Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

[King of the Americas]

So every tomato and potato plant and seed, brought there 12,500 years ago, was magically washed away in the old world but all the other old world grains weren't harmed at all. Is that your claim?

So, what about the other direction? Can anyone name some diseases that were brought from the Old World to the New World around 800 years ago? Can these diseases be washed away by rain or a good dose of penicillin?

Magically washed away? Ever heard of the Irish potato famine? Better example, the French wine industry almost collapsed utterly and completely at the hands of mildew. EVERY vine in the region was lost. Luckily a guy from Texas had taken some cuttings from France, married the vines to local mustang grape root stock, and grew a large successful vineyard (Munson Wines). Upon hearing of the French catastrophe he reached out to them, and single-handedly saved the French wine industry.

I never said the flood 'covered everything'...stop conflating issues.

GT and the other similar civilizations collapsed due to coastal flooding after the asteroid melted glacial ice, and the resulting climate change due to the debris the asteroid kicked up. Coastal communities were consumed, while agricultural centers stopped producing.

 

[Craig B]

Yesterday I learned more than I'll ever need to know about wild and domestic wheat.

You think you need to know about important subjects less than what you can absorb in a day. That explains a lot about the level of scholarship you have evinced in this thread.

 

[Craig B]

Magically washed away? Ever heard of the Irish potato famine? Better example, the French wine industry almost collapsed utterly and completely at the hands of mildew. EVERY vine in the region was lost. Luckily a guy from Texas had taken some cuttings from France, married the vines to local mustang grape root stock, and grew a large successful vineyard (Munson Wines). Upon hearing of the French catastrophe he reached out to them, and single-handedly saved the French wine industry.

I never said the flood 'covered everything'...stop conflating issues.

GT and the other similar civilizations collapsed due to coastal flooding after the asteroid melted glacial ice, and the resulting climate change due to the debris the asteroid kicked up. Coastal communities were consumed, while agricultural centers stopped producing.

This is fanciful. But even if things are no longer produced, evidence remains that they once existed. If vines in France had been permanently wiped out by "mildew" in the nineteenth century, would that have removed every grape stone from the remains of mediaeval kitchens?

Have you never heard of fossil remains of extinct creatures, disappeared long ago?

I have pointed this out before. Where is the wheat pollen from your global civilisation? Washed away in a flood? Washed out of lake sediments by flooding? Because old world plant pollen is not found in such locations in the new world. You never answer points like that, but start spouting more utter rubbish.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ironic that you cite the late 19th century the phylloxera epidemic.

Phylloxera is an aphid and pest of grapevines native to eastern North America.
American vines were introduced to Europe in the 1850s., Phylloxera Aphids came with them and local indigenous vines had no resistance.
Charles Valentine Riley in collaboration with J. E. Planchon developed resistant strains from American vines and they were promoted commercially by T. V. Munson.

I don't know what you were getting at with your mentioning the vines but the presence of Phylloxera in Europe is good evidence for a world spanning civilisation.

 

[King of the Americas]

Ironic that you cite the late 19th century the phylloxera epidemic.

Phylloxera is an aphid and pest of grapevines native to eastern North America.
American vines were introduced to Europe in the 1850s., Phylloxera Aphids came with them and local indigenous vines had no resistance.
Charles Valentine Riley in collaboration with J. E. Planchon developed resistant strains from American vines and they were promoted commercially by T. V. Munson.

I don't know what you were getting at with your mentioning the vines but the presence of Phylloxera in Europe is good evidence for a world spanning civilisation.

Right, and early tomatoes and potatoes probably faced the same challenges here in the Americas, with no natural abilities to fight local problems.

One evasive species wiped out an entire industry. Maybe they never even managed to cultivate the plants in the Americas, but they could certainly have been wiped out. Using their absence as proof or evidence of anything is folly.

---

The wild wheat reading was interesting. Cultivating it would have been done, simply by harvesting it. Kernels can be knocked off with even the slightest brush. Farming or cultivating wild wheat was or IS absolutely a precursor to permanent settlements and brewing stations.

 

[King of the Americas]

You think you need to know about important subjects less than what you can absorb in a day. That explains a lot about the level of scholarship you have evinced in this thread.

