JES,
Despite that your post above indicates that you may done with the rational conversation phase of all of this, I do want to thank you for answering my question a few posts above.
I do appreciate it. I wonder why the rest will not answer? Not Mr. Morrison, not Patrick, not even Mike Cirba, who pops in occassional with a joke or two. Not even Bryan Izzat, who asked for me to lay out my position a while ago. In fairness, I didnt ask Bryan or Mike, but still I am curious as to their answers
Anyway, I had hoped I addressed most of your concerns in your post above , but here is a more direct answer if you are still interested.
To me that means he (CBM) did not include it in his resume.
Why would he not include it (even while paying respect to Wilson) if he had anything of note to contribute?
Interesting speculation, and very similar to one Patrick came up with a few pages back. However, I don’t think the facts support it. But I am no expert on CBM, so maybe I am wrong.
Did CBM keep copius records of every project on which he advised? I believe that others have identified courses at which he advised, but I don’t recall ever reading a mention of them by CBM. But if he really did keep copious records of everything he did,and if there was no mention of advising at Merion in these records, I’d agree with you that this would be pretty compelling evidence that he was not involved at Merion. But without this, I do not think your conclusion holds up.
Interestingly, the logic underlying your conclusion is very similar to that of TEPaul and Mr. Morrison, although yours in not irreparable. Your argument also uses general proposition to disprove a specific instance. In your case the general proposition is that
one’s resume, diaries, work journal or similar documents will generally indicate one’s level of involvement in all of the projects in which one was specifically involved. While this may generally be true, it is not always true. Therefore it cannot be used to disprove CBM’s involvement.
But as I said, unlike theirs, your analysis may be salvageable. For example if you recast it as:
1. MacDonald kept copious records of every project in which he was involved, and those records are still available.
3. MacDonald’s records contain no reference to his alleged involvement at Merion.
5. Therefore, MacDonald was not involved in Merion.
If you can prove your premeses, then your conclusion logically follows.
What exactly is the topic you are interested in?
The story of golf course design in America, including the rejection of Dark Age design and adoption of a design style which returned to the strategies and aesthetics of the links. Merion and NGLA are very important in this regard, but I think for slightly different reasons. I am also interested in the procedural and logical pitfalls one faces when conducting historical research and analysis. It is easy to get tripped up when dealing with information that is by its very nature quite speculative, and it is easy to be duped. These guys are trying to rewrite history of something important to me using wholly fallacious reasoning, and so I feel compelled to call them on it.
Can you show me where someone denied CBM providng counsel (per our agreed upon definition of "advise") to Wilson?
I'm not at all hell bent in trying to wipe Macdonald from the Merion archives. What gives you that idea. I admit over and over that he was a key figure in the early stages of Wilson's preparation for his trip to the UK and his understanding of golf course building and design principals. We just don't have any information beyond that. I await facts and not extrapolations of vague phrases that we cannot know the true implications of. You go on your flights of fancy, I'll stay here and conduct further research based on long-proven principals of scientific method.
my bolds.
I’d say that denying any information exists is Mr. Morrison’s way of denying that CBM provided counsel. And whatever TEPaul surely isn’t willing to give any credit for for CBM’s role as advisor:
. . . [/b]I just think it's patently perposterous to assign much credit to a couple of guys from New York who may've showed up down here for a few hours a couple of times compared to men who slaved away on that course for 10-15 and 20 years to make it what it is.[/b]
If you could see those 2,000 letters between Wilson and Piper and Oakley a couple of times a week and for thirteen straight years and then a couple of guys who hardly know Merion make a big deal out of a couple of mentions of a guy "advising". I think that's what is preposterous.
Most every bit of credit for Merion East needs to go to the people who were right here in Philadelphia and worked on that course every day for a couple decades until they finally got it the way they wanted it and then they stopped.
(my bolds.)
JES said:
To be sure, you will need to provide some evidence about his counsel if you are going to referrence TEP and WM discounting any post-UK trip information.
Strong evidence does exist that he advised in laying out the course. I am not sure why that is not enough, especially since it is about the only evidence still surviving.
Personally, I think you are trying to bolster his involvement because you cannot grasp a committee paying acknowledgement to a guy that existed (to them) solely as an outside advisor. I think the committee was quite happy to have CBM as a backup if a problem exceeded their grasp.
You and others keep saying I am bolstering, and it has been said so much that even I am starting to think it may be true, but the only “evidence” offered to back up the bolstering claim is unsupported speculation.
Let me put it this way, if you asked me to give you and example of bolstering your argument beyond the existing factual record, I’d say
just above where you claim that the committee acknowledged CBM despite that he was just an outside advisor and a backup. You have no facts to support this, so IMO this is bolstering.
So I ask again. Where am I bolstering? What am I claiming that does not have a factual basis?
Thanks again for answering my question. I hope this explanation clears some things up for you about where I am coming from.
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Mr. Morrison,
I am sorry for not remembering you from the outing. I mean no offense; I just have an embarrassingly bad memory for such things. Nonetheless, I apologize.
I am glad we agree that you guys have found very little specific information about the relevant time period. Or as you would say:
”It is true that not a lot is known about who did what in the initial design at Merion . . . .“ What do you think . . . will this agreement be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?
We have been focusing on the
initial design and construction of Merion East. I am not aware of any evidence that CBM was involved after that. Are you? If not, then the tremendous amount of evidence you have found about 1916 is I am sure interesting, but entirely beside the point at issue here.
Here is what I don’t get about your post:
Since you again broke your silence to respond, then why not answer my question? The question seems pretty straightforward to me. And pertinent. So why not answer? You’ve mentioned your “scientific” approach and your sound methodology on a number of occasions, so why not explain it to us all?. . .
You deleted some of your extremely offensive and obnoxious posts to me because you did not want to engage me? Interesting. Surely you realize that you had already engaged me before you deleted them, and that your deleting them would not cause me to disengage. Never mind. Whatever your explanations, your offensive and defamatory posts are long gone now, just like information regarding the details of the original design at Merion East. So tell me, now that you have destroyed your half of the relevant record of our conversation, do you think it reasonable to conclude that you never made the comments? After all, posts generally don’t just disappear, do they?
If you or anyone else cares to think about why this business about the disappearing posts is fallacious logic, you will have your explanation of why TEPaul's and Mr. Morrison's logic is equally fallacious.
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TEPaul, you can think what you want about the Crump episode, but many of us witnessed the entire embarrassing episode. Yet, like with the main issue in this thread, you again try to rewrite history. And like with the main issue, the facts do not support your conclusions.