corrected after I misidentified the authors of a journal article mentioning me.

Today I have several short topics to share.

Yesterday a public radio producer asked to speak with me about pseudoscience and the Kensington Rune Stone for a planned documentary about the artifact. I’m supposed to talk with her later this week, so that will be interesting, I guess. Of course, you know that any documentary on the subject will inevitably collide with Him Who Must Not Be Named…
Second, you may recall that a few months ago I wrote about Scott Alan Roberts’s claim on his Intrepid magazine website that Noah was racially pure. In his original article, Roberts wrote:
In actuality, when you examine the linguistics of the Genesis text, it clearly states that Noah was a man who was “pure blooded in all his generations,” meaning that his family line was “of pure human blood,” as opposed to the mixed blood of the rest of the population of the known world at that time.
Thus, he seemed to argue that Noah was genetically distinct from all others, which I naturally interpreted as meaning that Roberts viewed him as belonging to a separate race from everyone else.

Roberts is interested in the idea that both Adam and the serpent impregnated Eve, producing Seth and Cain respectively, the first pure human and the other an evil hybrid. These two, in turn, fathered the lines of the godly and the ungodly humans alluded to in Genesis 4 and 5 and made explicit in extra-biblical sources of much later date. In describing these, I referred to the two lineages as distinct races—following the traditional definition of race: “a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.” Thus, Noah was of a pure race and the others impure. I then noted that Roberts’s interpretation was closely mirrored in racist ideas:
The most extreme reading—and the one that is closest to that Roberts imposes on the Genesis text—is that of Christian Identity, which believes in the dual descent of Cain and Seth from the Serpent and Adam respectively and therefore claims that the (modern) Jews are the accursed offspring of Cain while white Europeans are racially pure Sethites.
Roberts, however, objects to the use of the r-word to describe the lineage of Noah, or those of Cain and Seth because he reads “race” as referring to Aryans, Negroids, and Mongoloids, even though the only races I specified were those of Europeans and (modern) Jews, and those in turn were selected not by me but by Christian Identity in using the same set of claims Roberts does. And he’d like everyone to know that he found this offensive, as he wrote in comments on my blog post:
As for my promoting any sort of "racial purity," you are simply incorrect, and have so misinterpreted and misconstrued (deliberately?) what it is I did say, as to become simplistically banal. Even more disturbing is the fact that you took little effort to contact me directly for any sort of clarification. This brand of self-limited research on your part belies a much deeper bias.
Despite apparently finding my post too dull (“banal”) for words, he went on to explain his view on the purity issue, which he says should be limited only to an understanding of Jewish mythology:
From within the Genesis account, it is the "pure human bloodline," as opposed to the mixing of human and "Elohim" bloodlines. This "mixed blood versus pure humanity" issue is actually from within the Hebrew scripture's account of the Nephilim, the offspring of the "Sons of the Elohim," which is the preamble to the account of Noah and the Ark.
In my original post I pointed out that this is untrue, and there is no concept of genetics present in the Genesis account of Noah’s purity.

Roberts clarified that “I am talking about ‘humanity,’ not a given race within humanity.” But he doesn’t seem to see the consequences of his own ideas. If you posit that there is a pure bloodline and an impure bloodline—that some are 100% human and others are not—you are saying that one group is genetically distinct from another, and that these traits are heritable: i.e., that the pure are a distinct race.

