I had a great science teacher from 7th through 9th grades. He was smart, interesting, and had a knack for teaching. When Chariots of the Gods came out (1968), it was all the talk in our small school. Our teacher took the opportunity to debunk everything in it with simple experiments. His point was that primitive peoples may not have had the technology we have, but they weren't stupid. He used wooden stakes and fire to split sandstone, he used other stones to polish it. There was an idea that the Great Pyramids were somehow laid out according to PI..so he took a tire, strapped a wedge to it and had us roll it down the sides of the football field and across and back...he then showed us by using the indentations in the field as your corners...you got sides that mathematically lined up with PI. He taught us the scientific method very early, he talked to us like we were adults. In another experiment he had about five of us, using just 4x4 inch levers, move a very large stone all over a field. Once we got the hang of it, moving that stone was easy. I was so lucky to have really great teachers. Something I've noticed about people expounding on silly ideas is they throw out non-existent science as though it's a known truth, they talk fast and never give you a chance to respond, they use half-truths mixed with facts, and they jump to conclusions with the least real data available.
It's so much easier and more believable for the popular teacher to sit back and simply say, "It was all space aliens." You don't even have to go outside.
Please pause at 10:42 this image claiming perfect symmetry is right out of Christopher Dunn's book. At a glance the beard and philtrum( under the nose) are offset. He just arbitrarily added some fat lines on top of a picture and measured nothing.
@@itsnot_stupid_ifitworks ben from uncharted x pulled a photo of an Egyptian granite core, on Joe's podcast and begun to wonder at how impossible it is....without realizing he's looking at an experimental replica made by scientists against myths 🤣 Of course, he still pretends that didn't happened...
On almost every one of those "but the symmetry though" claims, specifically the vessels, you'll see handles with far less symmetry, often off set from each other. and when you bring them up, it's always dismissed
Great job, David. It has always amazed me that the 'pseudos' turn their noses up at science and archaeology. And then they brazenly turn around and try to use 'science' to prove their points.
It's also funny that just because a video supports certain beliefs that guarantees all or most of the comments are going to be "on the same team". I am totally on board with a lot of the "pseudo" sciences but im still here..
@@afterthought3341did they really though? I got into it originally because because i became interested in the topic and that was the most common type of content available
You touched on this briefly but there's a few videos on how to spot pseudoscience. Appeal to authority is one, but also there is the appeal to simplicity or "what makes sense". The Martymer had a good run down in some of the clues.
Backwards reasoning is a common one pseudo archeological method, especially when paired with ley-lines or astronomy. Pseudo archeologists will assume that a site aligned with the solar equinox or some star or constellation and then backdate it to the last time it would have aligned with the site.
Re: iron smashing diamonds......I'm a jeweller, gemologist, qualified diamond grader & advanced diamond grader, registered valuer (registered valuers association president for 10 years) & I have a diploma in diamond technology.....yet idiots will argue with me that a diamond is unbreakable!! they all know better than me!! and yes I have got a hammer to a diamond and smashed it in front of the most obnoxious ones, not all diamond have value so I Iost near to zero in dollars & a diamond that I would never otherwise use - now argue with me:-)
yes. That is why diamond cutters get ulcers........ = fear of making a mistake to cause the diamond to shatter. Hence they will meticulously study it before attempting to make cuts to yield specific shapes desired.
@@varyolla435 Very true & thats why I didn't take that path in the industry; I don't have the patience because I would end up using a hammer!!!!!! The Koh-I-Noor would end up as the Koh-I-smashed-it.
I saw a new advance in Great Pyramid woo recently. On twitter someone had claimed that by raising/lowering the blocks of granite in the portcullis to the Kings Chamber, the pyramid could have generated noise, if not actually speak. When I asked for proof, I was of course referred to the work of Christopher Dunn. No stone left unturned, I guess.
Re Paradolia my favourite one is a photo I took of a goat standing on her hind legs and carrying a basket over her foreleg. 2 steps further down the lane showed just an old tree stump propped up and surrounded by prunings from the orchard and weeds pulled up by the owner. 😂 But once seen, 2 steps back and she was still there like a Beatrix Potter goat going shopping.
@@julietfischer5056 Yes, it's a mountain. I wish it would be visited, though. It looks like an interesting mountain! Perhaps with water gulleys, so perhaps aliens, at least little alien microbes anyway, or fossils from them if nothing else, _are_ there just not in the way one might have thought. Not to mention its pop cult significance would seem to potentially gather enthusiasm for such a mission at least among those who are not wedded to an overly naive interpretation of it.
@@shimrrashai-rc8fq You should watch Elderfox Documentaries. It will amaze you the places the rover has visited, places far more interesting than the mountain, at least in my opinion. That channel is a wealth of spectacular images and footage.
Me too...but I watched Library of the untolds new mars video..... it's part of a bigger picture the alignments around it are identical to things here..check it out..
The late psychologist Robert Ornstein wrote a paper about the problems of parapsychology - the study of unusual experiential phenomena. After investigating the field, he sadly concluded that it was mainly inhabited by two sorts of extremist - credulous believers, and militant sceptics. The number of open-minded investigators was very small. His paper was entitled 'The Believers and the Blind'.
And in between the two, _very_ little hard proof for either case (note while you cannot "prove a negative", you can still amass a ton of evidence to exclude a massive parameter space. There are no indisputable positives, but also very little total data and parameter space covered compared to something with real academic interest). One thing I've thought happens in cases like these is that there's basically a sort of "channelization" process for upstart minds: they either are brimming with unconventional ideas and then get into "kookery" and led away from something substantiable, _or_ they go toward academe on the grounds "you have to do the hard work", which _is_ correct, but then fail to realize that when you go down that way you don't just get taught "work" but also often get taught _prejudices,_ and then their out-of-the-box, maverick thinking is crushed while developing skill. They end up developing good skill, but toward the aim of holding a status quo, instead of both developing good skill while _also_ being able to be comfortable walking around outside the box and on top of it all refusing to dogmatize any fluffier claims.
