On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:00:03 AM UTC-7, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> I appreciate the response, and yes it is true, but not all people can approach something from that neutral place and keep a clear head!
True.
> So who decides who has made the better case?
We each do, individually, based on our own evaluation of the evidence each has presented in favor of their viewpoint.
> So far I haven't seen compelling evidence that would lead to not proven, and yet it
> is being defended as if there is a smoking gun definitively tossing out Richardson's
> conclusions.
This is a non-sequitur. Mr. Richardson is portraying the connection as 'fact' and they are arguing that it is 'not sure', whereas were there the type of smoking gun you describe available, they would be arguing 'surely not'. It is an inherent tension within scholarship what level of evidence is sufficient to justify presenting a hypothesis as unquestioned fact, and they are suggesting that the evidence in this case does not rise to that level, that there is sufficient reason for uncertainty that it shouldn'e be represented as fact, not that it can be definitively labeled it a falsehood.
> I just wanted to know why Richardson is so sure of his conclusions and work from
> there, but evidently that is even too much for those people I have just mentioned-
Well, I know this will sound like more backstabbing, but there are reasons that animosity has built up here over the years. Let's just say that you are unlikely to see Mr. Richardson seriously consider the possibility that he might have reached an insufficiently-supported conclusion, an attitude that tends not to go over well with others who are equally expert, but disagree. And you are right, it all gets in the way of productive discussion of genealoigcal cunnundra, _by both sides_.
taf