ARCHEOLOGY - ' The Brain Police ' and the ' Big Lie ', page 1
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Topic started on 27-11-2002 @ 08:48 AM by mad scientist
"THE BRAIN POLICE" AND "THE BIG LIE"

Any time you allege a conspiracy is afoot, especially in the field of science, you are treading on thin ice. We tend to be very sceptical about conspiracies--unless the Mafia or some Muslim radicals are behind the alleged plot. But the evidence is overwhelming and the irony is that much of it is in plain view.

The good news is that the players are obvious. Their game plan and even their play-by-play tactics are transparent, once you learn to spot them. However, it is not so easy to penetrate through the smokescreen of propaganda and disinformation to get to their underlying motives and goals. It would be convenient if we could point to a plumber's unit and a boldface liar like Richard Nixon, but this is a more subtle operation.

The bad news: the conspiracy is global and there are many vested interest groups. A cursory investigation yields the usual suspects: scientists with a theoretical axe to grind, careers to further and the status quo to maintain. Their modus operandi is "The Big Lie"--and the bigger and more widely publicised, the better. They rely on invoking their academic credentials to support their arguments, and the presumption is that no one has the right to question their authoritarian pronouncements that:
1. there is no mystery about who built the Great Pyramid or what the methods of construction were, and the Sphinx shows no signs of water damage;
2. there were no humans in the Americas before 20,000 BC;
3. the first civilisation dates back no further than 6000 BC;
4. there are no documented anomalous, unexplained or enigmatic data to take into account;
5. there are no lost or unaccounted-for civilisations.
Let the evidence to the contrary be damned!

more....


reply posted on 28-11-2002 @ 12:01 AM by mad scientist
Originally posted by Byrd
Why don't you guys become archaeologists -- go to school for it, or join local archaeological societies and go on digs and then offer evidence that these things are coverups.

This suffers from a lack of credibility because Nexus Magazine's editors have tended to be a bit gullible in the past. A good researcher with good credentials makes a more convincing argument than a layperson.


I'm not that impressed with the researches of laypeople. I suffered through one layperson (who had articles published in a magazine similar to Nexus) telling me (and showing me) his unicorn horn that he found, which had a hinged section on it so it could plough the ground. He wowed several editors and several creation scientists.

Since I had taken comparative anatomy, I knew his "unicorn horn" was instead a segment of spinal vertebra from a quadruped, taken at about the shoulder area where the spinous process (that he thought was a horrn) extends several inches above the vertebra.

So, if you feel there's a conspiracy, the easy thing to do is become involved with archaeological societies, learn the methods, and THEN debunk it with the weight of credibility behind you.


There are too many instances of cover ups in the field of archeology, to even begin to list them here. I'm sure if you did a search on google you would find a lot of information.
I have read a few of Eric von Daniken's books. Now there are facts in there which are hard to disprove.
Even archeologists are ridiculed if they find an anomoly with history. The Sphinx is a prime example. It was built before the Egyptians, as can be seen from the water weathering.

READ ME

some links


reply posted on 2-12-2002 @ 10:48 PM by mad scientist
These are ways in which archaeologists try to escape from uncomfortable
evidence when their dominant paradigm/mind set is threatened, and when
new evidence makes it likely that they might actually have to do some
extra work, learn some new things, and unlearn some old ones.

  • 1. Appeal to authority. "We already know all that we need to know about
    the subject, so anyone trying to challenge 'what the standard reference
    books say', is automatically off-limits, and should be treated with the
    highest suspicion."

  • 2. Describe the information as "old news", even if short of the dogma
    defender him/herself, nobody else have really heard about some item of
    evidence. "This subject has been dealt with many times in the past
    already, and we're terribly tired of it by now".

  • 3. Affect indignation. "How dare you suggest that archaeologists may not
    be doing their job with utmost competence?" "Are you attacking our whole
    profession?"

  • 4. Set up straw men. Misrepresent your opponents' arguments, and then
    refute your own misrepresentations conclusively and with great flair.

  • 5. Snow them with your expertise, real or imagined. Focus on the weakest
    and/or irrelevant elements of the opponent's argument, so that the whole
    thing can be nitpicked into oblivion.

  • 6. Question competence of opponents. Also label your opponents, and use
    personal attacks freely. You can call them names like "kooks," and
    "fanatics". In contrast to those kooks, the defenders of the established
    dogma are so much more "competent and reasonable".

  • 7. Cast suspicion on the motives of critics of the official view. "They
    only do it for money and/or to get publicity, and/or to please the TV
    crowd." Of course the proponents of the official dogma never place any
    importance in academic rewards, influence, and honors. They are
    motivated by disinterested search for the truth only.