Egiptians talking: - Ok we finished our pyramid. When will our brothers from west and east finish theirs? I can't wait to turn on this power ley line. - They say it will take some milenia - Damn
11:33 - and you want your argument accepted, because the counterargument hasn't been published in authoritative journals. In psychology you call this projection. Funny how you challenge STEM science with almost no knowledge of field.
*you want your argument accepted, because the counterargument hasn't been published in authoritative journals* Arguments are accepted on their merits. *Funny how you challenge STEM science with almost no knowledge of field.* When did I challenge STEM science?
@@WorldofAntiquityYou challenge STEM by simply implying that precision is mainly influenced by skill. So please make me a modern canon using 21st century using a 17th century furnace. Merits? Nobody in great historical journals has ever looked at this So please assess the paper "Abstractions set in granite" for its mathematical accuracy.
@@N.Eismann *You challenge STEM by simply implying that precision is mainly influenced by skill.* You're just making things up off the top of your head. *So please assess the paper "Abstractions set in granite" for its mathematical accuracy.* Already did. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wcl82hQr8xc.html
well said. I always felt pyramids were a pretty obvious shape if you wantted a big strong stable building, obviously I would have prefered themn to be built the other way up if I was a visiting alien and wanted to impress 21st century archiologist and historians
Your position isn't really clear, and nothing you present in this video is objective, but rather just an opinion which includes personal attacks. You seem to have a dog in this fight, are obstinate about even considering that our contemporary view of history may be erronous in some aspects. Is it your position that the artifacts and megalithic structures in question were crafted by hand by primitive cultures? I'm interested to see the hoops you jump through as well as any name calling you resort to in order to respond to this.
@@WorldofAntiquity you completely dismiss my question which intellectually eviscerates your entire video, an expression of how you respond to ideas that challenge your opinion
Another pseudo-archeological method is to rely on only one source or one kind of evidence (like precision) instead using different separate but related facts to support a hypothesis.
Nope, you can see this reflected in how the creation myths of most settled people's include some sort of story about how the gods gave them agriculture. These cultures clearly believed that agriculture was as old as time itself and didn't really know that the plants they used for agriculture had been cultivated by humans for thousands of years to bring them to their current state.
Precisionism has also been proven demonstrably false, even a moderately skilled human can easily achieve precision in the mm scale and skilled craftmen can achieve precisions in the micro meters. Humans are even capable of detecting bumps as small as a nm with our finger, when something feels smooth that's because the surface has no consistent bumps larger than a few nm.
The big deal about precision in modern manufacturing isn't the measurements themselves but rather their consistency, which allows us to produce spare parts knowing that they will fit into any given machine. Producing really precise things isn't fundamentally difficult when working on a single object because there's a range of mathematical tricks like symetry you can employ. What is difficult is having consistent dimensions across all of the objects you make because that requires some sort of universal standard to work against. And I don't just mean having a consistent system of measures, you also need to transfer those into the real world through tools, a single person could maybe develop their own techniques and tools to achieve a fairly high degree of consistency but now imagine doing this across hundreds of thousands of people. This is what's impressive about modern manufacturing, it's not so much that we can build tiny things, though that too is impressive, it's that we can have people working all across the world without ever speaking together produce objects with so consistent dimensions that we can build jet engines and computers out of them. This is the kind of precision that a pre-industrial society would actually be incapable of achieving and of course it's exactly what we don't see in the archeological record.
Well, I completed the first one before the age of 30. I have been moving stones and carving them traditionally, just like the ones used in the pyramids, and I have been designing and building traditionally for over 40 years now. So, no, I don't need to "prove" anything to you as some random person with no professional connections. Learn the basics of traditional stone quarrying and carving, and then come back to share what you have learned.
I would like to hear your thoughts on the Silurian Hypothesis. Personally, I do not think there is any evidence to support it, but I would like to hear your views on the subject.
like the tweaker i met very late one night in Berkeley who got all excited when he saw me carrying a small coffee table (long story) and I had to put it down while he rummaged thru his box of tweaker treasures. He pulled out a recently-dead blackbird, a carnelian flower, several exploded pens (that he tried to use to write notes in his notebook but none of them worked and he got ink all over his hands) and a few old radio parts and computer boards. He put them all on my table and was very intently trying to assemble them into a bio-techno thing that would do *something* remarkable I'm sure but he got frustrated that he couldn't record the procedure in his notebook so in the end he just started stabbing the dead blackbird with one of his dead pens. This might have been part of the procedure, I wasn't sure. He was very scientific about it all.
As someone that worked on evolutionary biology I would like to add that when biologists see two organisms with a similar feature our first assumption is not that they are related. We have seen enough cases of convergent evolution to realize that most of the time it means they perform a similar action and this feature is the best way to perform such action. Features that signal a relation between 2 different species to a evolutionary biologist are silly things that aren't apparent at first glance, like the shape of certain bones in the skull or the angle of certain pelvic bones. These are often changes that indicate a species diverging from an ancestor and creating a new family of species that all share this trait and thus show a related ancestry. Which is much like archaeological research, a pyramid is just the easiest way to build a big structure, so the fact different, unrelated civilizations adopted the shape is expected, but relation is shown in little things, like evolution of language, timing of adopting certain technological advances or similar mythologies.
