[Aztlan] Interpretation not = = evidence

[ECOLING at aol.com]

I am in complete agreement with what Jorge Perez de Lara has written.

The aspect of John Major Jenkins's arguments that I find most troubling
is when he seems to exempt himself from a need for evidence.
I think this has by now become clear in the recent exchanges on Aztlan.

Yes, it is *of course* true that later Maya may have retained only a vague
memory of earlier cosmology (or name the domain of ideas which you prefer).
But if they do not, then one must admit that the argument for any hypothesis
becomes much more difficult.   One cannot assume data or evidence that one
wants simply on the grounds that much has been lost.   Nor (for those who
are excessively narrow in what they will consider) can one assume that
what we do not now have evidence for did not exist.   Absence of evidence
is not evidence of absence.   John Major Jenkins likes the second part,
but rejects the first part, I think because he is so wedded to his 
conclusion.
He would be more effective if he could understand and accept why many
people find him unconvincing, if he could understand the many places
in which he substitutes what he wants to believe for what is actually there.

Like the philosophers' puzzles of the hourglass vs. the two facing heads,
or the duck vs. the rabbit, it is often impossible to see the other view once
one has fastened on one view.   This is especially true in many fields of
detective work and discovery of the past.

He writes:

<<A repeating sequence of 13-baktuns is attested by Tortuguero Monument 6. 
This can be branded an anomaly, or it can be called evidence.>>

He is here reading his *conclusion* into what he calls the data or evidence.
There is no direct evidence on Tortuguero Monument 6 for a repeating sequence
of 13 Baktuns.   To claim that is is simply not being forthright about the 
facts.
There is data which may be *interpreted* as a part of an
argument that the Maya believed in that, but the argument must then depend
on other evidence.   It must be kept in mind that the Tortuguero reference
to the future is, as of now, unique in being 13.0.0.0.0 in the future.
This is could be an aberration.   It would be folly to assume it is an 
aberration,
but also folly to not keep that possibility in mind.   John Major Jenkins 
*wants* it to be the norm (despite it being a minority of one), so he
assumes it is.   Either assumption, that it is an aberration or that it is 
the norm,
is an assumtpion.   Neither is simple evidence.

To do good detective work on the past, it helps to not need more certainty
than the facts can provide.   Many irrational beliefs reflect a need for
great certainty.

The parody on whether Paleolithic humans were having sex is just that,
a parody.   It is obvious logic in this case that they did.   
But that is irrelevant to our arguments. The obvious logic about sex in no 
way 
either weakens or strengthens John's arguments on a completely different 
topic.
It is disturbing is that John treats these two instances of reasoning
as the same.

John's repeated emphasis on iconography is not simply to get people
to use it more (which they certainly should).   Rather, he wants people to
accept *his interpretation* of iconography as if it were simple direct fact.
His interpretations are not facts.   He is happy to take that position 
regarding interpretations by others with which he does not agree.
But he seems unwilling to have the same standards applied to his own
hypotheses.

None of which has any bearing directly on whether any of his
hypotheses are *valid* or *wrong*.   As I said, it is good that we
have multiple perspectives.   I really mean that.   I would really hate to 
miss
seeing some hypothesis which may be *valid* just because John Major
Jenkins's argumentation has big gaps.   We badly need someone to cull
out the real facts and patterns he is concerned with, and show how far
we can and cannot go from evidence, without the enormous burden of
having to wade through all of his preferred assumptions and mixture
of fact with conjecture.

I have made myself just as unwelcome with a famous archaeoastronomer
years ago for arguing that the Maya may very well have known about
precession even if we cannot yet prove it.   John presumably would like
me then for that.   It is an example of the point that absence of evidence
yet discovered is not evidence of absence of a phenomenon.
(As an aside, I think we may now be closer to having at least
suggestive clues on precession because of some work by Barbara Macleod.)

Here I must argue exactly the same for John Major Jenkins's hypotheses,
some of which may be valid even if we cannot yet prove them.

But standards of evidence and proof are very different from 
making assumptions and treating hypotheses consistent with
one's preferred assumptions as if they were simple facts.

Best wishes,
Lloyd

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington DC 20003
ecoling at aol.com
202-547-7683



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