Arguments supporting telescope are fallacies

Posted by alanakahea at Jun 23, 2009 10:03 PM |

From Alana:

The following letter to the editor, published in The Maui News newspaper, plainly shows that the logic UH uses to defend its proposed telescope is very flawed.

A fallacious argument is made that because Hawaiians revered astronomy, then anything done in the 21st century with respect to astronomy is automatically consistent with Hawaiian spirituality. It’s like saying because Hawaiians revere kalo and because a company wants to genetically modify kalo they’re actually not at cross purposes – they both have proper respect for kalo, they’re just looking at it differently. That logic is unacceptable!
It is also unacceptable logic that infers that during the 19th century period of Hawaiian monarchy, Kalakaua introduced telescopes to Hawaii and he would be – and we should be – in favor of the ATST. Well, Kalakaua also introduced electricity to Hawaii. Shouldn’t we, by the same logic, light up Maui – or at least the top of Haleakala – at night with electric lights? Of course not!

For Kiope Raymond’s entire analysis click here.


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