Such a cool field of study! Bet there are things known inside your field that would really be fascinating to investigate. My first real intro was thru my Mother (a Psychologist) and saw first hand the impact on Science and Society after watching Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. A comment by many of the reporters during this trial was a lot of the science they were learning about, they were learning for the first time, which is sad.
@@kevinmurphy65 I went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington while on vacation in the US and me and my wife (a medical biologists) felt the exhibit on evolution had a lot of parts that we worded quite badly. It seemed to imply a directionality or intent behind evolution. Evolutionary theory is actually a really simple concept to understand, but, in my opinion, not explained well by most science communicators. I don't know whether I would be able to do a better job, but almost every time I see a video attempting it I cringe at some of the words used or the simplifications attempted that just end up not teaching people how the evolutionary process really operates...
Also smaller motifs, like specific forms of the top of columns or the shape of a pyramid than the fact of "a pyramid" itself, e.g. the Mayan pyramids have a distinctive style beyond simply being "pyramidal" like the staggering, top temples, and stairs up the sides. A pyramid, itself, is literally just a man-made mountain. That's all you need to know to understand why they are/were built. Both structurally and in terms of inspiration.
Regarding precisionism: A machinist should be familiar with a certain artifact known as a surface plate. A slab of rock with a perfectly flat surface. I'm talking down to a few micrometers of flatness. These are made with nothing more than a few reasonably square pieces of stone, coloured paste and grit. You can do this at home if you want with no more tools or gauges than your hands and eyes.
A personal thought: I find it interesting that people have such a hard time believing multiple groups of people can come up with the same solution without contact and exchange of information. No matter where you’re born or what time you were born we all come into the world with the same tool kit. Two arms, two legs, a brain, strong back and a curiosity. So why is it so unreasonable to think we would find similar solutions to the same problem.?
Similar materials and needs tend towards similar solutions. Once we get past simple things (basic tools, pottery, baskets, etc), the differences usually show up in the details of construction or function.
And it's not just us humans. It also heavily depends on the subject and our environment. There are only so many variations, on how to make a fire or on how to make a container to store liquids. No wonder people all over the world developed similar concepts.
One thing that this video just touches on a few times is that the human brain is a pattern matching machine. Our brains are phenomenally good at finding patterns and are constantly looking for patterns. This is very useful but also has a big downside: false positives. Our brains are so eager to find patterns that we will find patterns and create meaning out of mere coincidence. Being the social creatures we are, the pattern we are looking for the most is human faces. This is one reason we anthropomorphize so many things. Another pattern we are always on the alert for is animals. This was once very important when we were both hunters and prey. "That cloud looks like a rabbit." [brain recognizes a possible meal] "That cloud looks like a lion." [brain recognizes the possibility of _becoming_ a meal] It is pretty rare for us to look at the clouds and see something like a fire hydrant or a 737 MAX door plug... uh oh-
If not for channels like yours I’d still be watching “Woo” channels and believing the likes of Hancock.. So Thankyou for putting me on the right path 👍🏻
You don`t have to believe everything, but just listen to the ideas. I bet you that not everything he says is untrue. And his theories makes people think. Many people have been mocked through the centuries on their theories that turned out to be true. Remember when the eaarth was flat?
@@jasongarcia2140 _"Isn't he just proposing ideas?"_ No, he is not "just' doing that. His business model depends on selling the image of himself as a brave crusader against a conspiracy of mainstream academia, and to that end he deliberately misrepresents finds and denigrates work already done.
Why has everyone turned on Hancock, he always stated he’s not sold on any 1 idea and that proof has not yet been provided and or certain. New discoveries are made yearly that contradict many mainstream theories. That’s all these things are theories. We can’t be so rigid in our thinking, that’s so arrogant to believe we have everything figured out, on history that happened so long ago with little evidences recorded
Unfortunately for every channel like yours that actually put people on the right path to understanding the past there are what seems a thousand pseudo sites espousing inaccuracies. Thank you for addressing the fallacies. Totally dig your site.
It's a plague. I guess because Atlantis/Aliens are cool and easy concept to believe in. The mind goes : ' Pyramid over here. Pyramid over there. must be same people behind it ...Duh. And now they can fantasize about all kinds of cool ideas, instead of reading and studying all these boring books with annoying facts.
Funny you should say that when he is pushing a fallacy himself. His definition of civilization is wrong, making his statement, that civilization isn't inevitable, false. By the definition of civilization, not only is it inevitable, humanity has never existed without it.
@@jeffstrom164 That depends on what you mean with civilisatie. Do yo call (for example) Nomadic tribes made up by by a small number of families a civilization ?
@spiritualanarchist8162 by the definition of civilization, yes. That is civilization. Civilization has no numerical requirement. It's not a binary. Its a scale involving many different things, none of which are required individually.
@@jeffstrom164 What I mean is that ,there are (atleast) two ways to use the word civilization . One . The customs , traditions a group of people have , can be called 'their civilization ' Or civilization can be used for : an advanced state of human society in with a high level of culture, science, industry, and government .
