A Man After My Own Heart!

[Minimalist]

Screw the Club! Keep digging Charlie!!!!!


http://www.dispatch.com/science/science ... D7-02.html

In 1926, Harvard University’s W.M. Davis published a paper in the journal Science titled, "The Value of Outrageous Geological Hypotheses." Davis argued that when a discipline, which in his case was geology, got too stodgy and conservative, it was in danger of "theoretical stagnation."

Science sometimes needs wild and seemingly harebrained ideas to shake things up and get people thinking outside the box. Davis wrote, "We may be pretty sure that the advances yet to be made in geology will be at first regarded as outrages upon the accumulated convictions of today, which we are too prone to regard as geologically sacred."

I agree with Davis and think his insights are just as applicable to archaeology as they are to geology. Gramly’s outrageous hypothesis can serve a useful purpose and should not be dismissed as "impossible" or "absurd."

[Charlie Hatchett]

Science sometimes needs wild and seemingly harebrained ideas to shake things up and get people thinking outside the box. Davis wrote, "We may be pretty sure that the advances yet to be made in geology will be at first regarded as outrages upon the accumulated convictions of today, which we are too prone to regard as geologically sacred."

I agree with Davis and think his insights are just as applicable to archaeology as they are to geology. Gramly’s outrageous hypothesis can serve a useful purpose and should not be dismissed as "impossible" or "absurd."

Damn right. Anything is better than stagnation. There is no wrong answer, at this point, concerning the peopling of North America. It seems major players, for the most part, are scared to either:

1. Let their cherished beliefs be replaced by new discoveries.

2. Loosen their focus on money, job security, etc...

3. Have their past moment of glory be replaced by new evidence.

There has to be a way to reward thinking outside of the box. In all other hard sciences, new, revolutionary discoveries are handsomely rewarded.
Why not in Archeology?

[marduk]

heres something that Essan posted on another forum that is equally valid here

Come now Marduk: you should know full well by now that posting links to internet websites that support your conjectures is simply not allowed. Showing that every other expert on the subject agrees with you, or that your idea is support by masses and masses of empirical evidence is simply cheating and means you're incapable of thinking for yourself!

What you have to do is refer people to a long out of print book from the 19th or early 20th century, preferably by some bloke no one has heard of. Note: it must be one which takes no account of modern scientific theories all of which are complete bunkum (plate tectonics? pollen studies? don't make me laugh ....!!!! ). This shows that you have done proper research and are undoubtably right about absolutely everything

[Digit]

I have to go with the thesis. As I have said before, Fred Hoyle turned cosmology on its head with his steady state theory, trying to prove him wrong resulted in most of the major advances in cosmology in the late 20th century.
I doubt it will happen, but I would die happy if someone came up with conclusive proof of Atlantis just so I could watch the good and the great squirm!

[Charlie Hatchett]

Come now Marduk: you should know full well by now that posting links to internet websites that support your conjectures is simply not allowed. Showing that every other expert on the subject agrees with you, or that your idea is support by masses and masses of empirical evidence is simply cheating and means you're incapable of thinking for yourself!

(Charlie: who is this idiot?)

What you have to do is refer people to a long out of print book ( Charlie: roll: ...wtf?) from the 19th or early 20th century, preferably by some bloke no one has heard of. Note: it must be one which takes no account of modern scientific theories all of which are complete bunkum (plate tectonics? pollen studies? don't make me laugh ....!!!! ). This shows that you have done proper research and are undoubtably right about absolutely everything

:


My, my, my..I hope this guy isn't on the government doll..., Talk about pissing a bunch of free thinkers off...

Was he joking, Mar?

[marduk]

it was in response to a thread entitled

Who lost these ancient technologies and stuff

and started off

If these are true then we were not the first ones on earth.
we were probably seeded here, or forced to evolve.
some on was here before the dinasourse and so on and so forth

and then linked to this website
http://ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=75
all of the lost technologies displayed are pseudoscientific ones that have a perfectly reasonable scientific answer
after repeated posts by me linking to the correct answers Essan posted that
seeing as he said

What you have to do is refer people to a long out of print book from the 19th or early 20th century, preferably by some bloke no one has heard of

and seeing as the first post in this thread began

In 1926, Harvard University’s W.M. Davis published a paper in the journal Science

I thought it appropriate
why bother posting things that are over 80 years old
science has moved on
if you expect anyone to take notice of that sort of dusty old crap then you're wasting your time


I could post something that was written by Aubrey Fessenden (heres his bio read the last paragraph http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history ... enden.html ) about Atlantis but pfft
who'd listen
its in Antartica right
Graham Hancock said so it must be true

Basically the longer you cling to pseudoscience and out of date stuff to elevate yourselves to what you see as "smart" you're never going to change things
if you want to cause a paradigm shift you have to do it on terms that the existing paradigm was built on
and that has always been empirical data
not bleating that the current view is wrong
thats just going to get you sidelined

[stan]

Although I appreciate the irony in yours and Essan's posts,
Marduk, you seem to be straining awfully hard to dispute what is
only a bland truism as raised in the article citing the guy from 1926.
There seems to be an entrenched group of old guard in EVERY discipline who resist change, but their degree of control over the disciplines is variable. Do you really dispute that?

