An encomium for genealogy

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Doug McDonald

An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 05 jan 2005 21:16:40

While reading a few recent S.G.M. posts, I was reminded of
a strange and wonderful fact.

While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it has a
striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences
than to history, and is most dererving of praise as a subject.

What I see is that practicioners of genealogy, at least most people
here, realize that thought and logic are the key to genealogical
success. This is, of course, because every question in genealogy
has one and only one correct answer, and all we need do is
discover it, or at least try. And logic is admirably suited to this.
I medieval genealogy, thought about things like dispensations,
transferral of land, and similar things, with proper logic,
can lead to strong conclusions.

Doug McDonald

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 06 jan 2005 00:41:01

Doug McDonald wrote:

<snip>
While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it has a
striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences
than to history, and is most dererving of praise as a subject.

Can't say that I see any reason why Genealogy is closer to the Sciences than
to History. If what is a Science is determined by its methodology (by
'Scientific Method'), then Genealogy certainly doesn't qualify.


What I see is that practicioners of genealogy, at least most people
here, realize that thought and logic are the key to genealogical
success.

As is the case in just about any academic discipline.


This is, of course, because every question in genealogy
has one and only one correct answer, and all we need do is
discover it, or at least try.

Hmm, no.

One of the big distinctions between a self-trained genealogist and an
academically-trained historian is the tendency that the former has to be
over-precise and over-emphatic. The past has an infinity of meaning, which
historians as scientists try and package into hypothesis.

Genealogy, as a sub-department of History, is no different. Genealogists,
like Historians, need to establish proof and, to do so, use what some people
call 'legal method'. Most of what we handle, as genealogists or historians,
is open to reinterpretation and can never be completely defined.

And logic is admirably suited to this.
I medieval genealogy, thought about things like dispensations,
transferral of land, and similar things, with proper logic,
can lead to strong conclusions.

And often hopelessly wrong ones :-)


Chris

Tim Powys-Lybbe

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Tim Powys-Lybbe » 06 jan 2005 01:42:22

In message of 5 Jan, "Chris Dickinson" <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote:

Doug McDonald wrote:

snip
While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it has a
striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences
than to history, and is most dererving of praise as a subject.

Can't say that I see any reason why Genealogy is closer to the
Sciences than to History. If what is a Science is determined by its
methodology (by 'Scientific Method'), then Genealogy certainly
doesn't qualify.

What, I wonder, is 'Scientific method'? (I note you put it in quotes,
perhaps to indicate that it is not really anything at all.) For
instance on this side of the Atlantic, evolution is regarded as a
scientific discipline and has strong similarities to genealogy in the
inability to conduct experiments.

Personally I think that genealogy is a matter of reasonable enquiry,
that its statements can be true or false (or even maybe, in a
polyvalent logic), and that in this it is similar to scientific enquiry
and to any detective work.

What I see is that practicioners of genealogy, at least most people
here, realize that thought and logic are the key to genealogical
success.

As is the case in just about any academic discipline.

Agreed. Save that logic is not the study of truth but of truth claims;
in other words, logic can be just as true for a world that is totally
different to ours, logic is about the structure of reasoning, not its
content.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

Tony Hoskins

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 06 jan 2005 03:01:01

One of the big distinctions between a self-trained genealogist and an
academically-trained historian is the tendency that the former has to be

over-precise and over-emphatic. The past has an infinity of meaning,
which historians as scientists try and package into hypothesis.

Excellent, and opportunely, said. Such an important point. Subtleties,
nuance, interpretation, ambiguity are too frequently avoided by
genealogists, insisting on finality, closure, certitude -
characteristics in genealogy as in " real life" so often elusive and
rare.

Anthony Hoskins
History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian
History and Genealogy Library
Sonoma County Library
3rd and E Streets
Santa Rosa, California 95404

707/545-0831, ext. 562

Peter Stewart

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 06 jan 2005 03:26:12

""Tony Hoskins"" <hoskins@sonoma.lib.ca.us> wrote in message
news:s1dc291f.036@CENTRAL_SVR2...
One of the big distinctions between a self-trained genealogist and an
academically-trained historian is the tendency that the former has to be
over-precise and over-emphatic. The past has an infinity of meaning,
which historians as scientists try and package into hypothesis.

Excellent, and opportunely, said. Such an important point. Subtleties,
nuance, interpretation, ambiguity are too frequently avoided by
genealogists, insisting on finality, closure, certitude -
characteristics in genealogy as in " real life" so often elusive and
rare.

I don't understand this point - remember, some highly admired academics &
historians have been absolute nutters as to finality and undue emphasis (as,
for instance, AL Rowse with his Dark Lady discoveries, Barbara Thiering with
her theories from the Dead Sea scolls). Surely genealogists must aim for
precision - their first concern is with details of fact, rather than nuances
of interpretation: any person's birth, marriage & death occurred on precise
dates at specific places, and there were two particular parents and however
many children with exact identities. There is scarcely "infinity of meaning"
to be worried about, just conflicting, unsatisfactory or insufficient
evidence. The process is more like repairing broken pottery than putting a
new glaze of interpretation over old vessels of historiography. It's mostly
diligence, far from glamorous, and not much like science except in that a
researcher's findings should always be verifiable by others.

Peter Stewart

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 06 jan 2005 14:11:02

Tim Powyss-Lybbe wrote:


What, I wonder, is 'Scientific method'? (I note you put it in quotes,
perhaps to indicate that it is not really anything at all.) For


Yes, I wasn't trying to imply too much by the term. And, at the risk of
getting very off topic (with apologies to all) ...

The OP commented that 'While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it
has a striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences than
to history,' which begs the question of what is a science.

A scientist would tend to answer that in two ways - (1) that the data in the
discipline are measurable; and (2) that the scientest processes the data in
a particular way ('scientific method'). Given the wide variety of
disciplines that are sciences, neither alternative provides a very
satisfactory answer.

It may be that genealogy is close to a science in that the genealogist (in
contrast to the family historian) tends to concentrate on measurable data.
Even so, the interpretation of such data still often needs historical
judgements about the social, legal and economic background in which they are
placed.


Agreed. Save that logic is not the study of truth but of truth claims;
in other words, logic can be just as true for a world that is totally
different to ours, logic is about the structure of reasoning, not its
content.

Absolutely. Not much point in building a structure of logic on the work of
Gustave Anjou!

Chris

Peter A. Kincaid

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter A. Kincaid » 06 jan 2005 14:41:01

For those who hold the belief that science is superior
as its data is measurable, I would like to remind them that
the system of measurements is based on axioms. Hence
all is a matter of beliefs (just compare a Euclidian system
versus a non-Euclidian system for a lesson on the subject).
IMHO, genealogy has its similarities as we aim to collect
a body of evidence to reach a universal consensus on what
is the truth.

Best wishes!

Peter


At 09:00 AM 06/01/2005, you wrote:
Tim Powyss-Lybbe wrote:


What, I wonder, is 'Scientific method'? (I note you put it in quotes,
perhaps to indicate that it is not really anything at all.) For


Yes, I wasn't trying to imply too much by the term. And, at the risk of
getting very off topic (with apologies to all) ...

The OP commented that 'While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it
has a striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences than
to history,' which begs the question of what is a science.

