On Monday, June 27, 2016 at 5:02:30 PM UTC-7, Peter Stewart wrote: > > Let's go at this a different way. Addressing whether Ed Mann is > > competent to reach a definitive conclusion on the question takes us a > > step away from the issue. Any time it becomes a question of the > > genealogists rather than of the evidence, we are making it about > > modern people rather than about medieval people. > > Though I agree with this up to a point, I don't think Ed Mann's competence has been put at issue in this thread. > I was just using Ed as a proxy for the general issue - which is the more important question: 1) what has a past genealogist concluded (whoever that may be) and are they to be believed, or 2) what do the data say? What I want to impress on paulorica is that one is better off focusing on the evidence rather than what others in the past have concluded, perhaps with less information, perhaps with less current information, perhaps with a poor understanding of the underlying principles. Here we have discussed the evidence, so it is a backwards step to turn focus away from the evidence and instead look to what genealogists have concluded, whether they be hunters or gatherers. taf

On 28/06/2016 10:56 AM, taf via wrote: > On Monday, June 27, 2016 at 5:02:30 PM UTC-7, Peter Stewart wrote: > >>> Let's go at this a different way. Addressing whether Ed Mann is >>> competent to reach a definitive conclusion on the question takes us a >>> step away from the issue. Any time it becomes a question of the >>> genealogists rather than of the evidence, we are making it about >>> modern people rather than about medieval people. >> Though I agree with this up to a point, I don't think Ed Mann's competence has been put at issue in this thread. >> > I was just using Ed as a proxy for the general issue - which is the more important question: 1) what has a past genealogist concluded (whoever that may be) and are they to be believed, or 2) what do the data say? What I want to impress on paulorica is that one is better off focusing on the evidence rather than what others in the past have concluded, perhaps with less information, perhaps with less current information, perhaps with a poor understanding of the underlying principles. > > Here we have discussed the evidence, so it is a backwards step to turn focus away from the evidence and instead look to what genealogists have concluded, whether they be hunters or gatherers. > This is the point up to which I agree - and the same applies to primary sources: what matters is all the available evidence (direct and circumstantial), rather than just what any person (including a medieval one) has written. Most primary sources only record what was believed or concluded by someone at a point closer to the facts than we are today, while not necessarily knowing these facts as thoroughly or examining them as carefully as may be possible today. Peter Stewart