Stellarium
take off two sky cultures from the download due to fundamental mistakes
Expected Behaviour
With the new Sky Culture features in this March Release, we want to push our offer of SCs to a next level. I would like to have the SCs reliable, i.e. scientifically correct and well-documented.
Actual Behaviour
- The "Egyptian" SC does not fulfill these criteria: neither is it well-documented, nor is it scientifically correct. Whenever I meet Egyptologists at conferences, they tell me that this is wrong - I (with their support) need to redo it; but I did not have the time yet to deal with that. I only did the circular Denderah Zodiac (which is not clearly Egyptian any more, and therefore part of my multicultural case-study), and hope to do the earlier Egyptian constellations with peer-reviewing by Egyptologists like Christian Leitz, Daniela Mendel-Leitz, Juan Belmonte, Sarah Symons ... and others later. The only one that we all can confirm right now is that the Digitalis-version is actually mostly wrong, and useless for research as well as for the public.
Therefore, I suggest to exclude it from the release. So, we would then have no Egyptian SC (but better no one than further distributing wrong information), only the late Denderah version which shows Babylonian and other influences. I have it on my list to create a new Egyptian SC ... but this requires some research time.
- The Maya SC seems to be well-documented (the text looks good, citations are given). However, due to a scientific question that I had last year, I interviewes some Maya-experts. All of them told me, independent from one another, that this SC is wrong. I don't want to publicize all the mail exchanges, but just grep out two quotes to sum it up: "Never heard of the two contributors. And Aveni certainly would not agree as he supports the Brickers analysis of the Paris Codex Zodiac. Looks like the string of citations really doesn’t support their ids except possibly the dissertation by another person unknown to me. Guess this is not really on the level of peer-reviewed scholarship—more like whoever takes the time to make an entry. Sort of like social media in general. " and another one "I wouldn't trust many of these identifications because a lot of them are made up by contemporary "shaman", who tend to apply these constructs to their "history""... I conclude, the images are historically correct but at the wrong positions in the sky (sometimes 180° from where they belong).
We need to rework the SC.
I suggest to leave both in the repository for future reference, but to exclude them from the downloadable version of Stellarium (as we are currently tidying up). I promise that I will upgrade them (ASAP, but P is probably not within this year) with expert peers. Both have a high potential to be highly requested - both by the public and in academia.
System
- Stellarium version: doesn't matter, 24.4
- Operating system: doesn't matter, Windows (more frequently) and Linux
Logfile
irrelevant as this concerns the dataset that we provide
@10110111 should we exclude text for translation from excluded (to distribution) skycultures too?
should we exclude text for translation from excluded (to distribution) skycultures too?
No, I'm afraid this will lose the existing translations for them. We don't know how much of the text will change when these SCs are reworked, maybe much of the e.g. names will be preserved, so the translators' work won't be all for naught.
Hello @sushoff!
Please check the fresh version (development snapshot) of Stellarium: https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium-data/releases/tag/weekly-snapshot
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Hello @sushoff!
Please check the latest stable version of Stellarium: https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium/releases/latest
Hello @sushoff
I am one of the "unknown social media writers", as one of the sources mentions, who worked on the maya skyculture. My name is Eduardo Rodas-Quito, I am a teacher of archaeoastronomy at the National University in Honduras (where we have the ancient maya city of Copán). The other author is Javier Mejuto, our current Dean in the Faculty of Space Sciences in our University, current Secretary in the EC of the Interamerican Society for Astronomy in Culture and a regular presenter in the Societé Européene pour l'Astronomie dans la Culture (SEAC), who just two weeks ago made a presentation at the space allocated by the European Association of Archaeologists to SEAC in their congress. Regarding the statement "Never heard of the two contributors. And Aveni certainly would not agree as he supports the Brickers analysis of the Paris Codex Zodiac. Looks like the string of citations really doesn’t support their ids except possibly the dissertation by another person unknown to me". As far as I know, the only person who has quoted our work is Georg Zotti, one of the main developers of this project known as.... let me remember.... Yes! Stellarium! So it is amazing to me that a person who claims to be an expert in archaeoastronomy doesn't know at least these two persons very active in the discipline, and has more weight in his/her opinion than Mr. Mejuto and Zotti, so much as to remove a skyculture from this fantastic tool called Stellarium. Regarding the other opinion, that "I wouldn't trust many of these identifications because a lot of them are made up by contemporary "shaman", who tend to apply these constructs to their "history"", please note that these constellations have been identified as such by researchers such as the late Linda Scheele, Jesús Galindo, Ismael Moreno and Aveni himself (but ordered in a different way), all of whom are well known and respected in the field of maya studies. Again, I am amazed at how the opinion of just two onlookers has more weight than the evidence presented and supported by researchers expert in the maya culture and so just remove this culture instead of calling those responsible to clarify any aspect that needs it.
