Merged Skeptics vs. Knowers/Believers

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Correa Neto said:
Heck, you can even imagine a huge (sub light) generation ship hidden beyond the Moon sending stealth scout craft or probes. But there are no reliable pieces of evidence to back this "less implausible" scenario also. So, its nothing, it has no value, its just another wild speculation, it is not a theory, it does not make UFOs as alien machines more likely. One needs reliable evidence to do so. Once the evidence is present, then the speculation may become a hypothesis and eventually a theory.

Got reliable evidence UFO buffs?
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Well - Correa Neto- you ruffian- now that you have opened up the whole "UFO Base on Moon" can of worms, an observation that the NASA rocket deliberately blasted into the surface of the moon near the pole has the CT'ers already accusing NASA of, and I quote ; "the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions" because, and I quote again; "mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon"

I have the link but I cannot bear to post it. If I receive a ton of PMs from people clamouring for it I will, but seriously, folks....

So, there you have it, Neto... another 'unwinnable' war?:D

Does anything ever escape the claws of the Ct'ers? Sheesh!

I am almost thinking skeptically! Yikes! It must be the Correa Neto mind meld!
 
Yeah_Right said:
It's interesting that Disotell poses the same question that I have thought of over the years when it comes to this subject. Why didn't the aliens build, or assist in the building of sky scraper like structures. Certainly with their supposed tech they could have done that. Not only that, but why not use advanced materials like glass and steel and concrete for construction? I think the lack of such building practices proves that is was our ancestors that built these structures witout the need for alien help.
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Yes of course, I almost forgot there were people who claim to know the mindset of the "aliens". Perhaps you could fill us in Yeah_Right?

I on the other hand contend that we cannot conclude anything about the "intention" or "motivation" of any supposed "aliens". There is simply no rational method that would allow us to conclude any such thing...

Therefore any questions on the theme of "Why didn't the aliens..." or "Why don't the aliens..." presupposes that someone out there knows the mind of the "aliens" sufficiently well to actually answer the question - which of course is pure woo!

Which means of course that anyone proposing to make a substantive point based on any supposed answer to the question is just propagating pure nonsense.
 
Rramjet said:
Yes of course, I almost forgot there were people who claim to know the mindset of the "aliens". Perhaps you could fill us in Yeah_Right?

I on the other hand contend that we cannot conclude anything about the "intention" or "motivation" of any supposed "aliens". There is simply no rational method that would allow us to conclude any such thing...

Therefore any questions on the theme of "Why didn't the aliens..." or "Why don't the aliens..." presupposes that someone out there knows the mind of the "aliens" sufficiently well to actually answer the question - which of course is pure woo!

Which means of course that anyone proposing to make a substantive point based on any supposed answer to the question is just propagating pure nonsense.
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You know you remind me of Stanton Friedman, is that you Stanton? But if you put the idea of knowing the mindset of aliens on its head. Presuming that they built the great edifices of the ancient world is presuming a lot. That they're here to study us, is presuming a lot. Or that they live on the bottom of the ocean in a civilization so covert that they never leave a trace of their existence, is well, you get the idea. Given those ideas, I think my ideas of why they didn't build more advanced structures has just as much validity as someone thinking they're here to save us from ourselves.

Quite frankly, until better evidence comes to light on this subject, I mean good stuff like meeting with the aliens and getting a good idea of what their technology is like, anything said about them is pretty much a presumption.
 
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Rramjet said:
Yes of course, I almost forgot there were people who claim to know the mindset of the "aliens". Perhaps you could fill us in Yeah_Right?

I on the other hand contend that we cannot conclude anything about the "intention" or "motivation" of any supposed "aliens". There is simply no rational method that would allow us to conclude any such thing...

Therefore any questions on the theme of "Why didn't the aliens..." or "Why don't the aliens..." presupposes that someone out there knows the mind of the "aliens" sufficiently well to actually answer the question - which of course is pure woo!

Which means of course that anyone proposing to make a substantive point based on any supposed answer to the question is just propagating pure nonsense.
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This looks a lot like the arguments I get from Creationists about fossils and "apparent" physical evidence of the age of the Earth and evolution - "who would presume to know the mind of God, and why should we assume He uses the same logic we do?"
I think it's a silly argument from them, and I think it's a silly argument here.
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
The technique the researchers found most productive in making straight, tight joints between stones was to dust the bottom stone with stone dust, and lower the top stone into place. Its weight would compress the stone dust and leave a clear impression of where stone needed to be removed. Impact spalling with a hard cobble would quickly break the stone away from the places it needed to be reduced in size. The most daunting task was the several times that the top stone had to be lowered into the course before it was sufficiently well fit to be left in place, but it was manageable using brute force, ropes, and levers.
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Do you have any insights as to how they managed the corner cuts, and their right angles?
 
Yeah_Right said:
Every time I hear someone like KoTA talk about our ancestors being incapable of building certain ancient structures, or that ufos appear in ancient art etc, I always think that Erich Von Daniken was a great con artist in getting people to believe such nonsense. Now I am not sure that KoTA has ever read Daniken, but I have a suspicion that he has.
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Do you have "proof" of who built the Pumapunku site, as well as when and how they did it?

(*And I never said the Inca absolutely could not have accomplished it. I said I wasn't sure it could have been done without hardened steel tools.)
 