A scientist would tend to answer that in two ways - (1) that the data in the
discipline are measurable; and (2) that the scientest processes the data in
a particular way ('scientific method'). Given the wide variety of
disciplines that are sciences, neither alternative provides a very
satisfactory answer.

It may be that genealogy is close to a science in that the genealogist (in
contrast to the family historian) tends to concentrate on measurable data.
Even so, the interpretation of such data still often needs historical
judgements about the social, legal and economic background in which they are
placed.


Agreed. Save that logic is not the study of truth but of truth claims;
in other words, logic can be just as true for a world that is totally
different to ours, logic is about the structure of reasoning, not its
content.

Absolutely. Not much point in building a structure of logic on the work of
Gustave Anjou!

Chris

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 06 jan 2005 15:01:00

Peter Stewart wrote in reply to Tony Hoskins:

<snip>
Excellent, and opportunely, said. Such an important point. Subtleties,
nuance, interpretation, ambiguity are too frequently avoided by
genealogists, insisting on finality, closure, certitude -
characteristics in genealogy as in " real life" so often elusive and
rare.

I don't understand this point - remember, some highly admired academics &
historians have been absolute nutters as to finality and undue emphasis
(as,
for instance, AL Rowse with his Dark Lady discoveries, Barbara Thiering
with
her theories from the Dead Sea scolls).

Point taken.

A L Rowse was, of course, a showman - and historians do, when presenting
popular history, polish up to get some dazzle.

Surely genealogists must aim for precision

Yes. That is one of the attractions of the discipline (or hobby!).

- their first concern is with details of fact, rather than nuances of
interpretation: any person's birth, marriage & death occurred on precise

dates at specific places, and there were two particular parents and however
many children with exact identities.

Tell that to 'John dau. of Ellenor Littledale of Rourey, filius populi,
baptised 22 February 1639'. Stated gender wrong. Father unknown. Baptim not
birth. And the modern date is 1640. :-)

There is scarcely "infinity of meaning" to be worried about, just
conflicting, unsatisfactory or insufficient evidence.


How much can one divorce questions of interpretation from the gathering of
facts?

The process is more like repairing broken pottery than putting a new glaze
of interpretation over old vessels of historiography.


Umm, I like the imagery!

It's mostly diligence, far from glamorous, and not much like science except
in that a researcher's findings should always be verifiable by others.


Unless, to be facetious, the relevant record office has burnt down in the
meanwhile :-)

Chris

Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 06 jan 2005 15:04:05

Chris Dickinson wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:


What I see is that practicioners of genealogy, at least most people
here, realize that thought and logic are the key to genealogical
success.


As is the case in just about any academic discipline.

Not any HUMANITIES discipline. Ther, the most important
criterion is political correctness. Second is fashion.
Third is novelty, that is, revisionism. Fourth is correctness.
In much of the humanities, there is no absolute "correct".
Even "Person X wrote Shakespere's plays" is not necessarily
a possible statement ... maybe a committee did!




This is, of course, because every question in genealogy
has one and only one correct answer, and all we need do is
discover it, or at least try.


Hmm, no.

Hmmm, yes.

One of the big distinctions between a self-trained genealogist and an
academically-trained historian is the tendency that the former has to be
over-precise and over-emphatic.

There is ONLY one correct answer to any genealogical question, at
least in Jan. 2005. Every person has one and only one
father and one and only one mother, and there are as yet no clones.
We KNOW this is a fact. We may not know who they are with 100%
certainty, but we know that one true fact.


The past has an infinity of meaning, which
historians as scientists try and package into hypothesis.
Exactly ... there usually is no answer to teh kind of fluff

humanities people play with. Yes, "was X at Hastings"
has a certain answer ... but does "X fought at HAstings?"?
What about "X was on HArold's side at Hastings." ... That
has no sure answer ... he could have been William's spy!


Genealogy, as a sub-department of History, is no different.


And logic is admirably suited to this.
I medieval genealogy, thought about things like dispensations,
transferral of land, and similar things, with proper logic,
can lead to strong conclusions.


And often hopelessly wrong ones :-)


Yes, but at least there IS a single correct answer!

Doug

Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 06 jan 2005 15:07:00

Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote:

For
instance on this side of the Atlantic, evolution is regarded as a
scientific discipline and has strong similarities to genealogy in the
inability to conduct experiments.

Of course you can conduct experiments in evolution ... they are
done all the time, and Darwin is essentially vindicated. In recent
months I have seen experiments where bacteria have been
induced to ... hold your horses, folks, this is ON-TOPIC ...
actually CHANGE THEIR GENETIC CODE, the meaning of DNA base-triples ,
by evolutionm (and admittedly human assisted selection.)

Doug

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 06 jan 2005 19:11:02

Doug McDonald wrote in reply to me:

<snip>
This is, of course, because every question in genealogy
has one and only one correct answer, and all we need do is
discover it, or at least try.


Hmm, no.

Hmmm, yes.

I was just trying to give the one and only correct answer :-)


There is ONLY one correct answer to any genealogical question

I don't understand.

, at
least in Jan. 2005. Every person has one and only one
father and one and only one mother, and there are as yet no clones.

Biological father and mother. As you know, early records often refer to
in-laws and steps as 'father' and 'mother'.

We KNOW this is a fact. We may not know who they are with 100%
certainty, but we know that one true fact.

Lucky we aren't dealing with family trees in Quads.

<snip>


Chris

Peter Stewart

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 07 jan 2005 00:14:38

"Chris Dickinson" <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote in message
news:crjg6p$cll$1@hercules.btinternet.com...
Peter Stewart wrote in reply to Tony Hoskins:

snip
Excellent, and opportunely, said. Such an important point. Subtleties,
nuance, interpretation, ambiguity are too frequently avoided by
genealogists, insisting on finality, closure, certitude -
characteristics in genealogy as in " real life" so often elusive and
rare.

I don't understand this point - remember, some highly admired academics
& historians have been absolute nutters as to finality and undue emphasis
(as, for instance, AL Rowse with his Dark Lady discoveries, Barbara
Thiering with her theories from the Dead Sea scolls).

Point taken.

A L Rowse was, of course, a showman - and historians do, when presenting
popular history, polish up to get some dazzle.

On this subject, Rowse was even more ridiculous as an academic than as a
popular historian - he whacked people over the head with his conclusions at
every opportunity. For years they practically needed an ambulance on
stand-by during meal times at All Souls, in case he bored anyone to death.
There's no such help with Barbara Thiering, she would simply harangue the
ambulance drivers round the bend.

Surely genealogists must aim for precision

Yes. That is one of the attractions of the discipline (or hobby!).

- their first concern is with details of fact, rather than nuances of
interpretation: any person's birth, marriage & death occurred on precise
dates at specific places, and there were two particular parents and
however
many children with exact identities.

Tell that to 'John dau. of Ellenor Littledale of Rourey, filius populi,
baptised 22 February 1639'. Stated gender wrong. Father unknown. Baptim
not
birth. And the modern date is 1640. :-)

So this John was actually Johanna, 'filia' and not 'filius', or was it
really 'son' rather than 'dau"? Even hermaphrodites have only one father
each, known or unknown, and not a multitude as in this unkind record. But it
merely represents unsatisfactory evidence, and the facts behind it were
still specific & definite, not susceptible to nuances of interpretaion.If
these facts can't be recovered from such a text, that reality becomes the
deposit of knowledge to be gained from it. Problems arise mainly if the
researcher insists on getting further through conjecture and presents this
as fact, or uses unverifiable assumptions about the cultural background
(e.g. onomastic theories) to lend authority to speculation.