It’s also important to note that while Roberts attributes his interpretation to Jewish mythology, it is not the traditional Jewish interpretation of Genesis 6. The first of the two competing traditional explanations is that there was a small but limited number of angel-human hybrids (“the mighty men of old”) who were killed off in the Flood. This is why in Enoch and Jubilees the Nephilim live on only as disembodied spirits. The second competing explanation is that the two groups were the children of Seth and the children of Cain, who were usually seen as culturally rather than genetically distinct; i.e., godly or ungodly. That is, unless you follow Roberts in making Cain and Seth sons of different fathers. It is only by following this version—with Eve’s serpentine copulation—that you can create a “pure” bloodline for Noah. And that isn’t in the Bible. Instead, it can be found in early Gnostic texts, like the Gospel of Philip:
And he [Cain] was begotten in adultery, for he was the child of the Serpent. So he became a murderer, just like his father, and he killed his brother. Indeed, every act of sexual intercourse which has occurred between those unlike one another is adultery. (trans. Wesley W. Isenberg)
The same idea later appears in the Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, a medieval Jewish text, and is repeated in the Kabbalistic tradition of the Zohar. Iranaeus, in Against Heresies 30, records a number of similar traditions centuries earlier, with various permutations of who is having sex with whom, when, and how, as well as versions that lack various elements (one has Cain possessed by Satan)—demonstrating that these were likely later additions to the Biblical story, likely from Gnostic dualist beliefs, possibly with some influence from Zoroastrian dualism.

Roberts took notice of my blog post because Father Jack Ashcraft, the sedevacantist whom many readers will know from his comments on my various blog posts, posted part of an article by Paul and Phillip Collins about my post and Roberts’s own views that was written for his journal, Vexilla Regis. The excerpt online at his blog. In that article, the authors attack Roberts, and they also had some things to say about me that were, frankly, a bit surprising:
Colavito is a pathological skeptic with a penchant for dissecting straw men on behalf of scientism. This philosophical disposition automatically underscores an epistemological weakness in Colavito's criterion for evidentiary acceptability. Scientism embraces empiricism as the only epistemology suitable for rendering the world intelligible. However, this is a naive Enlightenment-era assumption, as is evidenced by the fact that empirical observations are preceded by and interpreted according to certain pieces of a priori knowledge. This observation undermines the primacy of a posteriori knowledge, which is a chief epistemological claim of empiricism. Nevertheless, Enlightenment-era empiricism informs much of Colavito's investigational approach.
Make of it what you will.

Finally, Greg Taylor of the Daily Grail has an interesting blog post berating skeptics for not having enough fun with Fortean mysteries. (Disclosure: Taylor published one of my articles in his Dark Lore series.) Taylor believes that skeptics and scientists need to understand how the public thinks. He doesn’t give the public much credit, but then I wouldn’t either for many of the same reasons:
Another factor contributing to the issue is that for those intimately involved in science, the minutiae are important. Those things that might seem boring to others are important. But, members of the reality-based community, here's the reality of the situation: Joe Public out there is coming home from a long day of (often mindless) work, looking for a combination of entertainment and education in the one or two hours they might have to spare before going to bed and then wading through the same shit all over again. Would you like to listen to a bricklayer bemoaning the lack of understanding in the general public about the finer points of a good mortar? That's what you sound like folks. People's time is valuable, and they don't want to spend it hearing you whining about how everyone else doesn't invest enough time in what you find valuable.
Taylor is right that the public at large doesn’t have the ability or the time to wade through the minutiae of specific claims (most people can only be experts on a few subjects), but on the other hand refusing to engage in the specifics of claims is what gives fringe characters the room to make absurd claims. If no one opposes them on specifics, their ideas go unchallenged and gain artificial credibility. If you can’t go into the ancient texts, for example, and demonstrate exactly how a fringe theorist has misused each line, then criticism of their claims about those texts with vague appeals to probability reads like an equally unsupported assertion, not a conclusion from firm evidence.

