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Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

King of the Americas said:
If Shermer isn't an 'expert' why is he the leading editor of Skeptic?
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marplots said:
Because, like us, he has interest enough to read the experts and give a counternarrative when the BS starts building up.
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King of the Americas said:
Except that he didn't...
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He did OK. Could have done better. But you wanted to know why he's the leading editor of Skeptic, not if he is some leading expert on Gobekli Tepe. Shermer very much understands the principles of good skepticism and he laid them out in the interview.

He also brought a couple experts with him to help.

Bottom line it: Did Hancock convince you? He sure didn't convince me.
 
marplots said:
He did OK. Could have done better. But you wanted to know why he's the leading editor of Skeptic, not if he is some leading expert on Gobekli Tepe. Shermer very much understands the principles of good skepticism and he laid them out in the interview.

He also brought a couple experts with him to help.

Bottom line it: Did Hancock convince you? He sure didn't convince me.
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Yep, the first and last thing his 'expert' did was admit he was wrong and apologize to Hancock.

Since this was the first time I had heard of "Gobekli Tepe," I was convinced at least, that a lost unknown civilization existed 12,000 years ago, and that a series of floods eliminated it as the ice age ended.
 
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King of the Americas said:
Yep, the first and last thing his 'expert' did was admit he was wrong and apologize t Hancock.
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Sounds like the response you'd expect from an honorable man, interested in getting things right.

Since this was the first time I had heard of "Gobekli Tepe," I was convinced at least, that a lost unknown civilization existed 12,000 years ago, and that a series of floods eliminated it as the ice age ended.
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Here's Shermer in Scientific American on the topic:
First, no matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that after centuries of flourishing every last tool, potsherd, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash—was erased? Inconceivable. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/
 
marplots said:
Sounds like the response you'd expect from an honorable man, interested in getting things right.



Here's Shermer in Scientific American on the topic:
First, no matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that after centuries of flourishing every last tool, potsherd, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash—was erased? Inconceivable. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/
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Rebuttal-

The floods resulting from the melting ice sheets gave rise to ocean levels while washing "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash" out to sea...

A flood of over 120 feet covered Cairo, now there are NO TRACES of who built the sphinx. No "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash"...

Try visiting Sri Lanka at the places not yet rebuilt from the tsunami- there's NOTHING left- ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH. Cars, three story buildings, roads, computers, tools...it's all just off the coast buried in mud banks.

The moral of this post is- "Water washes away evidence."
 
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King of the Americas said:
Rebuttal-

The floods resulting from the melting ice sheets gave rise to ocean levels while washing "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash" out to sea...

A flood of over 120 feet covered Cairo, now there are NO TRACES of who built the sphinx. No "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash"...

Try visiting Sri Lanka at the places not yet rebuilt from the tsunami- there's NOTHING left- ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH. Cars, three story buildings, roads, computers, tools...it's all just off the coast buried in mud banks.

The moral of this post is- "Water washes away evidence."
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It goes somewhere.

Also, we were talking about stone structures that weren't washed away. It's hard to imagine standing structures that get scrubbed as clean as required, especially when archeologists are able to carbon date things they did find.

I don't see Hancock getting the evidence he needs from the evidence that's missing. Forget metal, even pottery would be nice.
 
The timeline of Gobekli Tepe doesn't really fit a catastrophe model.

The National Geographic Magazine describes a gradual falling away of "tech" rather than an all-or-none.
"Puzzle piled upon puzzle as the excavation continued. For reasons yet unknown, the rings at Göbekli Tepe seem to have regularly lost their power, or at least their charm. Every few decades people buried the pillars and put up new stones—a second, smaller ring, inside the first. Sometimes, later, they installed a third. Then the whole assemblage would be filled in with debris, and an entirely new circle created nearby. The site may have been built, filled in, and built again for centuries.

Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C. Göbekli Tepe was all fall and no rise." http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text
 
King of the Americas said:
Rebuttal-

The floods resulting from the melting ice sheets gave rise to ocean levels while washing "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash" out to sea...

A flood of over 120 feet covered Cairo, now there are NO TRACES of who built the sphinx. No "writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash"...

Try visiting Sri Lanka at the places not yet rebuilt from the tsunami- there's NOTHING left- ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH. Cars, three story buildings, roads, computers, tools...it's all just off the coast buried in mud banks.