There is scarcely "infinity of meaning" to be worried about, just
conflicting, unsatisfactory or insufficient evidence.

How much can one divorce questions of interpretation from the gathering of
facts?

The process is more like repairing broken pottery than putting a new glaze
of interpretation over old vessels of historiography.

Umm, I like the imagery!

It's mostly diligence, far from glamorous, and not much like science
except
in that a researcher's findings should always be verifiable by others.

Unless, to be facetious, the relevant record office has burnt down in the
meanwhile :-)

But research can be verified to some extent through trust in the original
report - like any quotation or transcription that isn't checked against the
original document - and doesn't necessarily have to be repeated as in
scientific experiments.

Peter Stewart

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 07 jan 2005 00:47:09

I think most scientists will maintain that the most important part of
the definition of "science" is not the hypothesis but the testing of it
and the ability to reproduce it. This, of course, reflects a bias
toward the physical sciences as well as the tendency on the part of
physical scientists to say that social sciences are not *really*
sciences at all. In regard to "trusting the document", genealogy can
never provide actual proof of anything since documentary evidence may
be intentionally or unintentionally incorrect (as in protecting
reputations, political maneuvering, etc.). The most anyone can say with
a genealogical "proof" is that documentation supports a particular
hypothesis and so we will go on as if we know it is true. Bronwen

Peter A. Kincaid

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter A. Kincaid » 07 jan 2005 02:11:01

I am getting more philosophical here but as nothing is static
what has anyone actually reproduced. Many variables
may have changed but are not considered (time, temperature,
quantity of carbon isotopes, etc., etc.). What in effect is
that an event was recorded and someone was able to create
another event that "most agree" is similar enough to be the
same (all within degrees of confidence). Most agree as one
can gather enough to support that it must be true versus the
alternative.

In this context, the same can be applied to genealogy. A
document is one record of an event. It may be in error
and standing alone one has to assume it is either true or
false. However, chances are that there are other records
that will support or contradict the first document. In the
end people will come to an agreement as to what the likely
case was.

However, you must also remember that genealogy is now
not limited to records alone. As you suggest, in genealogy,
we can't reproduce an event in the past (ie. x was the parent of y).
However, the same occurs in science to a degree (ie. the so
called Big Bang). In both cases we still have the approach of
analysing what the effect of the event was. In genealogy the
use of DNA is an example of such a approach. The event has
passed and no paper record may survive but a DNA trail was left.
For example. we now know from DNA that the patriarch of some
of Sally Hemings' descendants was at least a member of Thomas
Jefferson's line. In time we may have tools to bring us to a universal
consensus that Thomas Jefferson was the father of one of more
children of Sally Hemings.

Food for thought.

Peter



At 07:47 PM 06/01/2005, you wrote:
I think most scientists will maintain that the most important part of
the definition of "science" is not the hypothesis but the testing of it
and the ability to reproduce it. This, of course, reflects a bias
toward the physical sciences as well as the tendency on the part of
physical scientists to say that social sciences are not *really*
sciences at all. In regard to "trusting the document", genealogy can
never provide actual proof of anything since documentary evidence may
be intentionally or unintentionally incorrect (as in protecting
reputations, political maneuvering, etc.). The most anyone can say with
a genealogical "proof" is that documentation supports a particular
hypothesis and so we will go on as if we know it is true. Bronwen

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 07 jan 2005 02:25:51

Operative word: "likely". Another thing that most "hard" scientists
tend to agree on is that there is no such thing as a "fact" or "proof"
but only "the best we have right now". So I think we're actually saying
the same thing.

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 07 jan 2005 02:32:25

You really don't like fuzziness, do you? In the social sciences, one
agrees to be fuzzy and forego the need for absolute "truths". Do you
enjoy poetry, drama, arts? With a few exceptions, these "humanities"
enrich our lives - fuzzily. Genealogy is not what I would call fuzzy,
however. It is more rigorous than that. But it also is not a hard
science and cannot produce absolute proof of anything other than what
people have chosen to document (THEIR political correctness). Best,
Bronwen

Janet Crawford

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Janet Crawford » 07 jan 2005 13:01:01

Bronwen, You have said it exactly right. When researching ancient Irish
genealogy and one bumps into one of the names that are affixed with the term
mythical, one should note that this "person" represents a hard fact on how
the ruling families felt they interconnected politically, hereditarily and
socially but not necessarily geographically. That "person" and the smaller
tribes that fall under "his" genealogy holds valuable clues and should not
be considered as pure garbage; They represent something that should not be
ignored. The marriages, representing connections between the various ruling
families, are also critical, mythical or not. It is quite impossible to
actually come up with a true genealogy for anyone, but one can get a good
idea of who your sept thought they were and how they connected, interacted
and ruled with others, and that is historically fascinating and educational
all by itself. All we have are what is presented as the genealogies of only
the noble families, so we might as well study and learn something from them,
rather than ignoring them by writing them off as myths.

Janet


----- Original Message -----
From: <lostcooper@yahoo.com>
To: <GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: An encomium for genealogy


You really don't like fuzziness, do you? In the social sciences, one
agrees to be fuzzy and forego the need for absolute "truths". Do you
enjoy poetry, drama, arts? With a few exceptions, these "humanities"
enrich our lives - fuzzily. Genealogy is not what I would call fuzzy,
however. It is more rigorous than that. But it also is not a hard
science and cannot produce absolute proof of anything other than what
people have chosen to document (THEIR political correctness). Best,
Bronwen




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starbuck95@hotmail.com

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av starbuck95@hotmail.com » 07 jan 2005 15:21:01

So Rowse and Thiering are "highly admired," though not by you?

On this subject, Rowse was even more ridiculous as an academic than
as a

popular historian - he whacked people over the head with his
conclusions at
every opportunity. For years they practically needed an ambulance on
stand-by during meal times at All Souls, in case he bored anyone to
death.
There's no such help with Barbara Thiering, she would simply harangue
the
ambulance drivers round the bend.

Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 07 jan 2005 15:58:26

lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
I think most scientists will maintain that the most important part of
the definition of "science" is not the hypothesis but the testing of it
and the ability to reproduce it.

This is correct.


This, of course, reflects a bias
toward the physical sciences as well as the tendency on the part of
physical scientists to say that social sciences are not *really*
sciences at all.

In many respects they are not science, as clearly the interpretation
is determined by politics. In fact, experimental design in the
social sciences is often dtermined by politics.


In regard to "trusting the document", genealogy can
never provide actual proof of anything since documentary evidence may
be intentionally or unintentionally incorrect (as in protecting
reputations, political maneuvering, etc.). The most anyone can say with
a genealogical "proof" is that documentation supports a particular
hypothesis and so we will go on as if we know it is true.

In science it is vastly harder to "prove" than to "disprove".
In non-scientific fields these are equally easy. In genealogy
we have at least one tool ... DNA ... that has the absolute
ability to disprove.

I started this thread both to say what I actually believe,
and to see what the responses are. They are about as
I expected. Genealogy **IS** a more respectable subject than
history.