[marduk]

Do you really dispute that?

what you mean is that there are a group of people who require solid evidence before they'll change their mind
thats a good thing Stan
it stops the profession from being bought into disrepute

its part of a very neccesary process
if you can't see it like that then you arent looking properly
progress takes time you know

[Minimalist]

Although I appreciate the irony in yours and Essan's posts,
Marduk, you seem to be straining awfully hard to dispute what is
only a bland truism as raised in the article citing the guy from 1926.
There seems to be an entrenched group of old guard in EVERY discipline who resist change, but their degree of control over the disciplines is variable. Do you really dispute that?

You nailed it, Stan.

[Bruce]

Old Europe

Before Sumer, Crete or the Maltese civilisation, there was “Old Europe”, or the Vinca culture… a forgotten, rather than lost civilisation that lies at the true origin of most of our ancient civilisations.

Philip Coppens

http://www.philipcoppens.com/oldeurope.html

Glamour sells, if it doesn't fit your agenda-
forget about it!

[stan]

there are a group of people who require solid evidence before they'll change their mind

saith marduk.

God bless 'em. I'm one of them myself, albeit an amateur..
It just seemed to me you were twisting yourself into a pretzel to make
a simple point.

But, then, there are others who wish to ignore solid evidence. I personally don't think of them as a club, but I get Bob's point.

I think we all rely on solid research and evidence to inform our scientific or historical understanding, but filling in those annoying gaps sometimes does require people who are capable of thinking imaginatively.

[marduk]

Glamour sells, if it doesn't fit your agenda-
forget about it!

Phillip Coppens might think that the Vinca culture has been forgotten
but that just means he's talking out of his ass
maybe he has a new pseudoscientific book coming out soon where he requires the boogeyman of the establishment to outrage his readership
seeing as he also writes about the rosslyn chapel shall we have a guess

so hmmm where to start
well to begin with you seem to think that this is a fully fledged civilisation
it isn't
it was a neolithic culture
neolithic means new stone age
civilisations are typified by a central power base and a kingship
the Vinca culture had none of these
it isn't very special as worldwide cultures were at the same level at the same time
Sumerian history goes back to 5000bce in mesopotamia
Egyption history goes back to 5000bce
mesoamerican history goes back just as far
problem is that until these cultures got organised they don't show up very well in the archaeological record
until they discver writing they have no history to leave us of their own

this map should show you just how special the vinca culture was at the time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Europe
i.e. it wasn't
it was perfectly normal and not distinguished by anything except the fact that it didn't achieve the success of many of its contempories and was absorbed by its neighbours
and thats all she wrote gentlemen


oh and Phillip Coppens is from Belgium
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Digit]

I can't say for myself that the Vinca are a forgotten civilization for the simple reason that I've never heard of them! It would seem that I am not alone for popular science, at least, doesn't seem to have mentioned them, either in stand alone books or National Geographic for example.
I look forward to improving my knowledge.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Basically the longer you cling to pseudoscience and out of date stuff to elevate yourselves to what you see as "smart" you're never going to change things
if you want to cause a paradigm shift you have to do it on terms that the existing paradigm was built on
and that has always been empirical data
not bleating that the current view is wrong
thats just going to get you sidelined

I agree. Just be ready to be patient if you have a discovery that goes against the grain of existing theories. And you better have a bunch of evidence.
And I think that should be the case. People like Mike Collins and Jim Adovasio have been working on changing the existing paradigm (for N.A., anyway) for decades.

But when someone tries to explain their hypotheses away, with circular reasoning...You know they get extremely frustrated.

[Bruce]

oh and Phillip Coppens is from Belgium
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

What that has to do with anything I can't figure it out. Same attitude as to why this thread got started.

http://www.online-archaeology.com/House ... uction.htm

Based on post and pole holes, which outlined a square 13x6 meter structure, it was determined that the walls were made wattle and daub, a technique still sporadically utilized. The most common way of doing it was to fix the posts first, then the poles between them and to wreath them all with branches at the end.

Marduk wrote

problem is that until these cultures got organised they don't show up very well in the archaeological record
until they discver writing they have no history to leave us of their own

Everything about “Old Europe” is indeed older than anything else in Europe or the Near East. To return to their script. Gimbutas had a go at trying to translate it and called it the “language of the goddess”. She based her work on that of Shan Winn, who had completed the largest catalogue of Vinca signs to date. He narrowed the number of signs down to 210, stating that most of the signs were composed of straight lines and were rectilinear in shape. Only a minority had curved lines, which was perhaps due to the difficulty of curved carving on the clay surface. In a final synthesis, he concluded that all Vinca signs were found to be constructed out of five core signs:
- a straight line;
- two lines that intersect at the centre;
- two lines that intersect at one end;
- a dot;
- a curved line.

Well, maybe the Vincas assimilated the Sumerians.