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Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

King of the Americas said:
I have a BA in Criminal Justice and Legal Studies from an accredited university. I fully understand the rules of evidence- its collection and presentation. What I 'found' documented, and presented here, were underwater ruins... They were under water, and were clearly square and rectangular buildings.

I posted them here, to be confirmed.

ETA: Here's that thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319689
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You want us to wade through a huge thread looking for a link?
 
King of the Americas said:
Please post evidence of the in-island basalt quarry, OR admit it was from somewhere else.
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That's an interesting outright hypocritical stance toward lack of evidence you've adopted.

Earlier in the thread you were repeatedly touting the position that the lack of evidence didn't mean you weren't wrong. The evidence had been disturbed. Or it just hasn't been found yet. Or whatever. But it would be found in the future and prove you right.

And now you've done a complete 180 and are adopting the attitude that because of the lack of evidence of for a quarry on the island (assuming for the sake of argument that there is no evidence for said quarry, you seem to be woefully inadequate at finding and/or interpreting evidence) means the quarry isn't there and must be therefore off the island.

If you don't have evidence, you're still right because it just means the evidence hasn't been found yet. If someone else doesn't have evidence, it therefore means you're completely right about any alternative you might care to invent.

Rank hypocrisy and evidence that your'e just spouting this **** off the top of your head.
 
StackOverflow said:
^ Does not understand anything ^
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Excellent. KOTA whole point was to waste people's time. His main contribution was to demonstrate the principle of :

'If I believe something it must be true or otherwise that would mean I'm wrong and that just cannot be............lol'
 
King of the Americas said:
I think my say here, has been said.

Take from this thread what you will, there is no more.
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Highly highly unlikely - your ego will not allow you to slink away defeated and still wrong. Your only solution will to make up something else and pretend it's real evidence....................just because it didn't work before and we laughed at you - you'll just have try it again.

I would suggest the following standard fringe tactics:

Suggest that no evidence for the lost civilization is found because the evil cabal of academics/the government/'they' are suppressing it

Put up 'channeled' information as 'proof'

Go over all the same evidence again

Suggest we live in one dimension and the inter-dimensional proof is in another 'reality' that only 'believers' can go to.....
 
Hans said:
The actual answer is that a few of Moai were not quarried from 'living rock' but were made from erratic stones left from earlier volcanic explosions, ie free lying boulders - speculation of course.
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That is a possibility that I had not thought about. My speculations:
  • There are basalt quarries that were mined for tools. It is possible that the 13 basalt moai were quarried there and subsequent mining removed any traces. It makes sense for the niches where the statues were to be the focal points of later work.
  • There were other basalt quarries that just have not been found. Perhaps covered by spoil from nearby quarries. Perhaps they were small enough to be filled in by erosion.
  • Maybe there are underwater quarries but not covered by the physically impossible sea level rise. I am thinking about the crater lakes. An earthquake causes one to drain exposing basalt outcrops. They are quarried while the lake refills.
  • A remote possibility - there are no basalt moai because the Wikipedia article is incorrect. The source is a 1994 book. Perhaps there is later analysis that showed that the basalt was something else.
 
King of the Americas said:
Basalt Moai- https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/quarry-easter-island/
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A National Geographic description of a quarry that has no citations and so is a worse source than the Wikipedia article already cited here.

King of the Americas said:
Which is more likely they were transported there on raft boats, or they came from local quarries, now submerged?
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Neither fantasy is correct.
No evidence that Easter Islanders travelled from the island after settlement. No evidence of imaginary submerged quarries. It is physically impossible for any seashore quarries to have been submerged after the settlement of the island.
 
King of the Americas said:
I have a BA in Criminal Justice and Legal Studies from an accredited university. I fully understand the rules of evidence- its collection and presentation.
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No. You appear to have missed the module on court rules. You are not allowed to imply anything. You must make a clear an unambiguous statement as to what you are claiming.

There a more than a couple of lawyers posting here.
 