Future archaeologists will discover that all the great religious sites are at the intersection of lines drawn between branches of a well known supermarket.
someone's gonna find the tumblr post about the costco parking lot at 3am being an alternate dimension and think the costco parking lots must have contained stargates
The allure of pseudo science is compelling to some , but the truth is more fascinating than they could ever be ! Especially when you realise the past civilizations were just like us , but more social / cultural. Blessings 🙏 to you all ⭐
Back in the 1960s, ‘enhanced’ versions of Watkin’s Ley Line Theory were very popular. Being somewhat sceptical, we (college students at the time) drew a random series of straight lines on an Ordnance Survey map of southern England; twelve lines, each representing around 25 miles. Every one passed through at least six (with a couple passing 10) ‘sacred sites.’ It was all but impossible to draw a line which DIDN’T pass through or beside such sites as churches, stone circles, burial mounds, hillforts and so on simply because there were so many of them. I’m also reminded of a conclusion reached by a (then) leading anthropologist who had discovered a 300 metre set of tracks made by a family group of pre-homo-sapiens. He concluded that they were not yet tool-users as no tools or flakes had been found associated with the tracks. NO! Had it not occurred to him that the makers of the tracks might just possibly have been capable of walking 300 metres without dropping anything? Excellent, thoughtful video - as we’ve come to anticipate. Thanks for your excellent work.
I did an A level in archaeology. In an early project you had to take an Ordnance Survey sheet map and count all the archaeological sites on it. I took the map I had in my house - it was the one containing Stonehenge. My tutor laughed when I sent the results in and said it was a bad choice because how rich in sites that area is. A line going through that map would hit endless sites
A few years ago Matt Parker (Stand Up Maths on youtube)took a similar claim about archaeological sites forming isosceles triangles and worked out the odds of finding those triangles to that precision in random data. He then followed it up by finding the same patterns in locations of old Woolworth's locations, to demonstrate the point.
Huh. It's good to know that I'm not a tool user according to that leading anthropologist's conclusions. My dad and I used to go camping about a half-kilometer deep into our land parcel when I lived in a very rural area, we carried a fair bit of stuff over there and made it a point to do an inventory check at each rest point because tools are expensive to buy AND to make and it's better to backtrack and pick them back up or better yet not drop them. We also used this revolutionary technology of "bags of something supple enough to carry non-sharp things" and "straps of something that can be twisted and coiled and knotted" to keep the things attached to us.
@@huttj509 Asleep: theories about ancient civilizations because religious significance sites Awake: ancient precursor civilizations invented corporations because of Costco parking lots' locations on leylines
Another way to use soft tools to shape hard rocks is to use abrasives. For example, Egyptians used a copper or bronze saw to cut granite. The saw itself didn't do the cutting - instead the work was done by corundum powder between the saw and the stone. In fact, we still use this principle. Sandpaper, for example.
Im not sure if the math behind that theory works. but we will never get a real study about it... Archaeology is not used to the amount of math needed to get a good answer and they are allergic to any kind of hard data... We dont even have any data about how much energy was needed to build any of the megastructures in question.
Precisionism infuriates me to no end. An ancient global supercivilization used their lasers, "vibration and frequency" and other incredible technological advancements to.... stack rocks. Surely if they could build a laser, they'd have mined iron, titanium, aluminum, tungsten, and so on to build incredible structures with less material and labor involved.
well as far as I see, to carve and build with huge rocks was indeed high technology for 12000 years ago right? Other populations wasn´t even near this advance. So maybe is a matter of perspective.
Much of this was fine and good warning against dangers like seeing patterns where they don’t exist. I felt your bit on accuracy of artifacts made very dubious statements indeed. Mediaeval cathedrals are magnificent but not precise. The precision of an artificer is indeed limited by both their skill and the tool. This seems obvious, to me, at least. It seems absurd to argue, as I took you to be doing, that an artificer could achieve an extreme level of precision just through skill alone. The precision possible is constrained by the technique. In some cases the technique used does seem to be undetermined (e.g. for the famous stone pre-dynastic vases you featured), and I’d like someone to discover how they did it because the precision seems quite remarkable for the period they date from. Finally, the criticism of appeal to authority is wonderful but, dare I say, that is what archaeologists and historians themselves often fall back on when responding to unwelcome challenges from outsiders.
Medieval cathedrals are extremely precisely engineered, they're blindly engineered, but they are the product of rigorous selection that creates an artificial impression of precision by virtue of the fact that if they screw up they just fall down in the process of construction.
@@sampagano205 No, Sam. They are not precise in the same way that the vases featured briefly in the video are precise. Cathedrals did not have to be built to exact dimensions in order to be robust and to have the right aesthetic impact. Of course, the scale of the object is very different, but we are talking about very different orders of precision. I think you were perhaps interpreting precision differently from what I meant.
One of the funniest things is how ancient aliens used us as slave labor. As if earths minerals can’t be found anywhere else and they don’t have robots and shit that can mine without the hassle of dealing with people.
Obviously the logical thing for a space faring civilization to do would be to travel to an entirely different solar system just to land on the most massive terrestrial planet that also has a fairly thick atmosphere, thus making it the most expensive location to acquire minerals, and then enslave a stone age population instead of using mechanization to mine their minerals. Only to mine an absolutely tiny fraction of what said population will themselves mine later in just two centuries using mechanization. In general I tend to find that UFOlogists have a completely absurd idea of what space is like and what makes sense for aliens to do. Like if aliens wanted to observe us they wouldn't be flying around in our atmosphere, they'd construct a giant autonomous telescope in the Oort cloud where we have no chance of detecting it. Like we can build the JWST and we are only just getting the hang of space travel, surely a space faring civilization could easily build something much more advanced.
As if earth wasn't made out of space stuff. Like, if they're such advanced aliens, wouldn't harvesting exploding stars and nebulae be easier if they've got the spaceships for travelling through a lot of LITERALLY NOTHING INTERESTING?
The idea that acoustical properties of ancient buildings was always intentional or required advanced knowledge, also regularly pops up. They certainly knew how to design theatres etc, but the idea that some enclosed spaces are specifically tuned to a certain holy frequency is new age nonsens. Or that a pyramid stair is designed so the echo of a clap sounds like a bird, is also not a special feature. Every stair in open air, of even corrugated sheet metal from an ordinary industrial building, will have a similar reflection pattern.