Uh, this fast hiding from the installers somehow escaped my attention. Running from sources, I always also have the Maya SC to select.
The authors are certainly not unknown in the field. Ref.1 is an academic dissertation which I have not read in detail and cannot review with any qualification. The text clearly states the sources and assumptions, which may or may not hold, I cannot say this. If there is dissent among Mayanists, they should not grumble in the dark or call each other shamans, but take the chance to just make a better one with better arguments. Stellarium is a tool for research and public outreach, and we would prefer to include generally accepted data sets. If something is not yet so certain, at least the description text should express this clearly.
Hopefully @sushoff finds time until 25.4 or 26.1 to work with you and maybe other peers on an improved version which we and many users certainly will welcome with interest. If there are diverging interpretations, we can also have several Maya skycultures.
Should I re-add Maya SC in the installers (previously I hiding both of them)?
Hello @sushoff
I am one of the "unknown social media writers", as one of the sources mentions, who worked on the maya skyculture. My name is Eduardo Rodas-Quito, I am a teacher of archaeoastronomy at the National University in Honduras (where we have the ancient maya city of Copán). The other author is Javier Mejuto, our current Dean in the Faculty of Space Sciences in our University, current Secretary in the EC of the Interamerican Society for Astronomy in Culture and a regular presenter in the Societé Européene pour l'Astronomie dans la Culture (SEAC), who just two weeks ago made a presentation at the space allocated by the European Association of Archaeologists to SEAC in their congress. Regarding the statement "Never heard of the two contributors. And Aveni certainly would not agree as he supports the Brickers analysis of the Paris Codex Zodiac. Looks like the string of citations really doesn’t support their ids except possibly the dissertation by another person unknown to me". As far as I know, the only person who has quoted our work is Georg Zotti, one of the main developers of this project known as.... let me remember.... Yes! Stellarium! So it is amazing to me that a person who claims to be an expert in archaeoastronomy doesn't know at least these two persons very active in the discipline, and has more weight in his/her opinion than Mr. Mejuto and Zotti, so much as to remove a skyculture from this fantastic tool called Stellarium. Regarding the other opinion, that "I wouldn't trust many of these identifications because a lot of them are made up by contemporary "shaman", who tend to apply these constructs to their "history"", please note that these constellations have been identified as such by researchers such as the late Linda Scheele, Jesús Galindo, Ismael Moreno and Aveni himself (but ordered in a different way), all of whom are well known and respected in the field of maya studies. Again, I am amazed at how the opinion of just two onlookers has more weight than the evidence presented and supported by researchers expert in the maya culture and so just remove this culture instead of calling those responsible to clarify any aspect that needs it.
@eduardorodasunah-debug blaming the developers for not knowing people is an ad hominem argument and thus something ugly: we will ignore it.
both @gzotti and myself who both attend SEAC conferences (specifically the one ~2 weeks ago, where Javier Mejuto was not) and do research in cultural astronomy. Yet, we are not experts in the field of Maya astronomy and need to deal with the topic in more detail before we approve or disprove a topic. Blaming @gzotti for things he was not involved in, is additionally an unfair strategy and discredits your entire inquiry as just emptying your garbage bin here...
"proof by authority" is not a scientific argument - and your argument "this is correct because the person has a political function" is also no scientific argument.
before I made this request, I had tried hard to find solve some problems. I had gotten many complaints by scholars plus no reply by Javier Mejuto who I had contacted because I know him and he is in my working group. I know that he is currently in a personally uncomfortable situation, so, with no reply from him plus many accusations, I want to acquire expertise first before I decide anything.
in my view, the culture should stay off until I get enough expertise and replies to my inquiries.
@sushoff I said that @gzotti is someone who has supported us, I never blamed him of anything, instead, I praised him for citing us in an article made by him:
- https://revistas.unlp.edu.ar/cosmovisiones/article/view/14847
- https://doi.org/10.5377/ce.v13i1.11258
- https://www.academia.edu/106965977/La_astronom%C3%ADa_en_Mesoam%C3%A9rica
Anyway, I just talked to Mejuto and now we both agree we do not want our work to appear in Stellarium anymore. Please keep it removed and also delete it.
Thanks @gzotti and @alex-w for the opportunity.