Hello Loopers!

In this issue:

This Week's Show: Hugh Fox

Op/Ed: Tools of the trade

Other news: First in North America

Events: Send your organization's events to oz@...

Last week's show: The Short Month


Site of the week www.grailseekers.com



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This Week's Show: Hugh Fox, Phoenicians in Central & South America

Hugh Fox, author, researcher, scholar, identified clear evidence of
Phoenician influence in tribes in Mexico, Peru, and Chile. He drew together
evidence from Santiago Chile to Paris. He'll tell us about it and take
questions.

Please tune in this Thursday at 9 PM Eastern


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Op/Ed: Tools of the Trade

My words and how I choose them, string them together, punctuate them, pace
them, or eat them, these are my tools. Well, these are my main tools. The
internet and all it offers, for good or ill, is also an important toolbox.
What I see as the most important tool in that particular toolbox is the vast
network of diligent researchers who are willing to share their methods,
data, and conclusion with the world. I don't always agree with them, but I
am always willing to spend the time to read what they have to say.
Sometimes, I would like to share with them another important tool in that
box called a "spellchecker", but that doesn't, for me at least, detract from
the importance of their work. These folks are the heart of the diffusion
"community" and they deserve accolades for their work, ingenuity, and
courage. Even when they are wrong, they should be commended for trying. When
they are right, the results are even more unacceptable to some folks, mostly
in the academic world, than when they are not completely correct in the
conclusions drawn or methods used. The data almost always speaks for itself.
I say "almost" because the ability to interpret data also plays an important
role. Data that can be easily misinterpreted by a lay researcher might
include ground penetrating radar, magnetometer, photographs, topographical
forms and geo-location, linguistic forms, and skeletal evidence to name a
few. Some tasks truly are best left to the specialists. Without ever having
touched one before, I'm confident I could operate a ground penetrating radar
set and acquire data with it, but interpreting that data with any level of
proficiency is another matter altogether.

A solid background in the "hard sciences", physics, chemistry, math,
astronomy, etc., is one of the major enabling factors in validating data is
this general area of study, at least with certain types of data. Those
backgrounds mean little when working in linguistics, for example. But having
a grasp of those "core" sciences is a major contributor to being skilled at
interpreting data in general. I'm weak on that linguistics thing, but I'm
fairly adept at the more technical data in general and I am expert or on
the verge of expertness in some specific areas. However, if I were in a
position of interpreting data for publication, whether on the internet for
other diffusionists or for some formal review by academia, and even within
my areas of expertise, I would recruit other folks with requisite expertise
to also interpret the data, just to add a level of validation and
credibility. This is not only a good practice, it is an important part of
scientific method. And without practicing scientific method, we will never
have the ear of academia, whether our conclusions are correct or not.

The conclusions (called synthesis in educational terms) is more than just
repeating the results of the data reduction and validation phase, it is also
providing predictions of future events or findings based on the outcome of
the present work. Even academia and formal education lose sight of this on
occasion. Some, particularly in the particle physics, climatology, and
cosmology arenas, take it to an extreme well beyond what the data actually
indicates and the result is sometimes wild claims that can neither be
validated not debunked. I don't want that for this community. Conclusions
should be reserved but assertive, self-contained, but open for constructive
influence, self-consistent, but acknowledge variables and contradictory
findings.

These are the tools of the trade for diffusion research.

This section is for you, the audience. You are welcome to contribute to it
either as a letter to the editor or an editorial. Submit your "stuff" to
oz@...

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We've had an incredibly prolonged period of wet weather here at Possum
Holler. The studio is flooded, but the show WILL go on, even if I have to
wear waders.

Your host's travel schedule for the year has become quite crowded. Norway,
Nova Scotia, Quebec, other parts of Canada, Minnesota, South Dakota,
Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Maine,
Illinois, and Ohio are on the itenery for one purpose or another. Iin
addition to the credit card, both the motorhome and the ol' pickup truck
will get real workouts this year, while the party boat will get some rest.


Other news:

Pint-sized primates were first in North America. Leaping, furry mini-monkeys
that were as small as mice crossed the Bering land bridge long before
humans, representing North America's oldest known primates.

a.. Prehistoric stone circle unearthed in India - 2 days ago An ancient
human burial site, estimated to be 3,000 years old, was unearthed at
Drugdhamna on Nagpur-Amravati road by the department of ancient Indian
history, culture and archaeology, Rashtrasant Tuk...
a.. Heaney claims motorway near Tara desecrates sacred landscape - 2 days
ago Poet and Nobel laureate Séamus Heaney has described the M3 motorway as a
ruthless desecration of the sacred landscape around the Hill of Tara, in a
BBC documentary broadcast last...
a.. Ancient toy or whistle found in Cyprus - 2 days ago A small masterpiece
of coroplastic Early Bronze Age Cyprus (3500- 2000 BCE), believed to be a
water whistle or a toy, was found during the excavations at
Pyrgos/Mavrorachi, in...
a.. Drill near London to find evidence of ancient occupation - 2 days ago
Archaeologists from Durham University will be returning to a London borough
site (England) where a 19th century historian once found flint tools and
animal bones. This time, however, the latest...
a.. Power works avoid Scottish prehistoric site - 2 days ago
Did the Chinese beat Columbus to America?

A Speck of Sunlight Is a Town’s Yearly Alarm Clock


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Events: Send your organization's events to oz@...
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Last week's show: The Short Month

How February got robbed! The Gregorian calendar is but the latest version of
man's attempt to quantify and predict the passage of time.

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Site of the week www.grailseekers.com



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Thanks for listening

Your host
Rick Osmon, aka Oz
http://oopaloopacafe.com to find great info about guests and previous shows


http://blogtalkradio.com/oopa-loopa-cafe to listen to the live shows and
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Call in during show (646) 652-2720

Mobile (not during live show, please) (812) 259-1102

oz@...
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.18/1255 - Release Date: 2/1/2008
9:59 AM


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