Doug McDonald

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 07 jan 2005 17:41:01

Peter Stewart wrote:

<snip>
the facts behind it were
still specific & definite, not susceptible to nuances of interpretaion.If
these facts can't be recovered from such a text, that reality becomes the
deposit of knowledge to be gained from it. Problems arise mainly if the
researcher insists on getting further through conjecture and presents this
as fact, or uses unverifiable assumptions about the cultural background
(e.g. onomastic theories) to lend authority to speculation.
snip

But research can be verified to some extent through trust in the original
report - like any quotation or transcription that isn't checked against the
original document - and doesn't necessarily have to be repeated as in
scientific experiments.

I suspect that we are always going to disagree (:-)), but ....

The problem boils down to where we draw the line between what is 'fact' and
what is 'fuzzy'.

You touch on that by talking in terms of 'trust'. We are constantly making
evaluations of sources according to the trust we have in them - whether they
be human researchers, parish registers, indentures or whatever. And those
evaluations may change in time. Similarly, we look at even quite simple
facts with fresh eyes when new evidence emerges or we understand more about
how the 'fact' came about.

And then there are 'facts' which weren't even 'facts' when they were written
down. A term like 'Mr' can be a convention, a social statement, an act of
fraud, a politeness ... depending upon time, place, record and the
perceptions of the person making the record or a copy of that record.
Genealogists often have to construct hypotheses based on their understanding
of how a particular term is used in a particular context.

A further type of problem comes where the understanding of the facts is
related very closely to an understanding of the historical environment. You
comment on using 'unverifiable assumptions about the cultural background ...
to lend authority to speculation', but which particular assumption about the
cultural background should we accept as having been verified and at what
point does hypothesis become speculation? Do we, for instance, accept that
there was a lot of social movement within Britain or very little - what
marriages might we consider as within the bounds of possibility? Sometimes
the genealogist is building on the shifting sands of the social historian.



Chris

Gordon Banks

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Banks » 07 jan 2005 17:45:38

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 17:25 -0800, lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
Operative word: "likely". Another thing that most "hard" scientists
tend to agree on is that there is no such thing as a "fact" or "proof"
but only "the best we have right now". So I think we're actually saying
the same thing.


There is no such thing as a fact? This is nonsense!

How about "the Sun is hotter than the Earth?"

Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 07 jan 2005 18:40:23

Tony Hoskins wrote:
There is no such thing as a fact? This is nonsense! How about "the

Sun is hotter than the Earth?"

Well, framed Clintonesquely: "it all depends on what 'hotter' is".


The word "hotter" has a very precise meaning in science.
There is no quibble.

Doug McDonald

Tony Hoskins

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 07 jan 2005 18:41:01

There is no such thing as a fact? This is nonsense! How about "the
Sun is hotter than the Earth?"


Well, framed Clintonesquely: "it all depends on what 'hotter' is".

Anthony Hoskins
History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian
History and Genealogy Library
Sonoma County Library
3rd and E Streets
Santa Rosa, California 95404

707/545-0831, ext. 562

Tony Hoskins

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 07 jan 2005 19:11:01

Doug McDonald <mcdonald@SnPoAM_scs.uiuc.edu> 01/07/05 09:40AM
Tony Hoskins wrote:
There is no such thing as a fact? This is nonsense! How about
"the

Sun is hotter than the Earth?"

Well, framed Clintonesquely: "it all depends on what 'hotter' is".


The word "hotter" has a very precise meaning in science.
There is no quibble.

Doug McDonald
----

Well, of course. That was an attempt (perhaps feeble) at humor. Also,
betraying as it does my cultural unorthodoxy, I hope not to be chastised
for its OT-ness!

Facts are indeed facts - there just aren't quite so many of them as
some would claim. It is the intelligent and reasoned interpretation put
upon them that provides ultimately the always in the final analysis
*subjective* proof.

Tony Hoskins
Santa Rosa, California

Peter Stewart

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 08 jan 2005 00:29:31

<starbuck95@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1105107661.163050.296330@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
So Rowse and Thiering are "highly admired," though not by you?

Whatever gave you that idea? I was writing about one particular
manifestation of nuttiness that Rouse and Thiering had in common. This was
not the sum total of either person's approach to learning, or the
contributions to it for which both are justly admired.

Reading more into a particular statement than was intended is one of the
major problems that beset genealogy as well as history.

Peter Stewart

Peter Stewart

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 08 jan 2005 01:05:47

"Chris Dickinson" <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote in message
news:crmds9$1di$1@sparta.btinternet.com...
Peter Stewart wrote:

snip
the facts behind it were
still specific & definite, not susceptible to nuances of interpretaion.If
these facts can't be recovered from such a text, that reality becomes the
deposit of knowledge to be gained from it. Problems arise mainly if the
researcher insists on getting further through conjecture and presents this
as fact, or uses unverifiable assumptions about the cultural background
(e.g. onomastic theories) to lend authority to speculation.
snip

But research can be verified to some extent through trust in the original
report - like any quotation or transcription that isn't checked against
the
original document - and doesn't necessarily have to be repeated as in
scientific experiments.

I suspect that we are always going to disagree (:-)), but ....

The problem boils down to where we draw the line between what is 'fact'
and
what is 'fuzzy'.

You touch on that by talking in terms of 'trust'. We are constantly making
evaluations of sources according to the trust we have in them - whether
they
be human researchers, parish registers, indentures or whatever. And those
evaluations may change in time. Similarly, we look at even quite simple
facts with fresh eyes when new evidence emerges or we understand more
about
how the 'fact' came about.

And then there are 'facts' which weren't even 'facts' when they were
written
down. A term like 'Mr' can be a convention, a social statement, an act of
fraud, a politeness ... depending upon time, place, record and the
perceptions of the person making the record or a copy of that record.
Genealogists often have to construct hypotheses based on their
understanding
of how a particular term is used in a particular context.

I was talking about trust in the report of a source, not in the original
text when this may be lost or otherwise unavailable. But of course
information can be wrong and must be assessed in the light of whatever else
is known. The trouble comes when this evaluation is guided by some
hypothesis or preconception of the researcher, instead of simply by the
known facts or absence of them. Fact are realites, that may be unkown - they
are not the best guess that we may make from time to time. It is always
essential to keep this distinction in mind.

A further type of problem comes where the understanding of the facts is
related very closely to an understanding of the historical environment.
You
comment on using 'unverifiable assumptions about the cultural background
...
to lend authority to speculation', but which particular assumption about
the
cultural background should we accept as having been verified and at what
point does hypothesis become speculation? Do we, for instance, accept that
there was a lot of social movement within Britain or very little - what
marriages might we consider as within the bounds of possibility? Sometimes
the genealogist is building on the shifting sands of the social historian.

The generalisations of social history are almost invariably worthless or
misleading when it comes to individual lives - just look around, at your
family and friends, and think how many of their genealogical facts could be
deduced in future from even profound knowledge of demographic and cultural
trends in the late 20th century. For some reason, genealogists like to
suppose that the past was much simpler and more homogeneous, that people
followed narrow patterns of behaviour so much more closely that the
likelihood of exceptions can be forgotten, even when we know about these in
other instances.