True. But I'd also wonder though - would it be such an extraordinary claim to suggest some _were_ intentional? You don't need mathematical physics and a supercomputer simulating wave equations to design something acoustically, just intuition for how sound is affected as things are moved about, shapes are changed, etc. The fact that people designed musical instruments for ages is sufficient proof of this principle ... why couldn't they have done that on larger scales, too? Precisely inspired _by_ hearing the very thing you mention - how that sound bounces and alters within a room. The question is, what would _indicate_ an intentional configuration for acoustics, and on what reason would we take it and not something else as evidence for such?
@@shimrrashai-rc8fq You are correct that a higher degree of understanding physics is not required to make use of principles which can be discovered experimentally. But sometimes people turn this reasoning around.
@@shimrrashai-rc8fq I mean the way you prove that something was intentionally designed for any specific use is by showing that it was used like that. For example we know that churches were specifically designed to have good acoustics because it is discussed by the people building them and singing is common in churches. But there's no reason to believe that the Giza pyramids were designed to have some specific acoustic properties since they would have been sealed upon completion so were never used for that purpose.
@@shimrrashai-rc8fq Why would you plug up a room if the accoustics of clapping INSIDE IT were important? You wouldn't seal off a recording booth's door with bricks and mortar, right? Because then it's not exactly serving the purposes you spent time building the recording booth and placing the recording equipment in it for.
Almost everyone I've known loves ancient aliens and its still on TV. If I bring up logic, conversations drop and persuasiveness fails everytime. In fact I've risked friendship positions
@@AlbertaGeek ok. I can love what I love. I don't think he's lying. I disagree with you. He may be incorrect about his ideas but I completely disagree with you that he is lying.
@@jasongarcia2140 _"I can love what I love"_ Didn't say you couldn't. _"I don't think he's lying"_ It doesn't matter what you think. It has been demonstrated to be the case in numerous videos critiquing him. Honestly, you sound more like a religious devotee than someone who is curious and inquisitive. Of course not everyone _has_ to be curious and inquisitive, I just find it a little sad when someone is not.
@@AlbertaGeek And you are guilty of the same crime, loving BS and being fully convinced that its real science. I'm talking about the nonsensical BS claims of Einstein. You love it, but its pseudoscience, the greatest example of misinformation ever and the cause of a lot of other silly ideas. Never have so many lies been used to prop up a really morainic idea. But its all done to server a greater agenda, basically to get you to "trust the science". In this way governments can get you to do agree to almost anything.
Guns don't kill people, people do. Put another way, if a person doesn't have a gun, then he can't shoot anyone. This revolutionary idea has yet to permeate the 'Murican mindset of course.
A fallacy which a scientist can correct. An author turned journalist who just asks questions will not make scientific or logical fallacies. They must first engage in the scientific process to make scientific errors which can then be corrected. Scientists are not tasked with resolving the problems of pseudoscience. A professional pseudoscientist must do that.
I think one of the points you made should be underscored...that being that the folks who are pushing these sorts of alternative theories often cherry pick their data, ignoring any data that contridicts their theory. One that I always think of is how they can talk about how some ancient piece of architecture could only be made using advanced tools or lost technology...while literally ignoring the pounding stones right next to half finished examples of the same thing. I've seen this over and over throughout the world, from the Middle East to the New World, to Asia to a certain woo shrouded island in the Pacific discovered by Europeans on an Easter morning. The evidence for how these things were made is there...but it is ignorned. There are plenty of experimental archeologiests would also be happy to demonstrate how to make these things, but they aren't consulted...instead, it's always 'experts' who, as you say, appeal to authority. I think a lot of these guys are playing logical fallacy bingo.
To be fair, I suspect that's more because that they _don't_ notice the pounding stones because they do not have access to a suitably comprehensive set of photos. They probably go for something from a _pop_ magazine and that's it.
It's interesting how Chris Dunn shows us a jar that he says can ONLY be made on a modern equipment while being surrounded by the modern equipment that could make it.
I really appreciate the way you address this subject now, very informative approach without confrontation against anyone in particular. I am more and more admired of you.
Yes, discarding past theories is a cautionary tale, of putting too much validity in the current paradigm. Open mindedness, objectivity tempered with prudent skepticism should be attitude in science.
I used to believe in science .Not anymore !. The moment I saw an ant hill on vacation in the U.S,I noticed how these looked the same as the anthills in Europe .So obviously there used to be one global ant civilization that travelled the globe and told all the ancient ants how to bui;ld ant hills. Duh ! ;)
At first i was put off by your use of air quotes; later, watching you lean into the camera, I thought, "I'd hate to run into this guy at a party." Finally, though, I gave you a very rare thumbs up, because you were correct on every point and supplied good information, such as the Moh scale. I'm a life-long student of pre-contact South American cultures, live where they lived, and dealing with people influenced by guys like Brien Foerster is a price for walking into that room. I have the forensic tools to deal with such people but I'm rarely sure that I have convinced them, and it's nice to run into someone who can make the case with such brevity and clarity.
I was so lucky to have an anthropology professor 50 years ago who was well ahead of his time. He was a vociferous opponent of cultural diffusion. He was a proponent of the idea of cultural analogies. Similar ideas, concepts and practices would by their nature be a result of solving similar problems. After all, humans are humans regardless of where they reside.
You have ruined Gragham Hancock for me. Ive read all his books I used to love listening to him on podcasts and tv. Now i feel cheated out of €300 on all his books.
