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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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This thread is a compilation of interesting theorists and theories who are worth knowing about.
Thomas Gold
This guy is very mainstream, and he was responsible for many theories in many fields. His first splash was figuring out that the hair in your ears acts very similar to an amplifier.
My reason for putting this here is is "Deep Hot Biosphere" thesis, which says that the alleged "fossil" fuels are the biological byproducts of microscopic lifeforms that live entirely within the earth's crust.
He claims that, given the size of the crust, the amount of life living in the crevices and gaps in the rocks is much greater than the life on the surface of the earth. And this living and dying and decomposing life gives off oil and gas and even coal (though I don't remember the coal story exactly).
The methane vents at the seafloor and the life that exists there are, if I recall, a chip he puts forward as supporting his argument.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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The Gold Effect
I once asked my favorite climate denier a question about Gold's deep hot biosphere idea, and he told me he'd never heard of it. This was amazing, he said, because he himself had written the Wikipedia article on the "Gold Effect." A concept that will be very familiar to everyone here.
| The Gold effect is the phenomenon in which a scientific idea, particularly in medicine, is developed to the status of an accepted position within a professional body or association by the social process itself of scientific conferences, committees, and consensus building, despite not being supported by conclusive evidence. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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My initial thought as a contribution to this thread was Ivan Illich though I'm not sure whether he qualifies as fruitcake or is particularly unknown (another desideratum). He's probably a favourite of Prince Charles. As I call him, much to his irritation.
All I can say is that Illich was considered 'alternative' before that was a label and he influenced the hell out of the young me. I don't know whether I'd be impressed with him now I am so much more alternative than he ever dreamed was possible. De-Schooling Society? No, Ivan, I dream of a no-schooling society.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Palaeolithic Continuity Theory is well worth a look in Wiley's opnion.
The core idea is that there was no significant discontinuity or influx of new populations that brought Indo-European languages to Europe. Instead, the theory proposes a gradual, continuous development from Paleolithic populations.
http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html
It relied heavily on the Italian linguist Mario Alinei, it certainly offers a devastating critique of ortho, even if you don't agree with the proposed solutions.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| it certainly offers a devastating critique of ortho |
It is this factor that makes the study of conspiracy theories de rigueur for AE-ists. It's a full time job for these people and there are one hell of a lot of them. And every one of them on a mission.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | The Palaeolithic Continuity Theory is well worth a look in Wiley's opnion. |
I read the page you linked, and then tried to find Alinei's work in English (but alas...)
It is interesting and reminds of THOBR, but I thought it also went very wrong, here:
| In fact, the differences in the lexicon of the grammatical structure shown by most language phyla should suffice to disqualify as meaningless any research aiming at reconstructing a universal monogenetic lexicon (cp. e.g. Ruhlen 1994). |
As a convinced Ruhlenite, I can't agree. The evidence Ruhlen and other monogeneticists bring to bear is as overwhelming as any other linguistic evidence I know of. The author of the article brushes it away on flimsy grounds (i.e., "but the languages are so different").
All in all, I still like it better than PIE invaders from India! I'm going to read more on that site.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | My initial thought as a contribution to this thread was Ivan Illich though I'm not sure whether he qualifies as fruitcake or is particularly unknown (another desideratum). |
For me, Illich was a springboard to others of the de-schooling bent. In the USA, we had this guy called John Taylor Gatto who made a splash by winning "Schoolteacher of the Year" for all of New York state (or some such award title), at which point he promptly resigned and then published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how public school should be abolished. We call this a "power move."
Gatto is a folk hero of sorts (i.e., in my mind). Instead of making his students sit in class, he allowed the more flexible minded to use their school days to go out into the city and do things like get part time jobs and report back, or go to local businesses and do informal internships with them in whatever situation they could arrange. Nowadays this is a good way to go to jail.
Wikipedia does a terrific job of summarizing his main thesis:
"Gatto asserts the following regarding what school does to children in Dumbing Us Down:
* It confuses the students. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials, this programming is similar to the television; it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again.
* It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
* It makes them indifferent.
* It makes them emotionally dependent.
* It makes them intellectually dependent.
* It teaches them a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
* It makes it clear to them that they cannot hide, because they are always supervised"
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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And I should have kept reading the Wiki article, because this gem immediately follows:
| Wade A. Carpenter, associate professor of education at Berry College, has called his books "scathing", "angry" "one-sided and hyperbolic, [but] not inaccurate". Ron Paul endorsed Gatto's work. Gatto's thesis contained neither sources nor peer-reviewed evidence to support his claims. |
Peer-review junkies just can't help themselves.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The problem with all offbeat educational theories is they require terrific teachers. (Some require terrific pupils too.) The only educational theories that allow the people who apply to teacher training colleges to teach pupils who go to compulsory state schools will be very similar to the ones we all know too well.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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Add to that the fact (at least in the US) that teachers are allowed to self-select themselves into this vital societal role. This results in eighteen year old high school graduates---mostly girls---deciding on their own that they will be the unionized permanent educators of the American child. I suppose it's better than teenage boys making that decision for us.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Ah, teaching unions... yes. Industrial Workers of the World Unite.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Gatto's thesis contained neither sources nor peer-reviewed evidence to support his claims. |
Remind to pen a polemic on this.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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Buckminster Fuller
What's not to like? I tried to convince my wife, whose maiden name is Buck, to let me name out first-born Buckminster Fuller Jones, and we could then call him Buck Jones as a double omage.
I gobbled up every book I could after reading his Critical Path, and it's hard to say what the theory is that may or may not be fruitcake. I suppose his all out war on the quadrangle is pretty odd. He's the Champion of Triangles, thankyouverymuch, and I've never been more riveted by a fight over shapes.
He coined the idea of "Spaceship Earth," which feels somewhat akin to Gaia Theory. He also inspired the great American fruitcake-genius Lyndon LaRouche. Mostly genius. You don't want to be too flippant about LaRouche in public lest his army of cultists track you down (and I live about 10 miles away from their headquarters)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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He's disqualified. Too famous and not fruitcake enough. Something for your son to aspire to. Talking of omages (that's how posh Americans spell 'homages') Buckminster Fuller ('Buckminster' to his friends) got his idea for a geodesic dome (I lived in one once) from Barnes Wallis's design of the Wellington bomber (or not as the case may be).
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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I accept this judgment. But I think he did posit, in Critical Path, that humans are evolved from dolphins, or some such thing.
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