Just by way of an introduction:
I’m new at this and looking forward to seeing where this takes me. I’ve always been curious about the world around me and had many and varied interests. Mother and father got tired of answering my questions and saved up for an encyclopedia so that they could tell me “go read about it.” That was before I could even read. My three biggest interests, the ones with the most passion, are the languages of the Bible and some of its earliest translations, writing, and the guitar. The first is something I’ve pursued all my life as the resources became available to me; the other two are older passions and desires I’ve only begun to explore now, in my sixth decade of life.
The first is, of course, largely a part of my life as a committed Christian, now for some thirty-seven years. I definitely cannot be called mainstream as far as being a Christian goes. However, I follow the evidence where it leads me, with the Bible as the ultimate authority. That should explain my interest in biblical related languages, I made the vow that one day no translator with his bias, no matter how honestly held, would stand between me and God’s word. I’m amazed at the resources which God has now made available through the net, resources I could only dream of as little as ten years ago. So I feel a bit like a kid in a candy store now as opportunities abound. Naturally my faith informs my views in other areas, such as politics, however, do be careful trying to put me in a box there. As I wrote, I’m not mainstream by just about any definition of the word.
I'm not too sure how much space here will be devoted to the other two. Maybe just enough to keep friends updated as to going's on in my life where they are concerned.
Among my interests listed in my profile I mentioned one soapbox issue which will probably be written on time and again, the misuse of science in pursuit of an agenda. I do hold a science degree in the social sciences. So I do have a basis for examining the issue. While in college I noticed a body of research which was being published in medical journals which had no basis for the lofty status it was being given. The research I refer to was the research into guns and gun control published by such men as Dr. Arthur Kellerman. That work was done using inappropriate methodologies and amounted to junk science. More than one of the esteemed doctor’s papers have been debunked, even by other M.D.s within his own scholarly community and I find it amazing that this agenda driven work still gets cited as authoritative.
When I became aware of "Global Warming” science and checked it out, I found it to be on no better a foundation than the gun research. So the misuse of science for political ends has become something of a soapbox issue for me.
Before he died, Michael Crichton wrote the following in his notes on The Thirteenth Warrior:
“I mention this because the tendency to blend the boundaries of fact and fiction has become widespread in modern society. Fiction is now inserted seamlessly in everything from scholarly histories to television news. Of course, television is understood to be venal, its transgressions shrugged off by most of us. But the attitude of “post-modern” scholars represents a more fundamental challenge. Some in academic life now argue seriously there is no difference between fact and fiction, that all ways of reading text are arbitrary and personal, and that therefore pure fiction is as valid as hard research. At best, this attitude evades traditional scholarship; at worst, it is nasty and dangerous. But such academic views were not prevalent twenty years ago, when I sat down to write this novel in the guise of a scholarly monograph, and academic fashion may change again—particularly if scholars find themselves chasing down imaginary footnotes, as I have done.”
Unfortunately, things didn’t improve, not in the history discipline, and for sure not in the sciences, where we’ve seen the sad spectacle of scientists being outed for flagrant violations of scientific ethics. That more than one panel found those violations to be consistent with current scientific practice is a sad commentary on the state of things in our time.
Well, that’s all for now. I look forward to seeing folks around.
Stanley Loper
