On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> I am somewhat saddened by David Killick's remarks regarding the ancient tin 
> mining fiasco. For example, his second paragraph begins ..."For some reason sc
> ientists, ( the underlining is mine) even quite eminent ones, have an 
> unfortunate tendency to lose their powers of reason when confronted with 
> questions of race, culture and history".....I site as one example of an 
> eminent scientist, the late Cyril Stanley Smith, who would not be considered 
> by anyone I know to have lost his reason when considering questions of race, 
> culture and history. Should David not have said some scientists! Can any one 
> out there not recall some of the thunderous fallacies published by 
> archaeologists? Remember also that Davidovits shared his (published) ideas 
> with an archaeologist (for example, their early ideas on the Cusco walls 
> given at the Brookhaven Archaeometry Symposium)!

The third paragraph of my original message DOES specify that I am talking
about SOME scientists - perhaps Bob might have read this far before
hitting the "Reply" button. For myself, I lay offerings daily at my
(virtual)shrine to Cyril Stanley Smith! (For those who don't see American
Scientist, I might note parenthetically that the editors of that
journal selected Smith's "A Search for Structure" as one of the 100 best
science books - unranked - of the 20th century). Nor would I ever include
the two Bobs (Maddin and Gordon)among those scientists whose brains turn
to mush when confronting matters human. Their work has been an inspiration
to me.

I must also point out that few archaeologists, to my knowledge, have ever
felt that their training entitles them to make bold claims about
cosmology, particle physics or the chemical bond. So why is it that SOME
physicists (especially) chemists and biologists feel qualified to
speculate wildly about modern society, race, history and archaeology?

 ----------------------
David Killick
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0030.
Phones: office (520)621-8685; laboratory 621-7986; fax 621-2088
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