Hancock nevertheless thanks you for your "contribution" to him........ - though he rest assuredly cares not one whit for your now "angst" at having been duped I'm afraid. 🤷
He certainly did not demonstrate how ancient Egyptians built the pyramids while debunking the conspiracy. If you take his words for it the Egyptians cut those stone blocks with stone, which would take so long that the aliens would come down to help.
@@YC-ls4yx ???...Dr. Miano did not intend to debate the many traditional methods for constructing the pyramids when sharing this video. These methods are still debated among professionals in the field, as it is unclear which methods actually may have been used. There is no mystery here for those who have worked in traditional stone quarrying and carving...
Thanks for the clarity, Doc. No nonsense. Well, what can one expect from a seasoned lecturer who has critiqued one too many papers 😁 Awesome job as always, Doc Miano 👌🏼
There was a really funny demonstration preformed by an English Archeologist demonstrating the absurdity of "Lay lines" and illusory pattern perception. The Archeologist posted a map of the UK with fixed points joined by lines,to create all sorts of Geometric shapes.... only to reveal the fixed points,were infact McDonald's Restaurants.
dam professor, you did a great job with this video. Everything was concise and well substantiated with the least amount of words necessary. You could have easily made this twice as long and even clipped in the scammers passing off pseudoscience for $$$. I wish you had some more exposure on other informative channels and even do a guest appearance in some shows with you easy to follow logic and well practiced dictation.
I really appreciate the way you approach this. It honestly feels like therapy when you feel surrounded by the scientifically illiterate. You do good work, and your name is David. Can't ask for better.
I've recently been working at Alfred Watkins old house. Being oldish I remember the ley line craze in the 70's. It was fun but you could draw loads with just an OS plan.
The craze began in England, where the idea was that you could find ley lines by looking for lines that crossed lots of religious sites and/or bodies of water. Know what’s full of religious sites and bodies of water? England.
Don’t know your religious background but I’m glad you didn’t talk smack. But that last one mathematical coincidence reminds me of the Bible code nonsense. If it was one pattern with some key that predicted these events but literally every word could be a pattern that would make a word, then the writer would then put the words together that fit an event and then claim the event was predicted. Btw it worked in Moby Dick with the same program looking for patterns so the computer found what the program wanted to see.
Precisionism as an argument makes no sense to me "This thing is made very well". Yeah, people in the past could do things well, what a shock. Ley lines, if you draw a line between two points on the globe, there's now a line there.
A lot of ley lines also just happen to demonstrate that populations were generally concentrated around the same lattitudes, almost as if the Earth has different biomes and some are more hospitable than others.
Couldn’t many of your points on “pseudo-archaeology” be equally applicable to those seeking to debunk pseudo-archaeology? I’ve heard some really piss-poor arguments against some topics that don’t rely on science at all, but devolve quickly into personal attacks. “This person is an idiot and you are an idiot for being entertained by them,” the Potholer debate style. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan, Dr. Milano.
Someone needs to take on Randall Carlson. He has a whole following of catastrophism dorks that’s believe his myths about geology. He mixes the facts with the fiction a lot.
@PseudeaEpimetheus what should I be greatful for? Is it falsely spreading flood myths? Or his inability to understand some swamps in the Carolina’s? Or maybe is it how he found Atlantis for sure this time. Give me a break you quacks.
So there was no ice age and sea level has not gone up 430 feet in 5000 years(17,000-11500), billions in climate science and core drilling is all faked. The Minoans did not didn’t die in a tidal wave like 150000 people in the Indian Ocean in 2004! Sorry simple fact that it happens, just like Japan that saved millions by being prepared before it happened, why because it had happen hundreds of times before! Resent studies have proven cosmic strike in the mid east destroyed a town around 5000 bc just like a certain story in bible!
Hear, hear! Love the video! Love the corduroy! I always squint when they say that legend/story is history with advanced technology. And I sigh when they read a description from said legend/story and then try to compare the description to an iPad, a cell phone, or a rocket. Don't fall for the "history in this ancient story some old guy wrote" trick!
I'm absolutely amazed that you can argue the way you do twelve minutes into the video. "People and skills make artefacts, not tools". While it's true that skill is required when operating most tools, the tools of course determine what you can make. You can't build a jumbo jet or a computer for example with only sticks and stones but lots of skill and passion. So thank you for making it obvious that you seem to lack basic reason and understanding of scientific research.
Ironic in how you "parse" what was said to juxtapose what are clearly subjective interpretations upon that - supposedly supported by nonsensical analogies = as a purported reference to scientific method of deduction and Dave's alleged lack of understanding of the same...... 🙄🥱 p.s. - the so-called "alternative" schtick argues endlessly about this tool or that technique as supposedly being incapable of creating what we see. Ergo Dave's analogy of how the relative skill of the craftsman more than the tools/techniques employed dictates the outcome = is spot on - and *THAT* is scientific analysis in the form of identifying the crux of the argument and speaking to it.
Obviously. This guy is a hack, likely a paid hack to continue to perpetuate the lies and illusions created by the predatory system we're in. Reality is nothing like we've been taught or rather indoctrinated with in the education system, it's a lot more interesting, nuanced and mysterious. Those in power know the incredible truths about this realm that they've made every effort to obscure from us. But the beautiful thing about apocalyptic times (from the Greek apokálypsis which means “uncovering,” a derivative of the verb apokalýptein “to take the cover off") through which we are currently living, is all the illusions created and upheld by this system are crumbling. Once we strip away every lie, one subject matter at a time we will finally discover the truth that is being hidden from us. The apocalypse was never about "the end of days", it's about the end of the Dark Age through revelation and the beginning of a new Golden Age. We are truly lucky to be alive to witness all of this. Hacks like this guy exist to keep us confused and in the dark, but no truth can ever be obscured forever, it always eventually comes to light.