The question isn’t whether to deal with minutiae but when to do so. Strange that no one complains that sports analysts obsess over minutiae and discuss facts and statistics that would bore non-sports fans silly. Taylor doesn’t really explain which forums he is accusing skeptics of abusing with whining and stultifying science (his examples are from Twitter, that hotbed of in-depth research), and he also doesn’t clearly differentiate between scientists and skeptics (they are not synonymous). Enthusiasm and entertainment—showmanship—are valuable tools for interesting audiences in ideas, but they have to be backed with well-chosen facts and careful expertise. Surely there is a difference between books, popular magazines, TV documentaries, Twitter feeds, and skeptical journals like the Skeptical Inquirer. Each has a different standard and audiences approach them with different expectations. We can’t lump them all together as “boring” and claim that a book should be as breezy as a Facebook post; or, conversely, that Twitter shouldn’t have skeptical rebuttals just because it saps some of the “fun” out of the Fortean.
42 Comments
666
7/15/2014 07:24:01 am

> skeptics and scientists

All scientists should be skeptics.
Scientists who are not skeptics - putting things to the critical test - are not really scientists

Reply
Gregor
7/15/2014 08:12:11 am

Oh man...Scientists who are not skeptics? that gave me flashbacks of the 'Creation Museum Debate' and all the insanity over "historical science vs. observational science".

Reply
Jason Colavito link
7/15/2014 08:18:41 am

My point was that there are things to be skeptical about that that don't fall under the purview of empirical science. Similarly, many people are skeptics but are not professional scientists, or even science-adjacent.

Reply
charlie
7/15/2014 02:37:28 pm

Jason, since you were called a "pathological skeptic", could you explain just "what" that means? I was just a machinist before injury and age retired me. Just curious as I had never encountered that term before. Thanks.

Gregor
7/15/2014 05:18:16 pm

@Charlie

"Pathological", strictly speaking, simply means "possessed of a pathology"...with "Pathology" itself meaning that there is a process (usually biological... bacteria, a disease, etc.) effecting a change in an object or person. In vernacular use it carries the connotation of mental illness or mental disorder. As coincidence would have it, Jason had previously reported that Erich von Daniken had been found to be a "pathological liar" by a court-appointed psychologist. That meant that, in the psychologist's opinion, von Daniken was compelled to lie (or, in other words, unable to resist lying).

In this instance, it is the author's implication (or really, accusation) that Jason suffers from some kind of disorder or illness that compels him to be skeptical. The extrapolation, of course, is that Jason must then be skeptical even of things that are not deserving of skepticism (which, we can only assume, include the accuser's thoughts and theories).

In reality, it's nothing more than the author's opinion, bearing absolutely no credibility, authority, or context. Those who are already of a mind to find Jason disagreeable, however, will no doubt accept such a claim.

Albert Rogers link
5/30/2015 02:59:47 pm

Oh, please, let us by all means indulge in Northern European polytheism older than the dreary Middle Eastern Abrahamic rubbish.
But spare us the idea that there is anything but rather poor mythological fiction in the Book of Genesis. The Serpent is obviously Adam's penis, and the Knowledge they acquired was the really Good Stuff called Carnal.
The reason that they and their progeny must Die was not Sin, it was Arithmetic. You cannot multiply in a finite Garden (or Planet for that matter) and live forever. Rev. Thomas Malthus made that clear.

Besides which, a species with only one mated pair left is VERY unlikely to survive at all.

Reply
Scott Hamilton
7/15/2014 07:45:39 am

Roberts is fun. "I'm not a racist, I just think that some people are inherently evil because of what their ancestors hundred of generations ago did."

Reply
Gregor
7/15/2014 08:07:01 am

"I'm not a racist, I'm just a bigot! LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!!" hahaha

Reply
Uncle Ron
7/15/2014 07:51:39 am

"This philosophical disposition automatically underscores an epistemological weakness in Colavito's criterion for evidentiary acceptability", et cetera. Oy vey! to borrow an expression. Why can't these people just say Colavito only accepts what can be factually demonstrated, and be done with it? As far as I can see HE'S the one demonstrating weakness by accepting epistemological woo woo and expecting us to accept it too.

P.S. I, for one, would enjoy a brief treatise on the finer points of a good mortar. It might be interesting.

