Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

[BadBoy]

Not to derail, but I think this is apt criticism of Shermer. It is also almost exactly my criticism of Harris for allowing Charles Murray to spew his nonsense with very little pushback.

Only difference is that Graham Hancock is a flibbertigibbet and Charles Murray is the most influential scientific racist of the last two decades.

I don't think Charles Murray is racist. I don't like him very much and skeptical of some (much) of the things he says. The recent discussions Harris has had on Identity Politics has been interesting. I'm still not sure what to think about it, but interesting for sure. Thing is Harris gets called a racist for even discussing such topics and he is clearly not a racist. There was a point where I thought he was too soft on Murry though too.

 

[Craig B]

My apologies sir, I have nothing further to discuss if you have not reviewed the provided material.

You have good cause to apologise. You deposit "material" whose evidential value you refuse to comment on, and then require us to sit and watch it; and, like other exponents of nonsense, you absolutely refuse to provide the explanations and theoretical and observational background that Galileo and other scholars considered essential, and delivered.

You have nothing to discuss at all, if truth be told. You merely refer us to a video - as if discussion required visual display - and then fall silent.

This is behaviour usually associated with crackpots, I regret to say.

 

[King of the Americas]

The Scabalands Flood was in Washington USA and happened when glaciers melted 13,000 year ago. Göbekli Tepe is in modern Turkey. You are on the wrong continent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands

Washington wasn't inhabited 13,000 year ago. Didn't you know?

Mesopotamia was over irrigated after the start of agricultural evolution and the salt tables rose and ended farming. It is from measuring the legacy minerals, archaeologists can date this. Yet these is no evidence of this at Göbekli Tepe, further indicating there was no advanced agriculture.

(The Old testament was by herders and is anti-agriculture and Lot's wife metaphorically turned into a pillar of salt for "looking back" at the over-irrigated and barren Jordan agricultural river plains.)

Where do you think the water ended up?

 

[King of the Americas]

You have good cause to apologise. You deposit "material" whose evidential value you refuse to comment on, and then require us to sit and watch it; and, like other exponents of nonsense, you absolutely refuse to provide the explanations and theoretical and observational background that Galileo and other scholars considered essential, and delivered.

You have nothing to discuss at all, if truth be told. You merely refer us to a video - as if discussion required visual display - and then fall silent.

This is behaviour usually associated with crackpots, I regret to say.

Had you read this whole thread, you'd have seen me comment several times over the video's contents.

Crackpots, eh?

I'm done with you...

 

[Tolls]

Where do you think the water ended up?

Which water?
From the Scabland flood or something else?

And where do you think whatever water it is you are talking about is ending up?

Just want to know because it's never terribly clear from your replies.

 

[King of the Americas]

Which water?
From the Scabland flood or something else?

And where do you think whatever water it is you are talking about is ending up?

Just want to know because it's never terribly clear from your replies.

Yes, the scablands flood...how much did it change ocean levels?

 

[Tolls]

Not enough to cause a flood at a site that is currently several hundred feet above sea level, and on the other side of the world.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Yes, the scablands flood...how much did it change ocean levels?

Since I know nothing about this and have never even heard of the scablands flood, let's see how easily you could have answered your own question.

Wikipedia indicates that the geography of the scablands is described by a theory originated by J. Harlen Bretz which required ~500 cubic miles of water to pass through the region in a short time. The total surface area of the oceans is approximately 139 million square miles. The sea level rise would therefore be at most 500/139,000,000 miles, which comes out to slightly less than a quarter of an inch.

That took me a few minutes. You could have done the same.

Dave

 

[King of the Americas]

Since I know nothing about this and have never even heard of the scablands flood, let's see how easily you could have answered your own question.

Wikipedia indicates that the geography of the scablands is described by a theory originated by J. Harlen Bretz which required ~500 cubic miles of water to pass through the region in a short time. The total surface area of the oceans is approximately 139 million square miles. The sea level rise would therefore be at most 500/139,000,000 miles, which comes out to slightly less than a quarter of an inch.

That took me a few minutes. You could have done the same.

Dave

It was more than one event, from what I understand...

AND your figures are off. That much water would raise 'current' sea levels. You'd need to work from more backwards.

 

[King of the Americas]

Not enough to cause a flood at a site that is currently several hundred feet above sea level, and on the other side of the world.

STOP conflating!

The 'date' of the flood marks the beginning the GT building design decline. I'm not arguing that the actual flood wiped out the residences of GT.

I DO correlate the date of this flood with the collapse of a global civilization.

 

[Dave Rogers]

It was more than one event, from what I understand...

How many? Simply multiply.

