Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tt00004)

Rich:

> > I don't quite get it.  I agree that the article is important and
> > thought-provoking.  The part I don't get is how it shows that
> > modern archeology is approaching HPB's teaching so much.
>
> I didn't say that.  [What I said was that] it is not unreasonable
> to expect that archeology will SOMEDAY come closer to the S.D.,
> given that many other fields are doing so NOW.  This article may
> be a step toward dialogue, thus faciliating "approach."

Sorry.  I probably jumped to a wrong conclusion because of your
enthusiasm.  What the heck--maybe the article can be considered
"amazing" as merely a "step toward dialogue" rather than an
actual dialogue with modern archeology (which would imply that
archeologists are now willing to take the SD seriously enough to
also join in such a discussion).  Certainly, the author deserves
credit for being willing to suggest an alternative explanation
for the differences in time measurement because of possible
problems with radiometric dating (although I previously saw Jerry
H-E nicely present the same thing in his discussion of the age of
the moon).

> > Unfortunately, the only example of similarity of sequence given
> > is the agreement that dinosaurs left the scene before the rise of
> > the mammals.
>
> No, this is where we should go back and read the original article
> again.  The S.D.  and modern science give almost entirely the
> same sequences in the SAME order, but with very different time
> frames, one making things contemporaneous where another says they
> weren't and vice versa.

I did my re-reading but still find the same thing.  I again get
the impression that Mr.  Savage did not regard the basic
similarity (between science and SD) in geologic sequence as
something other than a ~given~ and which in itself might not be
so surprising.  He does not even shy away from mentioning this
right up front: "The SD's geologic timeline was derived from (1)
thicknesses of sedimentation layers, given in Andre Lefevre's
1879 book LA PHILOSOPHIE [.  .  .]."

Thus, if HPB used this science of the day to calculate the
percentages for "SD time etc.," it might not be unreasonable to
assume that she happened to notice the sequence of various
sedimentation layers as well.  (On the other hand, HPB might have
derived the basic sequence independently of this--who really
knows?) Anyway, Mr.  Savage does not seem to try to make a
special point about this general similarity; rather, he choses to
highlight the following: "An example of agreement on events and
difference in timelines is the extinction of the dinosaurs and
the rise of mammals."

Is there another example of a specific event (where archeology
and the SD agree) which I missed? Naturally, I do not count the
material he gives about the root-races, since I don't think that
modern archeology has also discovered, for example, that there
were once people who had physical bodies of "such low densities
that they might seem like clouds rolling over the landscape."
Neither do I count the "human footprints" and "dinosaur
pictographs," since even Mr.  Savage regards them as
"controversal."

> What inspired me was not that current science and HPB agree on
> these things, because as the article pointed out--they don't.
> What was inspiring was to see someone sit down, work out the
> dates that the S.D.'s teaching implies, compare those dates to
> current science, and speculate on how they might be reconciled,
> i.e.  inconstancy in radiometric dating.  I was inspired by the
> dialogue between Theosophical teachings and scientific ones, and
> I think we don't do enough of that.

I agree.  Nicely put.