Reply
Gregor
7/15/2014 08:05:21 am

It *would* be interesting... but then, we're clearly part of the wicked, self-righteous intelligentsia who gets off on crushing the dreams of the simple working folk who just want to think about space ships and bigfoot and ancient aliens who needed to spew atomized gold into their atmosphere for no clear reason.

(sigh, now I wish there actually was a show / program on masonry and construction practices)

Reply
Jim
7/15/2014 05:58:40 pm

There may not be much TV available regarding masonry construction practices; however, there is no shortage of TV regarding nefarious Freemason conspiracy practices.

Gregor
7/15/2014 06:01:08 pm

Come for the insane conspiracy theories and accusations of occult murder-death assassinations... stay to learn how to properly form and place a sandstone block!

EP
7/16/2014 07:53:17 am

It's almost as though Freemasons weren't real masons...

Uncle Ron
7/15/2014 12:51:40 pm

In my comment above "HE'S the one" should be "THEY are the ones" (Paul and Phillip Collins).

Reply
Mark L
7/15/2014 09:14:02 pm

At least the thesaurus they bought is getting some use.

Reply
EP
7/16/2014 07:54:22 am

Thesaurus, what's that? Some kind of dinosaur?

Gregor
7/15/2014 08:00:58 am

"Rather than quickly trotting out the first rational 'explain-away' they could come up with, both NASA and others could have used this story as a springboard for so much more. Thousands, maybe millions of people's eyeballs are upon you, do you know how much some people pay for that? "We think the light might just be a camera artifact, but we sure are open to other ideas!"

I find it amusing that his idea of "science education" is to stop educating science and, instead, "be open to other ideas". Sure, we spent up to a quarter of our lives studying this stuff to get where we are today... but if you guys at home think it looks like the star ship Enterprise, we'll take a look!

I'm all for showing the public *how* you come to a conclusion (including evidence, methods, tests, etc.) rather than "pontificating" the answer... to me that's education that's accessible to the public. That is *not* the same as "Enh, they won't get it...turn on the bright lights and drops some sparklers, we're gonna check out this other "theory"...". I wonder if he ever does the "swap out" method of testing his arguments. Almost by default his example has to be a weird blip on a picture from the Mars rover. Its in SPACE! That automatically makes it weird and mysterious and oOOoOOoooOo!, right? Would he advocate the same "hey, man, just do what Joe Public says?" position if it was a crack in the pavement?

"I dunno...I mean, it could be a crack in the pavement, but maybe it IS a portal to China?"

"We think it's just poor integration at the time of the concrete being poured...but if you think it's an icon of the Virgin Mary, we'll take a look!"

"Only two of the cracks are more than 1/32nd of an inch deep...but if you think it forms the tri-toed print of a dinosaur tromping through downtown Manhattan...buddy, we'll get to the bottom of this!"

The crux of the argument (aside from "the huddled masses don't understand your big scary words!" junk) seems to be that A, you have to allow for "creativity" and that B, "creativity" and "science" are mutually exclusive...so much so that "creativity" will wither and die the moment you dare try to suggest that fantasy is just fantasy.

In truth, curiosity is what should be pushed. An interest in what we know, how we know it, what it's led to, and where it's leading. That's not the same as "well, if you think Bigfoot made the pyramids, we'll check that out for you!" - unchecked "creativity" has little to do with engaging the public and capturing the imaginations of the generations to come.

The goal, presumably, is to increase the "science literacy" of the general public, not simply engage in crackpot theories as a matter of reality-style entertainment granted implicit endorsement by academic & governmental institutions (i.e. streaming through NASA.gov). Even if they were to "check out that blip to make sure it's not a UFO", that does nothing to help people understand the physics behind such a craft...energy consumption...mechanical engineering...any of it. And I'm not saying that NASA et. al does these things currently - *that* is the real problem - only that the suggestions by this blogger are answering the wrong "problem".

I don't think scientists and science educators should be cruel in their engagements with the public - I don't think *anyone* should be cruel - but if one needs a "prime example", look at Neil deGrasse Tyson: he's polite, he's engaging, he's entertaining, and he's compassionate. He also won't ever stop telling you you're wrong just to 'nurture your creativity'.