One thing that always bothers me is when people are like “Oh we can't build this type of thing today”, like we absolutely can it's just that we don't want to because we have different concerns. Like we could easily build something that dwarfs the Egyptian pyramids if wanted to, we regularly move dirt and rock in volumes that dwarf the pyramids, it's just that we don't have any Pharoah god kings around so we'd generally consider it a waste to build. Roman concrete is another example, like the reason why modern concrete isn't as durable as Roman concrete isn't because we don't know how to build it anymore, it's because we generally don't build structures to last for hundreds or thousands of years and so instead optimize our concrete for strength. Plus we've gotten so good at construction that it's now so cheap that it doesn't need to stand for very long, this is arguably a problem for the enviroment though. One that's really funny is cathedrals or European neoclassical architecture because like it's literally still being built or is extremely recent, like less than a century old.
Yes. Our culture - and hence the impetus for our creating things - is premised upon = _"consumption."_ So we build things as you say with the intention that they will eventually be replaced by something else. The ancients however created things with a view they might "last forever". On the surface that of course is not practical. In so much however as things like religious beliefs etc. were their motivations for doing so then creating temples or tombs which might last centuries or longer served their purpose. Ancient goal: _"I want to be remembered"_ Modern goal: _"I am trying to make some money"_
@@varyolla435 Yeah our thinking is fundamentally different from all cultures that came before us because we happen to live in the most unusual period in human history. This is why we often have a hard time understanding those cultures and why anyone interested in history needs to put a lot of effort into understanding past cultures on their premises. Our society is underpinned by ideas of progress, productivity and science that are completely new and would have been completely foreign to almost all preceeding cultures.
Thank you for this great educational service! So much misinformation floating around the internet. Sending this to my children! Please keep up the good work!
I think exploring different ideas and "what if.." history is a lot of fun but I don't know why they don't just write it as fiction? is the whole concept of an alternative past not as sexy if they don't pretend it's true
Thing is, these folks believe it. For whatever reason, our known ancestors _must_ have been too stupid to do anything more than eat, sleep, and reproduce. There _must_ have been a now-lost super-civilization that taught us everything. Where did this super-civilization get their knowledge? Either they were extraterrestrials, were taught by ETs, or were just that smart. I think about the idea of a first-of-its kind civilization that reached a level equivalent to many of the high-level ancient civilizations we know about, and how much influence it might have on other peoples. For some reason, I never come up with 'They gave the world everything.'
in my country heads of space program , PM , various ministers likes to remind everyone now and then that we were the once who gifted rest of the world civilisation , science and everything else . 😅 but then we were tricked / enslaved and lost it all🤯🤯🤯🤯
@@troydavis1 Some Turkish people are the same way too, but I suppose you could find a group of people like that from any and every couple try around the world lol
If I were to add to your list, it would be catastrophism. Invoking spectacular catastrophies, that conveniently erase all evidence of their proposed advanced civilisation. Often ttwisting real events in the process. A favorite seems to be the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, ignoring both that it has fallen out of favour and that in either case the climatic shifts at the end of the glacial would have been the real killer. In the more absurd end we have the mud flood guys. Finally they ignore that climatic changes are far more devastating to both ecosystems and society than a big rock falling or a bit of water.
@@mrjones2721 Definetly, but ancient civilisations needed to learn their skills from some hyperadvanced empire, they need some way to explain away the lack of any real evidence.
I like Dr. M's videos including this video about debunking. I have subscribed to his channel and have learned a lot. He is a valuable resource in what he does talk about. I see Dr. M "debunking" many ideas and "theories" and that is OK. But I have never seen him "debunk" anything that is currently accepted by mainstream science. Never! In the link provided, there is a long list of scientific theories and scientific explanations that were embraced by mainstream science but were profoundly wrong. Yet this guy who does a lot of "debunking" never says a word against anything currently embraced by mainstream science. It seems "debunking" anything currently embraced by mainstream science is either off-limits or he is not astute enough to figure out what mainstream science currently embraces that is wrong. From the list in the link, it is apparent mainstream science has been wrong a bunch and has a long and tarnished record of passionately embracing falsehoods. Many of those falsehoods in the link embraced by science have been debunked by brave and courageous individuals who have advanced our knowledge by actually debunking what mainstream science, at the time, embraced. Yet, the Dr. M doesn't do that. Essentially he just parrots what mainstream science believes. In a very real way, he is inhibiting the advancement of scientific understanding by not having the courage to debunk the many falsehoods currently embraced by the scientific community. I wish he would help in that way or at least get out of the way so brave souls can do that important work for him. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science
Slight problem with your argument. Your Wikipedia article deals with pseudoscience beliefs which failed to follow what are accepted methods of inquiry such as "mainstream" as you say represents and abides by. So you are asking Dave to try to debunk academic conclusions which abide by correct scientific method of deduction instead of so-called "alternative" narratives which coincidentally = follow the same flawed approach as the old belief systems your article references. That amounts to a non-sequitur I'm afraid. One debunks false beliefs = not ones supported by credible evidence and academic consensus shown to be accurate. If you have evidence to supposedly upend something "mainstream" then feel free to present it. Those old pseudoscientific belief systems were discarded by evidence and logic proving them wrong. Nothing we see today among the pseudoscience industry - and yes it is very much an online industry I'm afraid - meets this standard. It is all _"what if......."_ supposition supported by conjecture and sophistry-based argumentation.
