Phage0070 writes:
The problem is questioning it based on little more than flights of fancy. Archaeologists don't just pull dates out of their rear, they have hard data backing their claims up. The same thing counts for geologists who say that a given formation is naturally occurring.
If you want to be taken seriously you need to have qualifications, hard data, and a reasonable explanation. If you lack even one of those it is unlikely that you will be taken seriously, and for good reason.
Don't get me wrong, I agree completely. I am as anti-pseudoscience as anyone can get. In fact, I get downright cranky when I encounter crackpots that believe they got it all figured out.
That said, I also get cranky when I come across the holier-than-thou type from the supposed rational side.
Here is an example of what I mean. NASA recently stated that according to the solar cycle there is a possibility that we might run into problems with our sattelite systems and our communication systems due to increased solar activity in (drum rolls) 2012.
Immediately after this announcement, mainstream people started criticizing it because of the 2012 internet hysteria. People are literally so afraid of being associated with the crackpot 2012 galactic allignment bullshit that as soon as they heard 2012 they automatically assumed NASA was talking about the same bullshit. And I'm willing to bet right now at this moment some of you are already thinking of hitting a reply button mocking me accusing of being a 2012 enthusiast.
One of the side effects of the 2012 mayan thingy is that it makes people afraid to acknowledge anything at all that might happen on that year. And this includes warnings made by NASA.
Another example of this is the now past Y2K bug. People who claim to be on the rational, mainstream side often point to Y2K as an example of doomsday prediction that never came to be. Everytime I hear someone say that, I just want to punch him right in the nose. The only people who ever claimed it to be a doomsday kind of thing were either sensational journalists and armegeddon enthusiasts. The rest of us took it seriously because while it wouldn't cause doomsday to occur it might potentially affect our computer systems. Everyone spent millions to fix the problem before it occurred. And despite that, there were some problems that occurred. The most obvious was the sewage system that openned up and dumped all its sewage into central park in New York.
To criticize Y2K is like criticizing the fact that you didn't have floodings after you built a dam. Did you even stop to think that the act of building the dam prevented the flooding from occuring?
I criticize crackpots for believing in shit without evidence. I also criticize holier-than-thou rational types that avoid at all cost to disassociate themselves from the crackpots.
So, let's go back to the monuments I mentioned that you so lightly ignored. There are some stone ring monuments that start out on land and go right into the ocean, implying that they were built before the end of the last ice age when the ocean level was much lower. But that predates the supposed first civilizations by thousands of years.
You know why I think mainstream archaeology is ignoring these monuments? Because these monuments are often used by crackpots like alien and atlantis enthusiasts as "evidence."
No, I'm not saying I have the answer. I'm saying that we should cut the bullshit and start looking at the evidence without the fear of being associated with the crackpots.
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