Pure_Argent said:
Chisels?
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Basically. Pointed rocks. They were either struck by a hammerstone like a chisel or used as a hammerstone themselves. An example is described on page 16 of this reference, and appears a page later as figure 24. It has wear both on its pointed end and its blunt end, so was presumably struck by another stone, which would technically make it a chisel.

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/Inca%20Quarrying%20and%20Stonecutting.pdf

This isn't the work by Jean Pierre Protzen I referenced earlier, as Scientific American Magazine doesn't have free archives, but one of his other works, as archived by JSTOR.org.

I'm going to keep emphasizing here that our ancestors were capable of far more than we give them credit for. The common picture of ignorant, ineffectual savages is just us stroking our own egos. The fewer tools you have to work with, the more intelligent you have to be in order to use them.

A.
 
I've already carefully read the article I posted, and I predict based on that, that the response will be a cherry picking nitpick of several particular facts and lines. First, that there are some things, specifically how the long stones were quarried, that Protzen doesn't claim to know. Second, that Protzen disagrees with the prior authority on breaking stone by expansion of wooden wedges, but is not himself certain how the stone was cracked, and third, that the regional style at ollantaytambo isn't identical to the regional style at the pumupunkku site KoA is going on about, and fourth, that the stone here, while equally hard and difficult to work, isn't identical to the other site's stone.

There. They're preempted. Lack of perfect explanation is not proof of lack of explanation. Wooden tools wouldn't survive, so there's no proof that they were or were not used, but that technique is known, and so are others, and all are within the grasp of 'primitives'. Both regional variations in architecture are dependent on the ability to work stone to close tolerances and straight lines. If one could be done by 'primitives' so could the other. Both stones are similar in working characteristics, as would be known to a geologist, if not necessarily a pseudoscientist.

A.
 
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King of the Americas said:
Show me... Let's SEE "evidence" of 2200 year old chisels capable of cutting right angle corners into diorite.
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Really?

First off, they wouldn't have been 2200 years old at that time. They would have been just made.

Even if they weren't "officially" chisels, and were just pointed rocks like the Speaker (Andrew Wiggin, for you non-sci-fi people) says, it's no big revelation that rock can chisel rock.

And making right corners isn't some magic property that the chisel itself has to have. It's the sculptor, not the tool. The person USING the chisel has to know how to make right corners.
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
Basically. Pointed rocks. They were either struck by a hammerstone like a chisel or used as a hammerstone themselves. An example is described on page 16 of this reference, and appears a page later as figure 24. It has wear both on its pointed end and its blunt end, so was presumably struck by another stone, which would technically make it a chisel.

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/Inca%20Quarrying%20and%20Stonecutting.pdf

This isn't the work by Jean Pierre Protzen I referenced earlier, as Scientific American Magazine doesn't have free archives, but one of his other works, as archived by JSTOR.org.

I'm going to keep emphasizing here that our ancestors were capable of far more than we give them credit for. The common picture of ignorant, ineffectual savages is just us stroking our own egos. The fewer tools you have to work with, the more intelligent you have to be in order to use them.

A.
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Good link...not great, but 'good'.

No evidence of the "saws" or "abrasion cuts" featured... It DOES feature results from facing/dressing experimental techniques that could have been employed to form 'squared blocks".

Cutting a square 'into' a stone, however, is a different task altogether.

Actual evidence of how these cuts were made is lacking.

You link doesn't explain Pumapunku.

Thank you though, I enjoyed the insights.
 
King of the Americas said:
Good link...not great, but 'good'.

No evidence of the "saws" or "abrasion cuts" featured... It DOES feature results from facing/dressing experimental techniques that could have been employed to form 'squared blocks".

Cutting a square 'into' a stone, however, is a different task altogether.

Actual evidence of how these cuts were made is lacking.

You link doesn't explain Pumapunku.

Thank you though, I enjoyed the insights.
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OH MY GOD

Andrew can see the FUTURE!!!

:eye-poppi
 
Pure_Argent said:
Really?

First off, they wouldn't have been 2200 years old at that time. They would have been just made.

Even if they weren't "officially" chisels, and were just pointed rocks like the Speaker (Andrew Wiggin, for you non-sci-fi people) says, it's no big revelation that rock can chisel rock.

And making right corners isn't some magic property that the chisel itself has to have. It's the sculptor, not the tool. The person USING the chisel has to know how to make right corners.
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The 'depth' of the corner being cut IS in the chisel's ability or not.

A big chisel can't make a small corner.

Please review the PDF file link above, therein it notes that the 'lines' weren't hammered in, but rather were the result of abrasion.
 
King of the Americas said:
You understand what a right angle is, right?

You've seen the images of the stones in question, right?

The link above noted that the 'lines' cut into the stone weren't a result of smashing/pounding, but rather from "abrasion"...

So, where are these 'saws'?
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Who says that saws are necessary?
 
Pure_Argent said:
OH MY GOD

Andrew can see the FUTURE!!!

:eye-poppi
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Naah. I just happen to know how to turn my mind inside out and view a paper from the view of someone looking to crap all over it for points. I love pulling the pre-emptive post, and this article is just long enough to give me the time it took to skim it again with denial in mind while he was reading it and preparing his rebuttal. He missed a few points though, and I missed that the abrasion lines weren't made by tools that were found. Protzen just commented on what he knew didn't make them, I.E. they weren't rope saws. On the other hand, abrasion lines can be made by scratching repeatedly with a rock, and the article I linked to does discuss them in context with the rest of the stonework.

A.
 
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