Reply
Only Me
7/15/2014 09:37:29 am

Wait. Fantasy...IS...just fantasy?

NOOOOO! My creativity has just assumed the fetal position, withered and died! Damn you, Science!

I guess I'm gonna have to return my rainbow disintegrator beam-farting unicorn. *Sigh*

Reply
EP
7/16/2014 08:36:30 am

"look at Neil deGrasse Tyson: he's polite, he's engaging, he's entertaining, and he's compassionate. He also won't ever stop telling you you're wrong just to 'nurture your creativity'."

Sure, but he's bla-.... erm, I mean, not of pure human blood.

Reply
Fr. Jack Ashcraft link
7/15/2014 11:05:49 am

Mr. Colavito- I think you've misunderstood. I didn't write the article you cite. It was authored by Phillip and Paul Collins, contributors to Vexilla Regis Journal, as the post says in the title. I posted an excerpt that was specific to Mr. Roberts and his "theology". If you could perhaps correct the record I'd appreciate that. You might also find it of interest to know that Roberts has caught the attention of others who notice the Christian Identity connections to his theories. See the following: http://www.anti-semitism.net/?s=scotty+roberts

The thrust of the Collins' article was in connecting the dots regarding where Roberts' particular line of thought comes from and the logical conclusions one make from these facts. In almost every point it concurs with your position on Roberts as well.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
7/15/2014 11:37:58 am

I fixed the error, and I apologize. You had placed the authors' names in the headline, where my eye overlooked them since I usually look for authors' names on a byline. I assumed wrongly that your blog contained your articles. That's my fault, and I've fixed it above.

Reply
Fr. Jack Ashcraft link
7/15/2014 01:01:36 pm

Thank you. I realize the title and attribution are somewhat difficult to distinguish from each other. The host has limited choices regarding headlines. Perhaps from here forward I'll place authors' names in the body of the article.

Your take on the implications of Roberts' dubious theology are spot on, and shared by the Collins brothers. Roberts it seems is either not able to recognize those implications, or simply refuses to acknowledge them. I'm not sure which.

Reply
Walt
7/15/2014 01:04:21 pm

As I've said, I often feel your writing lacks perspective, but that quote about you says it much better. You make a lot of naive Enlightenment-era assumptions. It's interesting day-to-day just like editorials, but not of much use in the long run since it's so dated.

You essentially measure all members of all societies throughout all of history against how one tiny society raised one person in one country in one era.

Everything that one tiny society taught you is wrong is so obviously wrong that it should've been considered wrong to every person ever to have walked the Earth. Very quaint.

I understand your books may be more scientific but haven't tried any yet. We just have different interests I'm afraid. If you did a scholarly work about the history of religion and origins of elements of The Bible, with no zombies and no fringe history, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Reply
Only Me
7/15/2014 05:46:32 pm

He lacks perspective because he lacks neutrality, right? He must be *neutral*, darn it...no discussion of racial or political influences,
divorce all personal emotion from his work, etc. (More taboo topics to be revealed at a later date). I suppose you think he needs to follow that dictum of "keep an open mind", right? Right, because it has served fringe theory, that unemotional and thoroughly neutral industry, so well.

Jason has said, "My blogging is for views, reactions, and opinions" and he gets results. But you don't like his *tone*, so, I guess that's why you feel "it's exactly what makes this place come across as a hate-blog." I've noticed a distinct lack of neutrality in your comments and the tone of this one is quite dismissive.

I say all of this because I honestly don't understand what *your* perspective is. You agree with some of what Jason has to say, but you don't like how he goes about saying it...and...apparently, you have a problem with how he approaches the subject matter, even when you agree with the conclusions.