For purposes of this thread, AND my career choice...Yes, I absolutely know more than I'll ever need to, as far as wheat goes.

 

[King of the Americas]

This is fanciful. But even if things are no longer produced, evidence remains that they once existed. If vines in France had been permanently wiped out by "mildew" in the nineteenth century, would that have removed every grape stone from the remains of mediaeval kitchens?

Have you never heard of fossil remains of extinct creatures, disappeared long ago?

I have pointed this out before. Where is the wheat pollen from your global civilisation? Washed away in a flood? Washed out of lake sediments by flooding? Because old world plant pollen is not found in such locations in the new world. You never answer points like that, but start spouting more utter rubbish.

Right, and we are still discovering new dinosaurs, as new fossils are unearthed.

When did I saw wheat was globally produced?

If the wine industry had remained inoperative, those stones would have slowly left or been abandoned, until they disappeared altogether.

 

[Craig B]

Right, and we are still discovering new dinosaurs, as new fossils are unearthed.

even though they have been extinct for tens of millions of years there remains are still there.

When did I saw wheat was globally produced?

When you said there was a global civilisation. Explain how a global civilisation never moved things about: livestock and food crops for instance.

If the wine industry had remained inoperative, those stones would have slowly left or been abandoned, until they disappeared altogether.

I've no idea what you mean. It doesn't make sense. Suppose there's a grape stone lying in the ruins of a mediaeval building since the 1470s. Then in the 1870s the wine industry disappears. Does that make the mediaeval grape stone vanish too? How does that work?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Magically washed away? Ever heard of the Irish potato famine?

Yes as potatoes were introduced to the Old World, from the New World, in the 15th Century. Your hilarious "pre-12,500 BP advanced civilisation" claim of international traders, falls apart as no tomatoes, corn or potatoes existed in the Old World until the 15th Century.

I never said the flood 'covered everything'. GT and the other similar civilizations collapsed due to coastal flooding after the asteroid melted glacial ice.

Göbekli Tepe is in Turkey (Near Asia). The Younger Dryas was a localized glacier melt in North Americas. You have mixed up your continents again.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Right, and early tomatoes and potatoes probably faced the same challenges here in the Americas, with no natural abilities to fight local problems.

One evasive species wiped out an entire industry. Maybe they never even managed to cultivate the plants in the Americas, but they could certainly have been wiped out. Using their absence as proof or evidence of anything is folly.

If any of the New World species had been introduced to Europe or vice versa by your ancient civilization chances are at least one of them would have survived? Even if they hadn't there would be remains preserved from the time they were there. Just like we find fossilized plant material for other civilizations and time periods.
Well the potato and tomato originated in the Americas along with maize, vanilla and tobacco not to mention the cacao tree from which we get cocoa and chocolate.
They now all thrive around the world but there is no record of them outside the Americas before the Spanish arrived.

Likewise with plants indigenous to Europe, there are no records of them in the Americas before the Spanish.

I thought you would have picked on something like Cotton, there are varieties in various places around the globe, Americas, Mediterranean, Australia, all indigenous, you could have claimed that as evidence of your ancient civilization.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Right, and early tomatoes and potatoes probably faced the same challenges here in the Americas, with no natural abilities to fight local problems. One evasive species wiped out an entire industry.

Make a clear statement.
You claim an advanced civilization, traded between the old world and new world and elsewhere, before 12,500BP ("Pyramids on all continents")

You claimed this advanced civilization was wiped, out across the world, in 12,500BP because a glazier melted in North America, but you can't find any evidence of silt layers other than localized layers in North America.

You then claim that some sort of magic event occurred that
1) Removed all Old world species from the New World and all New World species from the old world
2) Destroyed any evidence of this advanced civilisation, across the entire world, but preserved primitive rock paintings and stone carvings from the same and earlier periods, in the same places,
3) That DNA evidence for the conventional known evolution of grains is a fabrication or a conspiracy of some sort.

Is that your current claim today?

 

[King of the Americas]

Make a clear statement.
You claim an advanced civilization, traded between the old world and new world and elsewhere, before 12,500BP ("Pyramids on all continents")

You claimed this advanced civilization was wiped, out across the world, in 12,500BP because a glazier melted in North America, but you can't find any evidence of silt layers other than localized layers in North America.

