dates

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Bob Peck wrote:

> I am not a formal Indologist but rather a research scientist with
> advanced training in energy conversion, transport and storage that
> seems to be fairly closely related to the ancient concepts.

Dear Bob,

If you read the membership rules of this list, available at
www.indology.org.uk, and especially the "Scope" of the list, you will see
that I really have tried hard to make this a list for specialists with a
university-level knowledge of Classical Indian studies, and preferably a
knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian, Tamil, or another classical language of
India.

You will note that I am particularly keen that research scientists should
not participate in INDOLOGY, since the long experience of this list is
that the most highly qualified scientists make the very worst indologists.

There is something about the current scientific culture that leads its
members to believe that their academic skills are more generalizable than
they really are.

You are very welcome to lurk, but your statement that you are not an
Indologist suggests that the list is not primarily a forum of first resort
for you.

Sorry if this seems harsh, but turn it around: a list for particle physics
or soil science would not normally be an appropriate forum for people with
no formal training in these fields, who do not attend the professional
conferences or regularly subscribe to the professional journals.  Imagine
how members of a list for main-sequence stellar observations would be if a
Sanskritist jumped in with lots of striking new ideas about the *real*
meaning of stars.

--
Dominik Wujastyk
Founder, INDOLOGY list.