The moral of this post is- "Water washes away evidence."
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Rebuttal -

1. you are speculating: "there's no evidence because it all got washed away completely" versus "there's no evidence because it didn't happen".

2. The last ice age *ended* 10k years ago: what change in sea level are you claiming occurred during the period at which the article places the destruction that is asserted to have at the site speculated to be Atlantis?
 
marplots said:
Sounds like the response you'd expect from an honorable man, interested in getting things right.



Here's Shermer in Scientific American on the topic:
First, no matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that after centuries of flourishing every last tool, potsherd, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, writing, metallurgy and other technologies—not to mention trash—was erased? Inconceivable. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/
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"Inconceivable"? Really? The best Shermer can muster is an appeal to incredulity?

Boop to that.

And boop to every self-styled "skeptic" everywhere who refuses to repudiate Shermer's blatant douchebaggery here.
 
theprestige said:
"Inconceivable"? Really? The best Shermer can muster is an appeal to incredulity?

Boop to that.

And boop to every self-styled "skeptic" everywhere who refuses to repudiate Shermer's blatant douchebaggery here.
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That is an appeal to reason and experience, not to incredulity. Or put it another way: we are obliged to be incredulous at the suggestion that every artefact of an advanced society would be totally obliterated by a flood.
 
marplots said:
It goes somewhere.

Also, we were talking about stone structures that weren't washed away. It's hard to imagine standing structures that get scrubbed as clean as required, especially when archeologists are able to carbon date things they did find.

I don't see Hancock getting the evidence he needs from the evidence that's missing. Forget metal, even pottery would be nice.
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Again, the evidence you seek is sealed in mud bank off the coast under water.
 
marplots said:
The timeline of Gobekli Tepe doesn't really fit a catastrophe model.

The National Geographic Magazine describes a gradual falling away of "tech" rather than an all-or-none.
"Puzzle piled upon puzzle as the excavation continued. For reasons yet unknown, the rings at Göbekli Tepe seem to have regularly lost their power, or at least their charm. Every few decades people buried the pillars and put up new stones—a second, smaller ring, inside the first. Sometimes, later, they installed a third. Then the whole assemblage would be filled in with debris, and an entirely new circle created nearby. The site may have been built, filled in, and built again for centuries.

Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C. Göbekli Tepe was all fall and no rise." http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text
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Sounds like Fingerprints of the Gods evidence...

I'm not saying it is, but the technology, seemingly advanced, "pops up out of nowhere" and then is lost. Weird, to say the least.

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ETA: Impact also lends itself to agricultural collapse and descending time spent on 'the arts'...as more and more crops failed they had to spend more time hunting and gathering?
 
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King of the Americas said:
Again, the evidence you seek is sealed in mud bank off the coast under water.
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Weird that Hancock et al. were able to draw far-reaching conclusions about completely lost civilisations without any evidence. The assertion that the survivors of these advanced cities abandoned every shred of their culture and technology and became stone age hunter-gatherers out of penance is also weird, and seems to be too convenient an explanation to explain the lack of physical evidence.

But what you have just posted is, well, let's say interesting.
Find these mud banks, rediscover the remnants of these ancient city dwellers, and presto: evidence.
Why would anyone just accept Hancock's outlandish speculation before he has produced any evidence?
And where is this mud bank? Any ideas?
Or are you going to be very vague, so you can always claim 'maybe the next mud bank over, I'm going to insist I'm correct until every inch of the Eurasian coastline has been dug up'?
 
Porpoise of Life said:
Weird that Hancock et al. were able to draw far-reaching conclusions about completely lost civilisations without any evidence. The assertion that the survivors of these advanced cities abandoned every shred of their culture and technology and became stone age hunter-gatherers out of penance is also weird, and seems to be too convenient an explanation to explain the lack of physical evidence.

But what you have just posted is, well, let's say interesting.
Find these mud banks, rediscover the remnants of these ancient city dwellers, and presto: evidence.
Why would anyone just accept Hancock's outlandish speculation before he has produced any evidence?
And where is this mud bank? Any ideas?
Or are you going to be very vague, so you can always claim 'maybe the next mud bank over, I'm going to insist I'm correct until every inch of the Eurasian coastline has been dug up'?
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Try getting a permit to do underwater excavation that requires drilling bore holes and removing large scapes of ocean floor, within another nation's territorial waters...

You might as well as me to procure moon rocks.
 
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