An example of this - and I DO NOT mean to dismiss this field of study - can
be found in some of the work done in applying rules from onomastics to
recreate lineages and "fuzzy" connections between medieval contemporaries,
and occasionally from them to antiquity. Known facts are sometimes
disregarded in favour of the prevailing socio-historical "correctness" that
there was overall contintuity in the Frankish nobility through the
Carolingian era. For instance, a man named Goffred is called (in an 11th
century source) the "first count of Charroux" in the line that became counts
of La Marche. Robert-Henri Bautier considered that such lineages,
transmitted from oral history, need not be dismissed, but he pointed out
that there was nevertheless no "count of Charroux" at the end of the ninth
century. He suggested that Goffred might have been the advocate of
Saint-Sauveur abbey at Charroux, or perhaps a count who became the lay
abbot.

Now Saint-Sauveur was founded by a Count Roger of Limoges and his wife
Eufrasia in the reign of Charlemagne. So, elaborate attempts have been made
to connect Goffred to Roger, on the grounds that the former was properly a
"count" in Limousin and therefore likely to be an heir of the latter. In the
course of this enquiry, it tends to be overlooked that King Charles the Bald
sent advocates to the abbey at Charroux at some time between 840 and 874. If
the source naming Goffred is otherwise correct that he was the first of his
line, the probability is that he was one of these unnamed advocates, who
outlasted his colleague/s and used the royal authority to establish himself
on a permanent basis, so that he was still there some decades later and came
eventually to be considered the first "count" of Charroux despite being
originally an outsider.

Attempts have been made to connect Goffred as a descendant of Count Roger,
based only on the supposed office held, and through the name Sulpicius
(given to Goffred's son) to link both back the seventh-century namesake
bishop of Bourges - but why would Charles the Bald not have relied on such a
settled and imposing local kindred rather than sending in external advocates
to protect the abbey over their heads? If Goffred was an outsider to the
region who settled there after being sent as an advocate to Charroux, he
might have married a local lady - his son's name, Sulpice, was not uncommon
in Limousin according to Bautier, and this need not have come through an
agnatic connection or any other link to Count Roger.

We don't know many facts, but we are obliged to make use of all that we do
know without "fuzzy" generalising.

Peter Stewart

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 08 jan 2005 03:58:07

Backing into the realm of philosophy, I would simply ask you to prove
it. What can you give me that is not dependent on human measurements
and subjective experience? The only "fact" is that to the best of our
knowledge and technology and perception, it seems that the sun is
hotter than the earth.

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 08 jan 2005 04:06:39

I disagree (thereby exercising a quibble that you say does not exist).
"Hotter" is not a term with a precise meaning as it is a term dependent
on comparison and the relationship of one state to another. I find the
room I am in to be hotter than the front room; my husband does not feel
any difference at all. The thermostat is dependent on a system that a
lot of people agree on but sometimes it does not express the
temperature of the room accurately even according to its own system.
This is a problem I have with millenarian movements: if the world is
going to end on a particular day at a particular time, does it all end
at once? Is it a different time somewhere else? If people on the other
side of the world do not agree that today is 7 January 2005, will the
world end for them, too?

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 08 jan 2005 04:15:15

Exactly. In anthropology, the definition of a clan is that it is a
group of people who regard themselves as descendants of the same
ancestor. In some cases the ancestor may be expressed as "Bear" or
"Raven" or "King Arthur". I used to tell my students that this is
"sacred history", real history expressed in non-linear, non-scientific
terms. The clan is so important as an expression of sacred history that
it is commonplace for otherwise-unrelated people (no blood relation, no
intermarriage, different tribe, different language) to regard
themselves as "relatives" because they share a clan. There are Bear
Clans, for instance, among both the Navajo and the Hopi people,
completely unrelated groups. A Navajo Bear Clan person and a Hopi Bear
Clan person regard themselves as too closely related to marry because
both are descended from Bear. Neither better nor worse than "science",
but alongside it in, as you say, things that it is important to know
about the people beyond the pathways of their DNA. Does the genealogist
care about that? Not as a group, but some of us individuals care
deeply. Bronwen

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 08 jan 2005 04:18:41

Yet we are beginning to see some courtroom cases where the DNA evidence
was wrong. Was the DNA wrong or the interpretation wrong? The courts
are grappling with this. At least one person was recently proven
innocent by other means after being imprisoned on the basis of DNA
evidence. Perhaps the DNA does not "lie", but our ability to work with
it and interpret it is not as good as we think it is.

Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 08 jan 2005 15:34:05

lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:

I disagree (thereby exercising a quibble that you say does not exist).
"Hotter" is not a term with a precise meaning as it is a term dependent
on comparison and the relationship of one state to another.

Just because it is dependant on a comparison does not mean
it doers not have a precise meaning.



I find the
room I am in to be hotter than the front room; my husband does not feel
any difference at all. The thermostat is dependent on a system that a
lot of people agree on but sometimes it does not express the
temperature of the room accurately even according to its own system.

Nevertheless it has a precise scientific meaning.

The word "hot" lies in the real of equilibrium thermodynamics.
It refers to temperature. There are tests that can determine
whether some has a temperature; I did my PhD thesis, and
my original work here at Illinois, on systems that do
not have a temperature. My boss at Harvard won the Nobel Prize
for this work. But one something has a temperature,
we can measure it.

Your "feeling" "is" not temperature, which is measured
by thermometers. However, it reflects temperature. In fact,
if you and your husband feel different temperatures,
it probably reflects that the room is NOT in equilibrium,
and does not have a single temperature. In the winter
in a heated building the air in the room is warmer than
the photons in it, which reflect the cooler temperature
of the outdoors and the outer walls, and you feel the difference.
The reverse is true in summer.

Doug McDonald

Gordon Banks

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Banks » 08 jan 2005 20:43:00

Nothing can be proven if you require our consciousness perceive
something directly, as it can't. Therefore that is not a fruitful
position if you plan to interact with the outside world. An
consciousness acting on such a principle would not survive long.

I'll give you an factual example to illustrate: Your head is softer
than a ball-peen hammer. I don't recommend that you attempt to prove
that it only "seems" harder.

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 18:58 -0800, lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
Backing into the realm of philosophy, I would simply ask you to prove
it. What can you give me that is not dependent on human measurements
and subjective experience? The only "fact" is that to the best of our
knowledge and technology and perception, it seems that the sun is
hotter than the earth.

Gordon Banks

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Banks » 08 jan 2005 20:51:23

Exactly what case was that?

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 19:18 -0800, lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
Yet we are beginning to see some courtroom cases where the DNA evidence
was wrong. Was the DNA wrong or the interpretation wrong? The courts
are grappling with this. At least one person was recently proven
innocent by other means after being imprisoned on the basis of DNA
evidence. Perhaps the DNA does not "lie", but our ability to work with
it and interpret it is not as good as we think it is.

