The first part of this post was answered in the appropriate thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10301762#post10301762
2) I have presented evidence. It is immediately dismissed on any one (or more) of a roster of objections; i.e., unreliable source, out-of-date, inadequate attribution, bias, inappropriate analogy, broken link, etc.
I find this claim interesting. Remember me? You may have noticed that I am the one who continually asks you for actual links to the actual versions of the actual sources you claim to be using; further, the one who, when you are not forthcoming with your sources, goes out and finds them and reads them.
I do not recall ever dismissing a single claim about a single one of the myriad anachronisms in the
BoM merely because it was posted in an “unreliable source”. I do find it funny how often you cherry-pick sources, endorsing when they appear to agree with you and ignoring when they do not.
Consider the issue of the Hohokam “barley”.
I studied the
Casa Grande site, and other Hohokam sites, at ASU. As has been pointed out to you in this very thread (and its predecessors), the “barley” at the Hohokam site is not, in fact, cultivated domestic barley (
Hordeum sativa)), but a wild relative of barley(
Hordeum pusilum); its supposed hull-lessness is a function, not of biology, but of preparation. The Hohokam had extensive agriculture (they were the first to build a system of irrigation canals in what is now the Valley of the Sun), but they did not cultivate barley; instead, they appear to have opportunistically taken advantage of a wild barley relative.
Even if,
arguendo, the
Casa Grande site, or some other Hohokam site, were to show signs of actual cultivation of actual barley, that would not be evidence of barley cultivation so extensive that a civilization that “covered the land” for “thousands of years” could have reasonably been thought to have based the value of their minted coinage on the worth of a barleycorn.
Do notice that has nothing to do with who is making that claim that wild barley, opportunistically gleaned at one Hohokam site, “proves” that there are no anachronisms in the BoM (as you would have it); instead, it has to do with the nature of the evidence.
Consider the “Clark Chart”.
Clark lists steelmaking (for instance) in the pre-colombian americas as “confirmed”. His support for that “confirmation” is that “some research” (not identified) appears to indicate that iron may have been hardened into steel at “some sites” (not identified) in the middle east earlier than previously thought. What he does not show as “confirmation” is a single instance of steelmaking tools, or a single steel-capable forge, or any steel weapons or artifacts, in the pre-colombian americas. This has nothing to do with the fact that Clark’s “confirmation” of steelmongery is advanced by a mormon apologist; instead, it has to do with the fact that the “confirmation” is unsupported by any archaeological evidence in either hemisphere.
Consider the horse.
The issue is not that every claim I have ever read, or heard presented, about the use, or even the mere existence, of the horse in the pre-colombian americas turns out to be based on a known and admitted hoax, or supposition and assumption, or ‘god’s’ inability to accurately describe north American fauna; or claims a truly archaic date, or a post-colombian date. The issue is that there is not a single instance of a horse-capable system of roads; of a tack industry; of silage or fodderage; of contemporaneous artistic or totemic representation; or of a single instance of the other, multiple indicia that use of the horse stamps on, even molds into, a culture. Do keep in mind that the horse is to be supposed to have been used by a culture which “covered the land” for “thousands of years”, yet, somehow, managed to leave not a trace of evidence.
Your calumny conveniently fails to mention the actual reason claims of the horse, or cultivated barley, or domestic kine, or compasses, or swine, or steelworking, are rejected: the intellectual bankruptcy of the kinds of things claimed as “evidence”.
It is remarkably silly to characterize reading, and assessing, and analyzing, the tiny bits of “evidence” you have presented; and explaining their shortcomings; as “immediately dismissing” them. Perhaps you should consider getting “up to speed” on how actual research (as opposed to apologetics) is done.
It's my judgment that because you appear to be hermetically sealed to your position, you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge credible data that may—even to the slightest extent—challenge that position.
Your judgment is faulty, and is found wanting by the most superficial of considerations. Are you even reading my posts?
I posted a bit of my personal history earlier; suffice it to say that I would, in fact, be delighted to discover new information about the pre-colombian americas. Have you read
1491 yet? For all its flaws, a fascinating book, and thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.
The fact that I do not uncritically accept your superstitions does not speak to my ability to process, and accept, new information; instead, it speaks to the puerility of the superstitions themselves. Show me actual evidence. I will read it, pursue its ramifications, and consider it.
But first, show me actual evidence. Concrete, empirical, objective, non-anecdotal, practical evidence.
(On re-reading, I realize that the problem may simply be that you do not know what “hermetically sealed” means.)
A fair-minded person of your persuasion…
One wonders,
en passant, what you mean by this bit. Of which of my “persuasions” do you speak, and what colorable claim do you pretend to make that whatever “persuasion” you have in mind has any effect upon my ability to locate and process evidence; that is, to tell the butter from the water; or to distinguish Arthur from Martha, in the shower, with their signs on?
…when confronted with what BYU scholars have discovered about barley and grains, for example, in the pre-Columbian Americas would likely respond thus: "That's interesting. I doubt that it can be true, but tell me more. I'm open to the possibility." Your response, however, is an autonomic rejection reflex, which—to be charitable—makes it difficult for a person to learn anything new.
Careful, your double standard is showing.
Do feel free to demonstrate, with citations to primary sources, what you, personally, think “BYU scholars have discovered about barley and grains, for example, in the pre-Colombian Americas”. In your opinion, have “BYU scholars” “discovered” anything beyond the evidence that wild barley was gleaned (not cultivated) at one of the Hohokam sites (and not, apparently, anywhere else)? Is there, in fact, evidence of domesticated barley cultivation so pervasive that it would be reasonable to believe that a civilization that “covered the land” for “thousands of years” would have used the value of a barleycorn as the basis for their minted currency? I would appreciate it if you would indicate where you think such is chronicled.
Actual evidence would, in fact, be interesting.