Reply
666
7/15/2014 11:17:40 pm

>>>He lacks perspective because he lacks neutrality

It's called objectivity
Scott Wolter has all the faults of a religious fundamentalist who is steeped in conviction

666
7/15/2014 11:20:13 pm

If you attack Scott Wolter he will declare he believes in his own objectivity and that you are full of hatred

666
7/15/2014 11:22:41 pm

This is typical attitude from fringe historians like Scott Wolter. It is identical to the attitude of those people who feel they are on the end of religious persecution from atheists, skeptics and scientists

Only Me
7/16/2014 12:33:46 am

I don't know what your point is. Neither Scott Wolter nor your insistence to bringing religion into the conversation (again!) are remotely related to my comment.

Walt
7/16/2014 12:33:55 am

That's all fair. I'm a "do unto others as they do" kind of guy. I try to treat Jason exactly how he treats others, and I don't have much respect for him since he treats other people like filthy refuse, and doesn't even pretend otherwise. I think I've actually been more polite than he is. He totally deserves how Steve treats him. I probably agree with almost everything Jason says, but I've seen him make at least a dozen enemies just in a year or two because of how he says it. It doesn't have to be that way.

It's tough to quantify his lack of perspective but I know it when I see it. The latest example from a recent blog is how he obviously takes AA more seriously than one of its own producers. Jason and people here think that's a problem with AA and its producers, but it isn't.

There are similar blogs for nearly every show on TV, and they probably all reject the idea that TV shows are just entertainment. Read a forum discussion about "Fast & Loud" and see if it doesn't match every AU discussion here. Jason and his readers are offended by the misuse of history and take it very seriously, while auto mechanics couldn't care less about AA and AU and take the misrepresentations in car shows very seriously. Jason would be well-served to know in his reviews of history-based programs, that he sounds exactly like people reviewing car shows, or pawn shows, or reality shows. I don't have a problem with anyone discussing issues they feel are important, but being aware that your specific field of interest isn't any more important than other fields of interest would be helpful. It's a lack of perspective to feel that a show about history is more important than a show about rebuilding a big block, which is the impression I get here.

Dave Lewis
7/15/2014 02:03:23 pm

I'm trying to understand the quote about Jason. I've never studied philosophy so I had to look up several terms.

What is the "the primacy of a posteriori knowledge" that the Collinses say that Jason is missing? I understand the term a posteriori.

Does Jason use straw man arguments?

Reply
Gregor
7/15/2014 02:19:54 pm

Short version is, they're accusing Jason of employing personal bias and circular logic to argue his points. In their view, empiricism cannot be the only criterion for discerning truth because it necessarily relies on hypotheses, which in turn are often based on categorical statements and "before examination" claims. They also imply that because empiricism and proto-scientific thought had their basis in the "Enlightenment" era, it must therefore be dated and inappropriate. Rather ironic, considering "church wisdom" is even older and - presumably - even more out of touch with reality.

Regardless, the thrust of their argument is that Jason is a slave to scientific thought and therefore is blind to things he does not agree with (or was "told" not to agree with) and incapable of realizing greater, presumably ethereal truths.

Reply
Gregor
7/15/2014 02:33:26 pm

Also, for what it's worth, I don't feel that Jason constructs (and dissects) "straw man" arguments. I do, however, feel that at times his patience with fringe theories and their supporters wears thin, and his sarcasm can be taken as a preconceived "this is ridiculous" judgement.

At worst, I feel all that one could claim (and defend) is that Jason gives as much charity (philosophical: deference & support to strengthen arguments) and due diligence as any other investigator or "debunker" of fringe claims.

Walt
7/15/2014 03:02:38 pm

To say it another way, Jason will never discover anything new. He needs to be taught what to think, and if it turns out something he's been taught is incorrect, he'll have to be taught the corrected version as well once a consensus is reached.

The alternative is someone like Scott Wolter who is more likely to make a discovery since he's so willing to completely ignore logic and consensus. But, until that happens, he is by most accounts never correct about anything.