AND your figures are off. That much water would raise 'current' sea levels. You'd need to work from more backwards.

Won't make much of a difference. I'd expect variations in ocean surface area to be a matter of a few per cent, maybe a couple of tens. Variation in the increase will be the same percentage in the opposite direction, to a first approximation. At most, we're talking about a few inches.

Dave

 

[Andy_Ross]

If the Scablands flood raised the sea levels then the water is still there or has gone away.
If it is still there then these sites were never under water.
If the water has gone away where is it?

 

[Craig B]

It was more than one event, from what I understand...

If floods occur more than once, the same molecules of water participate in them more than once. Water evaporates from the sea and falls again.

 

[Hans]

You have good cause to apologise. You deposit "material" whose evidential value you refuse to comment on, and then require us to sit and watch it; and, like other exponents of nonsense, you absolutely refuse to provide the explanations and theoretical and observational background that Galileo and other scholars considered essential, and delivered.

You have nothing to discuss at all, if truth be told. You merely refer us to a video - as if discussion required visual display - and then fall silent.

This is behaviour usually associated with crackpots, I regret to say.

Craig B: it is rude and insensitive to call someone a 'crackpot'. It is inelegant I would suggest you not do it again. It is is instead far better to post this image.

 

[Tolls]

STOP conflating!

The 'date' of the flood marks the beginning the GT building design decline. I'm not arguing that the actual flood wiped out the residences of GT.

I DO correlate the date of this flood with the collapse of a global civilization.

The retreat of the ice at the end of the last ice age, in its entirety, resulted in a sea level rise of about 120 meters. That was over about 12000 years. Spanning the entire time your apparent "global civilisation" existed.

 

[Hans]

The retreat of the ice at the end of the last ice age, in its entirety, resulted in a sea level rise of about 120 meters. That was over about 12000 years. Spanning the entire time your apparent "global civilisation" existed.

Yes and strangely these good folks never went inland, traded with people in the interior, nor as the waters began to rise, simply moved further away from the sea.

Odder still other maritime cultures did do that. yet it seems these folks were very special and took great care not to leave any evidence of their existence. Can a civilization avoid leaving traces? Yes if they follow some very strict rules of behaviour:

Yes many years ago on another defunct forum I created the following list of how a civilization could remain undetected

How a civilization can remain undetected

1. have very few people - but this will tend to limit your technological advancement
2. don't make fires
3. don't make pottery or bake clay
4. don't modify the environment in any way
5. don't domesticate animals or plants
6. don't eat shell fish (the middens are easy to spot)
7. don't bury people, destroy bodies at death and disperse the bones - crush the teeth
8. absolutely no use of stone for tools or any other use, do not modify ivory, bone or shells either
9. never disturb the earth (by driving in a stake)
10. don't hunt animals and if you do widely disperse their remains
11. move constantly to avoid a build-up of waste, both human and food remains
12. don't live near a lake or other place where sediments, pollen and pollutants gather

There if you do all that you'll be fairly undetectable

The real killer is #5 without the food from agriculture you'd have real problems feeding a 'city'.

 

[King of the Americas]

Yes and strangely these good folks never went inland, traded with people in the interior, nor as the waters began to rise, simply moved further away from the sea.

Odder still other maritime cultures did do that. yet it seems these folks were very special and took great care not to leave any evidence of their existence. Can a civilization avoid leaving traces? Yes if they follow some very strict rules of behaviour:

What would be left of America if ocean levels rose 120 m, then 12,000 years went by? There'd probably be bits of plastic on the new coast lines, but likely not much else.

 

[Tolls]

But they didn't rise 120 metres in one go.
They rose 120 meters over a period spanning 12000 years...about 1 meter every hundred years.

 

[Hans]

What would be left of America if ocean levels rose 120 m, then 12,000 years went by? There'd probably be bits of plastic on the new coast lines, but likely not much else.

Nope there would hundreds of millions of tons of left over glass, ceramic, brick, concrete, cut gems, non-rusting metal, nuclear/radioactive wastes, millions of sites of modified rock and earth - (remember all those tunnels) hundreds of thousands of pipes and wells AND plenty of cut stone too, etc, etc, etc.

This civilization like all civilization leaves massive footprints. easily ID.

By the way have you ever heard, in your pretend rock working world, of something called, abrasives? lol

 

[Craig B]

Craig B: it is rude and insensitive to call someone a 'crackpot'. It is inelegant I would suggest you not do it again. It is is instead far better to post this image.

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/y90tohl.jpg[/qimg]

See posts #2, 3 and 4. But next time I will unearth suitable visual material, if that is the "done thing".