Ground breaking research has shown that ground breaking research can be heavily influenced by the political beliefs & agendas of those who commission it, and by those who undertake it.Comment by andrew65 on "Britain's prehistoric catastrophe revealed: How 90% of the neolithic population vanished in just 300 years." By David Keys The Independent, 2/22/18.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Pearls of expression.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Note that the entire leap of faith is based on a total of 51 individuals' remains out of a population estimated to be from a quarter- to a half-million.
A good point. I do sympathize with archeologists as they by necessity have no choice but to extrapolate like crazy from the data they've got. And, no question, we're as often as not inclined to see what we want to see. I wouldn't be surprised if advanced thinkers in the archeology community came up with a theory that Britain was once settled by either Bantus or Eskimaux.
Of late, I've become fascinated by the quality of the megalithic (it seems) stone work in Egypt and S. America. The perfection of the angles, the straightness of the cuts, evidence of rotary sawing, perfectly round holes, and unbelievable weights that get moved long distances suggest something a lot more sophisticated and technologically advanced than skilled artisans chipping away at granite with bronze chisels and thousands of guys moving hundreds or thousands of massive stones with ropes. There's a 1,200 TON stone in Baalbek, Lebanon that was worked on and near to point of removal and transportation. That's a massive stone and then it was to be lifted into place (next to other identical stones) as a foundation of some kind of building. All quite intriguing.
To your point, however, there is some woo woo speculation about stone carvings depicting rocket ships and alien beings as the source of this technology. It's enjoyable to listen to even those guys as I think they are examples of the human mind at its most inventive. Speculation and extrapolation are much to be desired at any time and if someone overdrives his headlights, well, too bad. It's just part of the process.
What's distasteful is the attempt to shut down competing schools of thought a la nuclear winter, global warming, climate change, climate disruption, and [insert future linguistic contortion here].
Politically were suffering from a failure of imagination to be polite. "Democracy," women's rights, equality, a compromised criminal justice system, the universal franchise, multiculturalism are different titanium walls circumscribing our thinking. Venture to the other side of those walls at your peril. It's led to unbelievable debasement.
Post a Comment