A landmark Book

[kbs2244]

From today’s news page

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30255/1066/

This guy must have read E.P’s book and gotten an idea.

[Rokcet Scientist]

The narrower the perspective, the more categorical the pronouncement.

Of course, kill the messenger.

[E.P. Grondine]

Why dismiss a work dealing with the collective memory of cataclysmic events

I did not dismiss it. I said it is overly reliant on folklore and not hard science.

If Professor Firestone had trotted out native american legends as a basis for his comet theory how far do you think he would have gotten?

That's all I'm saying.

Hi min - You have to remember that I wrote my book in 2004-2005, and then was hit by a pretty severe stroke. For example, I had no idea at that time that Firestone had switched from supernova to supernova plus impact, as Benny Peiser had turned the Cambridge Conference from impact research to global warming scepticism in January, 2004.

For hard evidence, all that I had to work with was rough, and I do mean very rough, archaeological sequences to work with, along with some tree ring and ice core data. For example, I was dealing with Hopewell end dates given from 400 to 700 CE. That was the "hard" evidence the archaeologists had provided by then.

As far as Native American "legends" goes, you do not understand how different Native American peoples held their histories, nor the effects of the conquest on those mechanisms. For that matter, your equating those histories with other materials in their oral traditions reveals your limitations in this area.

As far as the Mayan written materials, they were only partially read, and readings are progressing as I write.
I used what was available.

I did not have funding from a major laboratory, and for that matter there is no one university in the US that has a really good specialization in Native American history or studies for the Eastern peoples.

Others who know the field agree with uniface. It is a landmark book, in that it was and is the first book to seriously and rigorously examine the effects of recent impacts on man. By using those impacts for dating, I also managed to produce the only reliable pre-Columbian history. That's what uniface is trying to tell you.

PS - I agree with cognito about the effects of pandemics, and with I had had greater awareness of them and more time to consider them. I documented them as well as I could at the time.

[E.P. Grondine]

From today’s news page

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30255/1066/

This guy must have read E.P’s book and gotten an idea.

Actually, he probably read my studies in the Cambridge Conference from 1997 to 2003.

In point of fact, he's at the wrong damn crater, as man has only been in Australia for maybe 60,000 years or so, as near as we know, and the crater he's looking at has been dated before humans evolved. Either that dating is wrong, or he's at the wrong damn crater.

[Minimalist]

One day when I've got the time I'll go looking for an example of what I mean.

Today is not that day.

[kbs2244]

Yeah;

I picked up on the 1000s vs. 1000000s years difference.

But it was the technique that caught my eye.

[E.P. Grondine]

Yeah;

I picked up on the 1000s vs. 1000000s years difference.

But it was the technique that caught my eye.

Several of the big problems with most recent impact studies before my own were:
1) They would often conflate impact accounts,or
2) They would ignore the physics of celestial mechanics and of impacts, or
3) They would ignore what archaeological evidence there was, or
4) They would play fast and loose with well established Near Eastern chronologies.

I did as best I could, and still made major and minor mistakes. But there is a correction sheet pasted inside the cover of my book.

If this fellow keeps up his search, he will undoubtedly find the proper impact structure. Why? Because there is no reason for the local people to have made up such an outrageous story as a star falling from the sky.

[Digit]

Their description suggests that it was a sufficiently rare occurrence, and possibly sufficiently damaging that they mainteained the story throughout the generations EP. It is also sufficiently accurate, if reported correctly, that considerable weight must be place upon it.
It will be interesting to see how the story develops.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

It will be interesting to see how the story develops.

As long as you don't lose sight of the fact that it is just that: a story, and nothing more, until there is hard evidence.

[uniface]

Oh Stop it.

[Digit]

I agree that evidence is needed RS, but I feel that such an accurate folk story will likely be found to have a basis in fact, that's the development I meant.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] but I feel that such an accurate folk story will likely be found to have a basis in fact, that's the development I meant.

(Italics mine)

Science isn't about feelings, hunches, rumors, legends, myths, etc. etc., Roy.

And WTF is "accurate" about a story if there's no evidence proving that accuracy?
Are you sure you didn't mean "detailed" (a.k.a. "embellished")?

[Digit]

I never said it was, you chose to take an expression and make an issue of it.
I'll try again.
A legend with such detail has a good chance of being based on fact, (like Troy if you wish), I await futrure developments.

Roy.

[kbs2244]

Well, if NASA won’t do it, maybe the Russians will.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_asteroid_encounter


MOSCOW – Russia is considering sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth, the head of the country's space agency said Wednesday.

In October, NASA lowered the odds that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 from a 1-in-45,000 as earlier thought to a 1-in-250,000 chance after researchers recalculated the asteroid's path. It said another close encounter in 2068 will involve a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact.

Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said.

[Rokcet Scientist]

If they can't even synchronise their watches what makes you think they can hit and move an asteroid?