Gregor
7/15/2014 04:40:43 pm

"The alternative is someone like Scott Wolter who is more likely to make a discovery since he's so willing to completely ignore logic and consensus."

<the sound of maniacal laughter>

Steve StC
7/15/2014 05:52:57 pm

That's added so much to the conversation, Gregor.
Thanks so very much.

EP
7/16/2014 12:49:37 pm

"That's added so much to the conversation, Gregor.
Thanks so very much."

Does irony run in the Jesus bloodline?

lurkster
7/15/2014 02:38:30 pm

No. I've been reading Jason's writing since he was just inspired, enthusiastic young man posting on Geo Cities. And I have never once seen him use a straw man argument.

I think the authors are just pissed off that they actually agree with him. So much so, their childish rage manifested in a way where they resorted to employing the tactics they falsely accuse Jason of doing AND came off looking even more looney than the fringe theory they were attempting to debunk.

I found the silliness of it all was quite amusing. But YMMV.

Reply
Dave Lewis
7/15/2014 06:45:58 pm

Thanks for your explanations!

Reply
EP
7/16/2014 07:41:05 am

"Colavito is a pathological skeptic with a penchant for dissecting straw men on behalf of scientism."

To be honest, I don't think Jason is even a non-pathological skeptic. It's something of a pet peeve of mine that people often say "skeptic" when they really mean something like "critical rationalist". Scientism, by the way, is straight up *incompatible* with philosophical skepticism, since it implies epistemic primacy of science while skepticism denies it to anything.

"This philosophical disposition automatically underscores an epistemological weakness in Colavito's criterion for evidentiary acceptability."

Um... okay...

"Scientism embraces empiricism as the only epistemology suitable for rendering the world intelligible."

This is false. Scientism is perfectly compatible with denial of empiricism.

"However, this is a naive Enlightenment-era assumption, as is evidenced by the fact that empirical observations are preceded by and interpreted according to certain pieces of a priori knowledge."

This "evidence", is really begging the question. That aside, the authors seem to confuse innate knowledge and a priori knowledge. The two are distinct. A priori knowledge, according to many philosophers, is grounded in particular experiences. Also, empiricism was actually less popular during the Enlightemnent than it became in the last 150 years.

"Nevertheless, Enlightenment-era empiricism informs much of Colavito's investigational approach."

There is literally zero evidence in anything of Jason's that I've read to support this claim. Also, such claims are generally anachronistic, since "Enlightenment-era empiricism" is a rather peculiar set of doctrines, which probably no one alive today accepts in anything like their original form.

BillUSA
7/16/2014 01:37:54 pm

Taylor may as well be speaking of himself. I believe that you make the time for what you want, either by segmenting and budgeting your time proportionately to meet the goal or by not getting yourself into situations that command your time.

I worked full time as a machine mechanic and had time after work (even on 12 hour shifts) to pursue the subjects of science and sports. Not to brag, but I found the time to have relationships with a few women along the way as well.

That there is so much sham in this world, I suppose I drifted toward the pragmatic/scientific way of life in order to keep me from doing time for some act of violence against some member of the lowest common denominator of society. Yes, I'm referring to the "I-believe-it-because-someone-told-me" set that greatly ruled the few companies in which I was employed.

Reply
titus pullo
7/17/2014 03:54:35 am

What is racially pure? What claptrap.

Humans are human...this stuff is as bad as the "multiculturalist diversity" junk. It is the individual that counts, not the 'race" or "ethnicity" or whatever.

Reply
Don
7/18/2014 03:25:56 pm

Even in if for some reason we were to accept the basic idea that Noah was literally "pure" racially, whatever that means. Wouldn't all humans alive be descendants of his, and the impurities would have been banished by the flood.
Once again I am confused by the sheer force of will required to adhere literally to a symbolic myth, but then the agility of mind required to only adhere to bits and pieces, some of these guys aren't even selling anything. Which makes them crazy as opposed to simply awful.

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          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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