Reality Check said:
That is a possibility that I had not thought about. My speculations:
  • There are basalt quarries that were mined for tools. It is possible that the 13 basalt moai were quarried there and subsequent mining removed any traces. It makes sense for the niches where the statues were to be the focal points of later work.
  • There were other basalt quarries that just have not been found. Perhaps covered by spoil from nearby quarries. Perhaps they were small enough to be filled in by erosion.
  • Maybe there are underwater quarries but not covered by the physically impossible sea level rise. I am thinking about the crater lakes. An earthquake causes one to drain exposing basalt outcrops. They are quarried while the lake refills.
  • A remote possibility - there are no basalt moai because the Wikipedia article is incorrect. The source is a 1994 book. Perhaps there is later analysis that showed that the basalt was something else.
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Those are good possibilities too. There isn't much top soil on the island except around the main quarry. Those quarries could be in re-forested areas or have been covered over by modern construction.

I've been to the site twice, once as a tourist a decade or so and the first time as an archaeology student doing survey work there. Survey work the two main quarries and checking on some of the work done by Thor which he talked about in the book Aku Aku.

Most of the origins for the Moai are known so unless basalt rocks were falling form the sky they may have used such isolated rocks. It is thought one group may have controlled the main quarry and 'outliers' may have used what they could find.

118516874.jpg


Example of an isolated basalt rock from the north shore area.
 
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King of the Americas said:
Please post evidence of the in-island basalt quarry, OR admit it was from somewhere else.
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You need to learn about a basic debating principle - it is up to the person who makes an assertion to support that assertion with evidence. You are the person who first stated the assertion of submerged quarries. You are the person who needs to supply the evidence.
14 November 2017: Source for one statue at Ahu Nau Nau being basalt.
14 November 2017: Source for that basalt statue coming from a basalt quarry that is now underwater.

ETA: Also a bit of hypocrisy.
You think no evidence is evidence. Thus using your logic, no evidence for basalt moai quarries is evidence for basalt moai quarries!
You think not evacuating 100% of a site allows anything to exist. Thus using your logic, not evacuating 100% of Easter Island allows basalt moai quarries to exist.

You also need to learn more about Easter Island - there are in-island basalt quarries where they at least quarried basalt tools and (my thought) may have quarried the 13 basalt moai.
Excavation Season V October-November 2011
Before we began our excavation we visited the basalt quarries and outcrops sampled by our colleague Dr. Christian Fischer as part of our XRF analysis project. We have collected XRF data on over 40 sites. That information will be used byRapa Nui student Rafael Rapu in his comparative study of tools (toki) retrieved in our excavations.
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Reality Check said:
A National Geographic description of a quarry that has no citations and so is a worse source than the Wikipedia article already cited here.


Neither fantasy is correct.
No evidence that Easter Islanders travelled from the island after settlement. No evidence of imaginary submerged quarries. It is physically impossible for any seashore quarries to have been submerged after the settlement of the island.
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They did travel on occasion to Piscina en Isla Sala y Gomez which is near EI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Salas_y_Gómez

...but yeah no imaginary sunken quarries. As usual a wooish person making up stuff that a simple basic understanding of the islands situation would dismiss at once - the whole island is full of rocks. Pick one.

Although there is no evidence that the island has ever been permanently inhabited, Easter Islanders were certainly aware of its existence, as indicated by the pre-European name of the island. Tradition says that the island was occasionally visited to collect fledglings and eggs. The island was said to have been difficult to land upon, because the gods Make-make and Huau protected the seabirds from those who ate their eggs and offspring. Because of these historical connections to Easter Island, Salas y Gómez can be considered part of Polynesia; if so its location makes it the easternmost landmass of Polynesia.
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These were temporary forays only of course
 
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Hans said:
Example of an isolated basalt rock from the north shore area.
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Volcanoes of Easter Island
Rano Kau is in the world heritage site of Rapa Nui National Park and gives its name to one of the seven sections of the park. The principal archaeological site on Rano Kau is the ruined ceremonial village of Orongo which is located at the point where the sea cliff and inner crater wall converge. As well as basalt, it contains several other igneous rocks including obsidian
http://www.easterislandtourism.com/what-to-visit/volcanos/

:)

I assume King of the Americas missed that the island's fresh water comes from a volcano crater.
 
Hans said:
These were temporary forays only of course
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Slightly off topic
I really was at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii three months ago talking to an anthropologist about Polynesian seafaring. He was getting all excited about potatoes reaching the old world by Polynesians. At first it made sense but when I got home it sort of didn't make any sense.

However his main point was that Polynesian language words were corrupted on one island and then the corrupted word would be introduced to other islands and further variation took place suggesting Polynesian did a lot of seafaring and inter island cultural exchanges.
 
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