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 09 jan 2005 06:59:10

You are actually helping to make my point which is that "science" is,
if you will, a cultural system in which the members develop technology
to confirm their perceptions and meet their needs. Once the basic life
necessities are met by technology (which is dependent on the particular
time and place), further exploration, development of measuring devices,
experimentation, etc. have to do with *belief* in the reality of
cultural systems. The problem (if it is a problem) is that the
scientists, like members of all cultures, do not see themselves in the
broader context of "curious humans" but instead see themselves as
having the last word on what is real and what is not (ie, what is a
fact and what is not). I recall reading about a friendly encounter
between an ethnographer and an Inuit man in the North American Arctic.
The English man was uncomfortable and complained that "it is cold". The
INuit man thought about that for a minute and then laughed and said
"oh, you mean, YOU are cold". Tonight I am listening to Michio Kaku,
Professor of Physics at New York University, discuss the beginning and
end of the universe on the radio. When he tells the story of the "Big
Bang" etc., the tone, word selection, and sequence of events bears far
more resemblance to other creation accounts than anything else.
Sometime read the current state of theory on this and try to distance
yourself so that you are reading it as if you had never heard of it. By
the way, if you permit a little fuzziness into your life, you will find
that scientific theory is finally catching up to ancient wisdom. For
example, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) have a creation account where a
woman falls from the sky with the seeds of life under her fingernails.
Turtle piles earth upon her back to soften the woman's landing and the
woman falls into the moist earth where the seeds germinate. Today
scientists are theorizing that life on earth may have been triggered by
the impact of an object from space into the appropriate chemicals,
temperature, etc. down here (okay, okay, who needs to be consistent
about whether or not temperature is real? I agree that it is real in
practical terms - if you don't think about it too much the way I do).
Similarly I increasingly hear scientists say that the earth is alive
whereas some other planets, like Mars, are dead. Mother Earth. Father
Sky (the one who fertilizes by injection, in a manner of speaking).

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 09 jan 2005 07:22:34

It was a news story I heard on network news so I don't recall the names
etc. It is, however, current news. However, I also found an interesting
article from the Duke University Law Review, "Manufacturing
Convictions...Challenging the reliability of forensic DNA kits"; the
URL (probably the longest one I ever saw) is:
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/oite.pl?5 ... L.tu.+1097
If the link doesn't work, you can probably just search for the
periodical; the heading for the article is "Manufacturing Convictions".
I am probably giving the impression at this point that I am
anti-science. Nah - I am multi-science.

Gordon Johnson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Johnson » 10 jan 2005 03:41:01

Doug McDonald wrote:
While reading a few recent S.G.M. posts, I was reminded of
a strange and wonderful fact.

While indeed genealogy is part of the humanities, it has a
striking difference from most, a closer relation to the sciences
than to history, and is most dererving of praise as a subject.

What I see is that practicioners of genealogy, at least most people
here, realize that thought and logic are the key to genealogical
success. This is, of course, because every question in genealogy
has one and only one correct answer, and all we need do is
discover it, or at least try. And logic is admirably suited to this.
I medieval genealogy, thought about things like dispensations,
transferral of land, and similar things, with proper logic,
can lead to strong conclusions.

Doug McDonald

**** Genealogy is more akin to history in that most of the data is
written-type records, which are always susceptible to error (by the
writer, or the informant, or the transcriber). They are also liable to
misinterpretation through the changing meanings in the language used in
the document.
Science doesn't have so many variables to consider, though errors do
creep into scientific disciplines (results outwith expected results
being deleted or ignored; results misinterpreted; errors in constructing
experiments, etc.)
Any data primarily intended for some purposes other than that which it
is now being used will remain suspect. This includes almost all
genealogical source information, some of which may have started as sheer
fibs/spin/folktales.
Let's just accept genealogy as an exercise which combines fun and data
searching, and trust that true genealogists have the right attitude of
doubt when judging the worth of their data.
Gordon Johnson

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 10 jan 2005 15:51:01

Peter Stewart wrote in reply to me:

I was talking about trust in the report of a source, not in the original
text when this may be lost or otherwise unavailable.

Yes, crossed lines here - and I was being slightly flippant.

I understood you to mean that you would give more credence to a genealogist
with a good track record than to one without, which is fair enough; and that
this reputation would suffice if the original records were lost.

What I was intending to suggest is that sources (genealogists, visitations
or whatever) are exactly like facts in that they all have to be evaluated
for their trustworthiness. They are all fuzzy.


But of course
information can be wrong and must be assessed in the light of whatever else
is known. The trouble comes when this evaluation is guided by some
hypothesis or preconception of the researcher, instead of simply by the
known facts or absence of them.

There is some value in the historian taking a viewpoint - history gets
very dull if entirely balanced all the time - and, of course, when dealing
with something as hard to pin down as human nature, the historian's
judgement will necessarily be coloured by his/her understanding as to what
makes humans and societies tick.

And the process of arriving at the 'truth' often does involve people taking
opposite viewpoints, whatever absurd preconceptions those viewpoints are
based on.

But, yes, genealogy has generally more solid facts than does history; and
the formation of a hypothesis in genealogy is probably a clearer more
concise route of logic than is the case in a lot of disciplines.


Fact are realites, that may be unkown - they
are not the best guess that we may make from time to time. It is always
essential to keep this distinction in mind.

I don't agree with this - as is transparent from my other comments.

<snip>
For some reason, genealogists like to
suppose that the past was much simpler and more homogeneous, that people
followed narrow patterns of behaviour so much more closely that the
likelihood of exceptions can be forgotten, even when we know about these in
other instances.
snip


I get a little irritated with archaeologists on this score, but that's
another prejudice entirely!

An example of this - and I DO NOT mean to dismiss this field of study - can
be found in some of the work done in applying rules from onomastics to
recreate lineages and "fuzzy" connections between medieval contemporaries,
and occasionally from them to antiquity.
example snipped


Yes, no disagreement with you.


Chris

Gordon Banks

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Banks » 10 jan 2005 17:49:53

It is true that some scientists are moved to make analogies with
religious mythology which is probably a mistake, in my view.

Nevertheless, contrary to what the pomos believe, there are scientific
facts that are universal, and will never change, and are not culturally
dependent. For example, take the periodic table of the elements. One
could collect a series of vials containing a sample of each element.
Attach them to a poster board in the arrangement of the periodic table,
send it on a space voyage, and if and when it was found by any alien
civilization that had discovered chemistry, would be immediately
recognizable anywhere in the galaxy. If you don't understand this, it
is because you don't understand chemistry.


On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 21:59 -0800, lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
You are actually helping to make my point which is that "science" is,
if you will, a cultural system in which the members develop technology
to confirm their perceptions and meet their needs. Once the basic life
necessities are met by technology (which is dependent on the particular
time and place), further exploration, development of measuring devices,
experimentation, etc. have to do with *belief* in the reality of
cultural systems. The problem (if it is a problem) is that the
scientists, like members of all cultures, do not see themselves in the
broader context of "curious humans" but instead see themselves as
having the last word on what is real and what is not (ie, what is a
fact and what is not). I recall reading about a friendly encounter
between an ethnographer and an Inuit man in the North American Arctic.
The English man was uncomfortable and complained that "it is cold". The
INuit man thought about that for a minute and then laughed and said
"oh, you mean, YOU are cold". Tonight I am listening to Michio Kaku,
Professor of Physics at New York University, discuss the beginning and
end of the universe on the radio. When he tells the story of the "Big
Bang" etc., the tone, word selection, and sequence of events bears far
more resemblance to other creation accounts than anything else.
Sometime read the current state of theory on this and try to distance
yourself so that you are reading it as if you had never heard of it. By
the way, if you permit a little fuzziness into your life, you will find
that scientific theory is finally catching up to ancient wisdom. For
example, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) have a creation account where a
woman falls from the sky with the seeds of life under her fingernails.
Turtle piles earth upon her back to soften the woman's landing and the
woman falls into the moist earth where the seeds germinate. Today
scientists are theorizing that life on earth may have been triggered by
the impact of an object from space into the appropriate chemicals,
temperature, etc. down here (okay, okay, who needs to be consistent
about whether or not temperature is real? I agree that it is real in
practical terms - if you don't think about it too much the way I do).
Similarly I increasingly hear scientists say that the earth is alive
whereas some other planets, like Mars, are dead. Mother Earth. Father
Sky (the one who fertilizes by injection, in a manner of speaking).