  • 8. Employ circular reasoning with abandon. For example, "Competent
    professional authorities always investigate all important evidence. So
    if they did not report about Subject X, therefore there's nothing there
    to report, and so this evidence is not important and/or it does not even
    exist!"

  • 9. Require that the skeptics provide the complete solution to some
    difficult historical problem. "If you don't have a complete solution,
    that means the problem itself does not exist. So why worry about it?"

  • 10. If it might have been then so it was. Overload your posts with
    wouldas and couldas. Postulate a lot of improbable events to explain
    troubling evidence that doesn't fit the existing paradigm. Also known as
    the logical fallacy of special pleading.

  • 11. And if everything else fails, openly misrepresent the evidence, and
    hope that nobody notice.


reply posted on 3-12-2002 @ 03:13 AM by Zion Mainframe
Yes, there are a lot of cover ups in the field of archeology...

There are only a few good archaeologists that I trust, one of 'em is Graham Hancock. (www.grahamhancock.com...), he, and a friend of him, Robert Bovaul(spell...), are the ones that came up with the theory that the Sphinx is 10s of thousands of years old...

Graham a message board on his website that is quit simmilair than our ATS board. I believe Graham is often a bit sceptical, but the last thing he wants is a cover-up

Go check out his website, I'm sure you'll like it.

www.grahamhancock.com...


reply posted on 3-12-2002 @ 11:51 AM by mad scientist
In 1966 respected archeologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre and her associates on a U.S. Geological Survey team working under a grant from the National Science Foundation were called upon to date a pair of remarkable archeological sites in Mexico. Sophisticated stone tools rivaling the best work of Cro-magnon man in Europe had been discovered at Hueyatlaco, while somewhat cruder implements had been turned up at nearby El Horno. The sites, it was conjectured, were very ancient, perhaps as old as 20,000 years, which, according to prevailing theories, would place them very close to the dawn of human habitation in the Americas.

Steen-McIntyre, knowing that if such antiquity could indeed be authenticated, her career would be made, set about an exhaustive series of tests. Using four different, but well accepted, dating methods, including uranium series and fission track, she determined to get it right. Nevertheless, when the results came in, the original estimates proved to be way off. Way under as it turned out. The actual age was conclusively demonstrated to be more like a quarter of a million years.

As we might expect, some controversy ensued.

Steen-McIntyre's date challenged not only accepted chronologies for human presence in the region, but contradicted established notions of how long modern humans could have been anywhere on Earth. Nevertheless, the massive reexamination of orthodox theory and the wholesale rewriting of textbooks which one might logically have expected did not ensue. What did follow was the public ridicule of Steen-McIntyre's work and the vilification of her character. She has not been able to find work in her field since.
more...


reply posted on 4-12-2002 @ 11:18 AM by Byrd
I looked up archeologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre on a Google search and I'm seeing conflicting stories. There's an excellent article (supportive of her) about that show on Talk Origins (www.talkorigins.org... )

I did question your article based on information I found on Google. For instance, your source says she's an archaeologist -- and she is, indeed, nowadays. Most sites list her as a geologist. She may have been niether -- a more credible source says she was a grad student in geology and that the methods she was using for dating the samples had been untested -- the methods were controversial and nobody knew how reliable they were.

And as far as her "never working again" goes...
"In early 1973, Virginia Steen-McIntyre had achieved international recognition from several organizations, including the National Academy of Science, from whom she also received funding for foreign meetings and speaking engagements. She worked part-time in her area of expertise for a government laboratory, and even became an adjunct professor of Archaeology at Colorado State University"
www.terravista.pt...

I don't know if you'd care to read that Terravista article, but it gives a more balanced insight into what was a real scholarly brawl (more like an outright war) between two groups at the site who disagreed with each others' conclusions. The writers of this webpage do agree there was abuse and that there needs to be a review, but point out that science is ALWAYS suspicious of results that don't match up with facts (ala the famous "cold fusion" fraud of the past 20 years.)

At any rate, it seems her case is being heard. Discovery Channel included her in a recent show(tlc.discovery.com...

(a more polite and less informative version of "what really happened" ): www.science-frontiers.com...



But my suggestion still stands: if you want to do research or to debunk some of the old guard, you really do first need to know quite a bit about the field -- and this would include taking coursework and doing fieldwork. My personal opinion is that the jury's still out but that I'm disinclined to believe 200,000 years. I would, however, believe 20,000 years since the Clovis points and some other artifacts suggest that there were humans in the area some 12,000 years ago.

[Edited on 4-12-2002 by Byrd]
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