Martin, no amount of prevarication on your part affects the accuracy of my statement "So at present and until there is proof either way each hypothesis is equally valid."
It is your personal judgment--belief, if you will--that there is no proof against the New Britain hypothesis.
It is my personal judgment--belief, if you will--that the aerodynamics of NR16020 and the physics of radio transmissions logged by the
Itasca prove that the New Britain hypothesis is not valid.
I believe I have data on my side.
I haven't seen you introduce any data on your side of the question, other than to express your conviction (belief) that the claim of finding a tag on the engine mount of the New Britain wreck is believable. If you would be so kind as to produce a similar tag from any Lockheed aircraft, it would go a long way to establish the plausibility of the anecdote; in the absence of that kind of data, I do not find the claim persuasive.
That is something you simply have to get used to.
Why?
May I not challenge authority?
May I not question assertions?
Your field is digging and dating, but I don't see any archaeology involved in this anecdote about the numbered tag.
I said once before that to question something is not necessarily to oppose it - instead it is simply a means to seek clarification.
I did
ask seven questions. What I got back from you was
the reply, "So's your old man": "Martin is conveniently ignoring that much of the Nikumaroro hypothesis is both anecdotal (islander claims of aircraft wreckage and male and female skeletons) and artifacts yet to be conclusively linked to Earhart." The status of the evidence for the Niku hypothesis does not answer any of the questions about the New Britain hypothesis.
You seem to be having some trouble distinguishing between questions, assertions, and data. Let's take this sample from an
earlier post of yours in this thread:
"The C/N number is that of the aircraft not the engine - that is why it is attached to the engine mount which is a part of the airframe not the engine. It also was the airframe part that suffered damage in the ground loop.
That is why it is so interesting, that C/N matches that of Lockheed's for Earhart's Electra. A coincidence? possibly,
but something that is a worthy of a properly financed expedition to find."
1. "The C/N number is that of the aircraft not the engine ..."
Assertion, not a question.
Data: definition of terms. "Constructor numbers" are assigned to airframes, not to components of same.
2. "That is why it is attached to the engine mount which is a part of the airframe not the engine."
Speculative assertion, not a question.
This is the claim that is in doubt and which stands in need of evidence.
Data: anecdote from an interested party. This claim is not an object of science or archaeology. It can't be examined by laboratory techniques or dated by stratigraphy or nuclear decay. It cannot be falsified or verified by scientific methods. It may not be false, but whatever value it has must be determined by non-scientific methods.
3. "It also was the airframe part that suffered damage in the ground loop."
Assertion, not a question.
Data: none provided. I'll grant that
the wreck photo suggests damage to an engine mount on the right-hand side.
4. "
That is why it is so interesting, that C/N matches that of Lockheed's for Earhart's Electra."
Two assertions, neither one of which is a question.
The first, that the match is "interesting," depends upon the second: "That C/N matches that of Lockheed's for Earhart's Electra."
Data: anecdote accepted on faith that the witness 1) saw such a tag; 2) correctly copied the number; 3) reported accurately what he saw.
I'm a believer in many things. I believe that faith in reason and faith in the intelligibility of the universe is warranted. But I don't believe that I am obliged by
science to take the word of the witness. There seem to me to be ample grounds for reasonable doubt about the report.
I admit that these judgments are my own. I take responsibility for what I believe. I don't mind you believing differently from me. What I object to is the claim that
science requires me to neglect aerodynamics and physics on the grounds that a human witness could not have been mistaken about a number on an engine mount in a wrecked aircraft. That assertion does not seem to be warranted by the data we have available in this case.