You then claim that some sort of magic event occurred that
1) Removed all Old world species from the New World and all New World species from the old world
2) Destroyed any evidence of this advanced civilisation, across the entire world, but preserved primitive rock paintings and stone carvings from the same and earlier periods, in the same places,
3) That DNA evidence for the conventional known evolution of grains is a fabrication or a conspiracy of some sort.

Is that your current claim today?

You have mischaracterized my statements, enough.

Our exchanges have thusly ended.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

You have mischaracterized my statements, enough.

I'm trying to help you out.

You seem to be struggling to set out what your actual claim is and sticking to it.

 

[Hans]

I'm trying to help you out.

You seem to be struggling to set out what your actual claim is and sticking to it.

Matthew

He changes his reaction to each posters and each post. He is not engaged in an actual debate. He has no need to for coherent claims as all he is trying to do is get people to respond to him. He seems to think saying contradictory stuff is the best way to do it. Contradictory not coherent.

lol

Its kinda fun watching him intellectually stumbling around. He kinda like a zombie, you keep killing him with logic and reason and keeps trying to keep going by constantly changing his story like a lame, one-legged Gish Gallop.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Matthew, He changes his reaction to each posters and each post. He is not engaged in an actual debate. He has no need to for coherent claims as all he is trying to do is get people to respond to him. He seems to think saying contradictory stuff is the best way to do it. Contradictory not coherent.

He's playing the Monty Python game "Cheese Shop".

1) He states he has evidence of an advanced civilisation.
2) We take turns asking why different types of evidence don't exist,
3) He makes up a new excuse for not having any evidence.

The Monty Python Cheese Shop skit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts

 

[Hans]

He's playing the Monty Python game "Cheese Shop".

1) He states he has evidence of an advanced civilisation.
2) We take turns asking why different types of evidence don't exist,
3) He makes up a new excuse for not having any evidence.

The Monty Python Cheese Shop skit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDdd5KKhts

That's pretty much it. I particularly like how he makes up new things that 'must' be evidence of an AC, or if lacking means the locals couldn't have carved a stone. All pompous pontifications of zero value - except as comedy. I wonder when he is going to threaten to hold his breath until he turns blue unless we agree that the Global Civilization existed......lol

 

[King of the Americas]

The Skeptic Playbook:

-Call whatever event or entity to be disbelieved, woo.
-Dismiss evidence presented as not representative of other better research
-Ignore peer-reviewed research or findings that contradict their findings altogether

Lather, rinse, repeat...

 

[Roboramma]

We can see the evidence of Roman civilization in the changes in the atmosphere preserved in Greenland is ice cores, and even see the rise and fall of Roman industry in that evidence. Yet Rome was far from being a global civilization. Where is the ice core data for this ancient civilization?

Similarly Roman trade can be tracked through Mediterranean shipwrecks from the period. Yet there is not a single shipwreck known from this global civilization engaging in global international trade?

Roman coins are found not just throughout the former empire, but also throughout former trading partners, for instance they are common in India. Yet not a single coin from this global civilization has turned up? Maybe they used PayPal for everything...

 

[Hans]

Lather, rinse, repeat...

.............and he tries to change the subject AGAIN

LOL

I suspect he has already started to practice holding his breath.

 

[Hans]

We can see the evidence of Roman civilization in the changes in the atmosphere preserved in Greenland is ice cores, and even see the rise and fall of Roman industry in that evidence. Yet Rome was far from being a global civilization. Where is the ice core data for this ancient civilization?

Similarly Roman trade can be tracked through Mediterranean shipwrecks from the period. Yet there is not a single shipwreck known from this global civilization engaging in global international trade?

Roman coins are found not just throughout the former empire, but also throughout former trading partners, for instance they are common in India. Yet not a single coin from this global civilization has turned up? Maybe they used PayPal for everything...

Yes all the known civilizations, advanced cultures and even many minor cultures all left extensive traces. The civilizations often leaving MILLIONS of pieces of evidence and thousands of sites. All easy to find

The imaginary lost civilization not a single thing......