@@varyolla435 The rejected theories in the Wikipedia page were mainstream science at one time. Phrenology the Piltdown skull and the Nebraska Man were all parts of mainstream science until they weren't. Those old pseudoscientific belief systems were mainstream science until they were debunked. So what I am asking (again) is what is now currently embraced by mainstream science that needs to be debunked? The Wikipedia page page shows a long list of once-embraced scientific ideas that were debunked. Some would say that process is over and there is nothing in mainstream science that needs debunking now. Evidently, it takes courageous visionaries to continue the debunking process and it is not for those who believe everything "science is currently telling them.
@@GreatPyramidPump You're "trying" to rationalize = argumentum ad ignorantiam........ The claims in your article represented ones as I already noted which existed = before modern scientific analysis occurred. Hence they were emblematic of *ASSUMED* validity in most cases - often from individuals with no background in the field in question. Suffice to say we know a lot more since then and no longer assume based upon superficial deduction - or should I say some of us. The supposed "alternative" industry still abides by such facile logic unfortunately = hence "pseudoscience". Moral: yes things can change - IF - new more compelling evidence comes to light to warrant such a change. Absent that evidence however trying to argue for an unproven thing based upon the abstract assumption that "things change" is your logical fallacy arguing from ignorance. Thus if you wish to try to debunk "mainstream" whatever = you better first find your compelling evidence to prove your case. Absent that there is nothing to debunk. Here endeth the lesson........
@@varyolla435 In the Wikipedia article there were a number of theories that were rejected not so long ago. Phrenology and the Piltdown Skull were embraced even when "modern science" existed and those who embraced those false ideas would say modern science existed. It seems you are taking the position that current "modern science" does not embrace anything that is not correct and current "modern science" can not embrace anything that is not correct. People who embraced Phrenology (which was taught in universities not long ago) also felt science was infallible.
I'm really pleased you are making these videos and challenging assertions about ancient history that do not derive from the academic community. On precision cutting, it seems that one amateur website that has modelled the precision of ancient vases is responding to your prior criticisms by applying their techniques to more vases and also talking to universities about getting access to ancient collections with well-established provenance. In time that could move their assertions towards the standard of evidence you are demanding, but whether it does or not, it seems to me a positive reaction to your criticism and deserving of some respect. Is there a link you can give to papers that show high machining precision achieved in stonework of medieval origin? It would be helpful to compare that to precision achieved on ancient vases to counter suggestions that "high technology" is required to achieve that. Modern methods of manufacture do in fact turn out high volumes of everyday crockery items with higher precision than their traditionally made counterparts simply because it is more profitable to do so. Precision is an essential to efficient mass manufacture. So your argument that there would be no reason to apply such high technology to churn out everyday items is not necessarily valid.
Read up on Michelangelo. While not medieval, he achieved amazing precision with hand tools during a time when no one will claim he used power tools. Fellows like Hancock and Ben from UnsupportedX often claim that the "mainstream" has the timeline wrong for civilization because the vessels they choose to measure for precision are pre-dynastic. My question for those dudes is: "If mainstream dating isn't accurate, how did you determine when, or during what period these pieces were made? Do you just accept mainstream methods when it's convenient for your chosen narrative? On that note Hancock has often said that Gobekli Tepe was build around 7000 years before the pyramids or Stonehenge. Doing some grade school math (given that he accepts mainstream dating of GT at 11,600 ybp), that means he also accepts the mainstream dating of the pyramids.
You might like to check out The Edmund de Unger Fatimid Rock Crystal Project which will lead you to a number of papers by E. Morero and J. Johns - eg. The Diffusion of Rock Crystal Carving Techniques in the Fāṭimid Mediterranean 2021 - Elise Morero The manufacturing techniques of Fatimid rock crystal ewers (10th-12th centuries AD) 2017 - Jeremy Johns, Elise Morero and this Seeking Transparency Rock Crystals Across the Medieval Mediterranean Edited by Cynthia Hahn and Avinoam Shalem This might also be interesting Rock Crystal and the Nature of Artifice in Ancient Rome 2020 - Patrick R Crowley
I found this on youtube Lecture - "The Magnificent Seven": The Great Fāṭimid Rock Crystal Ewers (Jeremy Johns ) which might help you to decide if Fatimid rock crystal is something you feel interested in.
Your last argument is circular, high precission in every day goods is only desireable because of our system of industrial mass production wherein standardization makes production cheaper. There is nothing inherent about every day goods that makes precision desireable, I don't particularly care if my pot is perfectly circular or looks the exact same as the one the last customer brought so long as I can cook food in it. You can't use the specific demands of an industrial society when talking about pre-industrial societies, that's like saying that the egyptians drilled for oil because oil is used in cars.
The movie Stargate came out in 1994 and the TV show Stargate SG-1 followed in 1997. There was a lot of talk about how the Ancient Egyptians had to have had alien technology to build the pyramids. I visited the Egyptian rooms in in the Metropolitan Museum of NYC. I found that the Ancient Egyptians were amazingly clever with wood, stone, bone, copper, rope and bronze. But nothing they had required alien technology. I agree that claiming it took alien (or Atlantean) super technology to build ancient monuments and artifacts takes away for human, intelligence, ingenuity and ability.
Stargate simply exploited what was already there as far as the LAHT narratives which existed since the 60's. Whereas there had been television shows about this nonsense - someone simply decided to make a movie to get a piece of the action. Moral: there is a saying = _"build it - and they will come."_ With LAHT it is _"what will people be gullible enough to believe = and can we monetize upon that??"_
Some of your lines are pure gold, great vid, work and arguments as always. Concerning the pyramids I always say no civilisation could have build any huge stone spherical monuments for exemple, like we don't see any montains that are top down, they all look alike because of physic, not culture..
