[Aztlan] ? Mayan Cosmos 14 years later ?

[ECOLING at aol.com]

_Maya Cosmos_ 
by David Friedel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker
was published in 1993.

It is now 14 years later.

I would much appreciate comments helping to distinguish
the various hypotheses offered in that book,
perhaps as A vs. B vs. C below, or in other ways.

A.   Which of Friedel and Schele's hypotheses have received 
additional solid confirmation, that is have been strengthened by
what we have learned in the intervening years (whether by 
predictions from those hypotheses bearing fruit, being useful
in opening new lines of investigation, or in ther ways) ?

B.   Which of Friedel and Schele's hypotheses have been
undermined by what we have learned in the intervening years
(whether by alternative explanations receiving greater support,
or the factual information used in their explanations being
called into question, or in other ways) ?

C.   Which of Friedel and Schele's hypotheses still remain tempting
these many years later but have not been subjected to further study or 
accumulation of information which could support or weaken them?

My purpose in asking this is not to support or undermine
Friedel or Schele, nor their hypotheses, but to elicit discussion
of how we can evaluate such hypotheses, and what we have
learned about how to estimate their validity.

I am not particularly interested here in *wishful thinking* or 
*speculation* either for or against any of their hypotheses
(even though speculation can sometimes be useful in liberating
us to consider new possibilities),
but rather here in solid evidence and reasoning which suggest 
whether *independent* lines of thinking may point to the
same conclusions.   
The *independence* of the lines of thinking is crucial.   
All too often we humans start from a fixed hypothesis, 
whose validity would require particular interpretations,
we then offer those interpretations not as points of potential
weakness (which might be subject to refutation) but instead
we take those interpretations as if they were evidence for our views 
rather than simply required for us to continue believing in
what we started out believing in or wanting to believe in.

Best wishes,
Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics


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