Richard Smyth at Road Run

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Richard Smyth at Road Run » 10 jan 2005 17:51:02

But, yes, genealogy has generally more solid facts than does history; and
the formation of a hypothesis in genealogy is probably a clearer more
concise route of logic than is the case in a lot of disciplines.



From the point of view of the logic of science, genealogy (in contrast with family history) should be classified as a science of classification, rather than a science of explanation. In general, genealogists do not seek to explain why what is so is so. In general, historians do seek to explain why what happened happened as it did. There is an unresolved controversy in the logic of science over whether a valid historical explanation would require covering laws. And there is a deeper controversy over whether history is a science. But, since genealogy has a different objective, it would not seem to be affected by those controversies.



Again,. from the point of view of the logic of science, what is distinctive about genealogy as a science of classification is that its classificatory hypotheses deal with completely particularized individual objects. Most (and, from one point of view, all) other classificatory sciences describe classes whose members are types--for example, specimens or examples of the pin oak (Quercus palustris). One can imagine someone constructing a list of all the pin oaks that are now living and that have been individually named, or otherwise identified as distinct individuals. But the resulting class would be nominal and not real. No sane person thinks that the class of one's ancestors is an arbitrarily constructed class. As the truism has it: you don't get to choose your parents.



Some genealogists seem to go further and to treat their classificatory hypotheses as dealing with completely determinate individual objects. (A completely particularized individual object can be undetermined as to time when and place where.) This is a peculiarity I have noticed in the work of Robert Charles Anderson.



Regards,



Richard Smyth

smyth@nc.rr.com

Gordon Banks

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gordon Banks » 10 jan 2005 17:52:28

Crime labs are often run by people whose skills are deficient. If DNA
testing is done right, it will give accurate statistics. It can't be
absolute, as the suspect could have an identical twin, separated at
birth. It is much more reliable than any other method, especially
eyewitnesses, which are notoriously unreliable.

On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 22:22 -0800, lostcooper@yahoo.com wrote:
It was a news story I heard on network news so I don't recall the names
etc. It is, however, current news. However, I also found an interesting
article from the Duke University Law Review, "Manufacturing
Convictions...Challenging the reliability of forensic DNA kits"; the
URL (probably the longest one I ever saw) is:
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/oite.pl?5 ... L.tu.+1097
If the link doesn't work, you can probably just search for the
periodical; the heading for the article is "Manufacturing Convictions".
I am probably giving the impression at this point that I am
anti-science. Nah - I am multi-science.

Janet Crawford

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Janet Crawford » 10 jan 2005 18:11:02

" No sane person thinks that the class of one's ancestors is an arbitrarily
constructed class. As the truism has it: you don't get to choose your
parents."

But for various reasons, one may not have the knowledge of one's true
biological parents/ancestors, so we might technically all be arbitrarily
constructing a class [family]. The false premise being that the
parents/ancestors one is genealogically researching may not be the
parent[s]/ancestors at all, i.e. adoption, adultry, etc.

Janet



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Doug McDonald

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Doug McDonald » 10 jan 2005 18:12:32

Richard Smyth at Road Runner wrote:


From the point of view of the logic of science, genealogy (in contrast with family history) should be classified as a science of classification, rather than a science of explanation. In general, genealogists do not seek to explain why what is so is so. In general, historians do seek to explain why what happened happened as it did.


Again,. from the point of view of the logic of science, what is distinctive about genealogy as a science of classification is that its classificatory hypotheses deal with completely particularized individual objects. Most (and, from one point of view, all) other classificatory sciences describe classes whose members are types--for example, specimens or examples of the pin oak (Quercus palustris).


Exactly .... you have stated in a wonderful way
what I had intended to imply in original post.

Thank you very much.

This is an important distinction.

Doug McDonald

Chris Dickinson

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Chris Dickinson » 10 jan 2005 21:51:01

Richard Smyth wrote:

From the point of view of the logic of science, genealogy (in contrast with
family history) should be classified as a science of classification, rather
than a science of explanation.

Ah, good comment.

The DNB have just today sent out a biography on Carl Linnaeus. As this is a
genealogy group ... my g-g-grandfather was in the DNB (a very brief entry!)
and an FLS, and his son my gg (a lecturer on comparative anatomy) was a very
close friend of Myers, the founder of the Society for Psychical Research, so
I'm hoping their spirits will complement my G & T.

(and I'm hoping that is sufficiently anthropological for Bronwen!)

In general, genealogists do not seek to explain why what is so is so. In
general, historians do seek to explain why what happened happened as it
did.
There is an unresolved controversy in the logic of science over whether a
valid historical explanation would require covering laws.

And in historiography.

Traditional historians run aghast at the notion that there are historical
laws, partly through a distrust of sociology.

And there is a deeper controversy over whether history is a science.

Yep.

But, since genealogy has a different objective, it would not seem to be
affected by those controversies.


Yep.

Again,. from the point of view of the logic of science, what is distinctive
about genealogy as a science of classification is that its classificatory

hypotheses deal with completely particularized individual objects. Most
(and, from one point of view, all) other classificatory sciences describe
classes whose members are types--for example, specimens or examples of the
pin oak (Quercus palustris). One can imagine someone constructing a list of
all the pin oaks that are now living and that have been individually named,
or otherwise identified as distinct individuals. But the resulting class
would be nominal and not real. No sane person thinks that the class of
one's ancestors is an arbitrarily constructed class. As the truism has it:
you don't get to choose your parents.

As many genealogists seem to be computer programmers ... I wonder whether
this is a valid distinction anymore. The whole basis of OOP programming is
that the class or type defines the methods of that class or type - action
and fact are the same, noun and verb are the same, so long as you view the
object from the outside. Is that nominal or real?

Chris

Ginny Wagner

RE: An encomium for genealogy2

Legg inn av Ginny Wagner » 11 jan 2005 01:01:02

<The whole basis of OOP programming is
that the class or type defines the methods of that class or type - action
and fact are the same, noun and verb are the same, so long as you view the
object from the outside. Is that nominal or real?>

Isn't this the medieval universals argument?

Ginny

Life is much too important to be taken seriously.
-- Oscar Wilde

Ginny Wagner

RE: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Ginny Wagner » 11 jan 2005 01:11:01

<The false premise being that the
parents/ancestors one is genealogically researching may not be the
parent[s]/ancestors at all, i.e. adoption, adultry, etc.>

Just reading Memoirs of Hadrian by Yourcenar, "I have arranged the
essentials for your adoption by Antoninus; under the new name by which you
will one day be designated in the list of emperors you are now and
henceforth my grandson."

A very common sense view -- the DNA technocrats will air everyone's dirty
laundry eventually and, quite "Normanishly" will have each square peg placed
in its square hole! Lol. Just think of all the extra children shipped to a
cousin's castle who either hadn't a male heir or who lost one in battle or
through childhood illness so adopted the visitor. Or children being
oblated, or apprenticed or outright sold into who knows what.

Seriously, I've been lurking and watching the posts and as carefully as I'm
sure each contributor is typing, there are at least a couple of misspellings
per week on this list by posters, and we are an educated, privileged lot.

Can you imagine, in addition to human error, Saxon-Anglos trying to write
French names in Latin or even French? Historians have gone to great trouble
to let us know how spotty the education of the locals was when the Normans
immigrated to England. <grin> The names were often of soldiers, not
clerics, so advice on spelling their names wasn't going to be forthcoming.

On top of that, fears of administration changes that could wipe out an
entire family, if all used the same surname, so probably a touch of
self-preservation as some took one side (Stephen's) and others the other
(Maud's) using different surnames -- I'm sure that lesson was learned in
the struggles between the Conqueror's sons when one didn't know which way to
bow and a false step could mean sudden eradication of an entire line.

And, of course, the time when the French regime was being tossed, probably a
lot of English nobility sighed a breath of relief that they'd planned ahead
and split up into variously surnamed branches so the bloody anarchists
couldn't get them all at once.

And, finally, even the little bit I'm researching -- the famous Christina
Markyate began as Theodora but changed her name for some unknown reason -- I
guess to convince everyone she was now truly of the faith; popes who took
new names weren't necessarily the only temporal powers that required
transformation. The queens grabbed names more appropriate to royalty such
as Mathilda - what other changes were wrought?

And through all this detritus scavenges the genealogist, reading 1,000 page
tomes in foreign languages, visiting rummage sales for old, family bibles or
holding a magnifying glass to a charred scrap of velum, smudged and
misspelled, hoping for a glimmer of a clue to his ggggggggggggggggggggggreat
grandfather's sister on his mother's side to explain the curious appearance
of a quarter on a shield!

I say hats off to the valiant genealogist, researcher extraordinaire, who
puts a CSI agent to shame by comparison! A science? Well, it sounds to me
like it's a science, particularly as the archives are being opened up and
unpracticed common folk are often finding themselves able to replicate the
research accomplished by the masters of yesteryear.

If research, replicable results and logical progression based on known data
isn't science, then what is?

Ginny Wagner

Gjest

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 11 jan 2005 01:51:10

I don't know about "anthropological" enough - would you like the URL of
a ghost-hunting or UFO sighting site? {:> Bronwen

Peter A. Kincaid

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter A. Kincaid » 11 jan 2005 02:11:02

At 12:50 PM 10/01/2005, you wrote:
But, yes, genealogy has generally more solid facts than does history; and
the formation of a hypothesis in genealogy is probably a clearer more
concise route of logic than is the case in a lot of disciplines.



From the point of view of the logic of science, genealogy (in contrast
with family history) should be classified as a science of classification,
rather than a science of explanation. In general, genealogists do not
seek to explain why what is so is so. In general, historians do seek to
explain why what happened happened as it did. There is an unresolved
controversy in the logic of science over whether a valid historical
explanation would require covering laws. And there is a deeper
controversy over whether history is a science. But, since genealogy has
a different objective, it would not seem to be affected by those controversies.


I think this is a bit narrow in thinking as most serious genealogists
are interested in the why and how as much as the event. You
seem to have the perception that genealogy is just about
filling a database of names, places and dates. The people
who are interested in my research want to know much more.
(ie. why did such a person move to such a place; why was
such a person named what they were named; was a birth
planned or perhaps an accident causing a shot gun wedding;
where could such a person have gotten a trait or bad gene; etc.).
Much anecdotal information is sought in addition to just the
names, places and dates. Genealogy is much the same as
history except that it is specific to one's own heritage.

Best wishes!

Peter

Peter Stewart

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 11 jan 2005 03:15:43

"Chris Dickinson" <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote in message
news:cru4ct$hgi$1@hercules.btinternet.com...
Peter Stewart wrote in reply to me:

<snip>

But of course information can be wrong and must be assessed in
the light of whatever else is known. The trouble comes when this
evaluation is guided by some hypothesis or preconception of the
researcher, instead of simply by the known facts or absence of
them.

There is some value in the historian taking a viewpoint - history gets
very dull if entirely balanced all the time - and, of course, when dealing
with something as hard to pin down as human nature, the historian's
judgement will necessarily be coloured by his/her understanding as to what
makes humans and societies tick.

I have no problem with historians taking up a particular viewpoint to
interpret events and motivations after first assessing the panorama of the
subject and making an unbiased assessment of "facts" in the written
landscape, as recorded by participants and contemporaries or by the earliest
other reporters. My point is about historians who go into their research
with determinations already reached, and usually derived from applying a
personal ideology to the mass of historiography rather than from considering
primary sources. The viewpoint should be an outcome of study, not the
guiding light of it.

And the process of arriving at the 'truth' often does involve people
taking
opposite viewpoints, whatever absurd preconceptions those viewpoints are
based on.

But, yes, genealogy has generally more solid facts than does history; and
the formation of a hypothesis in genealogy is probably a clearer more
concise route of logic than is the case in a lot of disciplines.

Well, the supposedly solid facts of genealogy sometimes turn out to be
quicksand - as an example I am currently working on, for at least 350 years
the first original passage in the chronicle of Ademar de Chabannes along
with a passing mention in the 'Ttranslatio sanctae Faustae' have been taken
to prove that one man, a Count Immo, was father of both Duke Arnald of
Gascony and Count Ademar of Angouleme. This is demonstrably not true, but it
persists as established "fact" in the latest academic papers touching on the
matter, simply because not all of the available "facts" as reported have
been taken into consideration.

Fact are realites, that may be unkown - they
are not the best guess that we may make from time to time. It is always
essential to keep this distinction in mind.

I don't agree with this - as is transparent from my other comments.

I think we do agree - when I say "facts are realities" I am NOT talking
about reported information regarding thes "facts" but the actual happenings,
the realities that may be lost to view but that are nevertheless for ever
what they were in the first place. The biological paternity of an individual
may have to be taken on trust by genealogists - as indeed by the person
involved - but still each human being in fact has just one immediate
progenitor and one progenitrix. There can be no "fuzziness" about this,
until genetic engineering & cloning in the species become realities.

Peter Stewart

Richard Smyth at Road Run

Re: An encomium for genealogy

Legg inn av Richard Smyth at Road Run » 11 jan 2005 13:41:02

From the point of view of the logic of science, genealogy (in contrast
with family history) should be classified as a science of
classification,
rather than a science of explanation.

I think this is a bit myopic as most serious genealogists are
interested in the why and how as much as the event. You
seem to have the perception that genealogy is just about
filling a database of names, places and dates.



I believe my comments agree with each of the only senses of the word
"genealogy" that are recognized in the OED. Those are as follows:



"An account of one's descent from an ancestor or ancestors, by enumeration
of the intermediate persons; a pedigree. . . .†2. Lineage, pedigree, family
stock. Ob . . . .†3. Progeny, offspring. Obs. . . .4. The investigation of
family pedigrees, viewed as a department of study or knowledge."



What you say I am myopic about, I do see. I call it family history.



Regards,

Richard Smyth

smyth@nc.rr.com

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