Originally posted by amantine
You really think that 20000 years places like Antarctica and the bottom of the sea floor were nice places to live?

Perhaps not Antarctica, but there are a few areas that are now covered by seas that may have been dry land at that time. Since we can't exactly excavate the entire floor of the Persian Gulf, for example, we won't have an accurate read on what civilizations may have existed there during the last Ice Age.

What's not to say that there are places that we simply can't get to that could give us more information?

I'm not saying we should discard all of our teachings. I'd just like to see someone put together an "organic" theory on our ancient cultures, which would allow for the teachings to be altered as new evidence is uncovered. We can't say that we know something is a fact if we don't have all the evidence and may never have it.

A fact is something you can prove, not something you speculate on. It can only currently be speculated about some of the ideas that are held as facts by the historical community. These are, after all, the same people who mistranslated ancient Vedic texts, which led to the incorrect belief through the 19th and 20th centuries that Aryans invaded India, which we've since discovered (in the mid-to late 20th, I believe) to be completely false.

Age of the Sphinx is a perfect example for this. "We know the Sphinx is 'X' years old because we have discovered tablets that reference the Sphinx's existence in that era." But what we actually have is the knowledge given to us that it is at least "X" years old.

I guess my point is that yes, we could be left over from an ancient pre-historic civilization. That's something that nobody currently walking the face of this earth is truly qualified to answer. Until we have the origins of every civilization completely locked down, we cannot overlook other possibilities, other theories.

Originally posted by TheDemonHunter
I'm not saying we should discard all of our teachings. I'd just like to see someone put together an "organic" theory on our ancient cultures, which would allow for the teachings to be altered as new evidence is uncovered. We can't say that we know something is a fact if we don't have all the evidence and may never have it.

The teachings are being changed all the time when there is new evidence, not just speculations like in this thread. Scientists change their teachings all the time when new evidence is found. I always find the argument that the 'scientific establishment' keeps evidence from being released to make sure that their view of the world doesn't change very strange. Theories that were first very controversial have been accepted by the scientific community when there was enough evidence supporting it. Wouldn't that 'scientific establishment' kept out the results of such experiments as the Michelson-Morley experiment from being released if they keep evidence against current theories of that time from being released?

There might be some undiscovered civilization on the bottom of the sea floor, but there is nothing indicating that there is. The historians now are not stupid, the current theory is the one that best fits the current evidence. We must make a theory with the evidence there is and only with the evidence there is.

You appear to be a little lost in what I've said so I'll clarify, amantine.

The historians now are not stupid, the current theory is the one that best fits the current evidence.

Historians and scientists, like all of us, make mistakes. When those mistakes are taken as gospel, simply because they are given by scientists and historians, it leads to ridiculous claims that are later proven incorrect. Once proven incorrect however, it can still take decades before textbooks and teachings are changed to reflect this new evidence.

In the case of the Vedic mistranslation I spoke of before, the word Aryas was mistakenly assumed to be Aryans, which led in part to the creation of the theory that Aryans from Europe invaded India in 1500 BC, conquering what were believed to be nothing more than tribes of hunter-gatherers. These theories first took shape in the early nineteenth century, under the belief that Sanskrit's similarities to other European languages meant that the language was obviously taken into India from Europe. Who thought India's past could have a sufficient civilization and culture to create a language on their own?

I'd like to point out that this incorrect theory was no small boost to a loud-mouthed Berlin house painter in his quest for information on the superiority of his ancestors.

It was found to be a false translation, in the mid-20th century, once excavations revealed there were no "Aryans" in India's past. Add to that the growing body of knowledge that showed India's culture to be on a par with Sumerian or Egyptian in terms of age and sophistication. Goodbye Aryan invasion, right?

It took until the 1990s for historians and scientists to get around to changing the textbooks and teachings.

How is that reflected in what you say of history's teaching being updated?

There might be some undiscovered civilization on the bottom of the sea floor, but there is nothing indicating that there is....
...We must make a theory with the evidence there is and only with the evidence there is.

Well said and admittedly quite true in some regards. But a theory is not an absolute truth, no matter how much the historical community would like to believe otherwise. It is a hypothesis which has enough facts supporting it to suggest that it may be the truth.

There's a reason why some theories are never made into scientific laws -- they can't be proven conclusively. And since we cannot prove conclusively that we know everything about the ancient world, we cannot say that our knowledge is the law.

I'm not looking to discredit anyone's current beliefs on history. I'm merely looking for the understanding that we might not have all the answers.

The problem is, if we find another piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit what we've already taken to be the absolute truth, it could be lost knowledge, discarded as nonsense.

Originally posted by TheDemonHunter
Historians and scientists, like all of us, make mistakes. When those mistakes are taken as gospel, simply because they are given by scientists and historians, it leads to ridiculous claims that are later proven incorrect. Once proven incorrect however, it can still take decades before textbooks and teachings are changed to reflect this new evidence.

There are also cases where the new evidence got incorporated in science within a decade. The Michelson-Morley experiment (1881) proved that the speed of light is the same for every inertial observator, This was completely against all the theories of that time. Lorentz found a mathematical explanation for the experiment in 1890, called the Lorentz Transformation. The scientific community accepted this explanation and Einstein used this 1905 for the his Special Relativity theory.

Originally posted by TheDemonHunter

There might be some undiscovered civilization on the bottom of the sea floor, but there is nothing indicating that there is....
...We must make a theory with the evidence there is and only with the evidence there is.

Well said and admittedly quite true in some regards. But a theory is not an absolute truth, no matter how much the historical community would like to believe otherwise. It is a hypothesis which has enough facts supporting it to suggest that it may be the truth.

Ofcourse historical theories are not an absolute truth, but the generally accepted historical theory is the one that is supported by our evidence. The theory that there is a lost civilization has no evidence supporting it. If someone found evidence that there was one, our theories have to changed. This may take a long time, as you said in your example, but it will happen. Especially in this age of fast information exchange, sometime like that will not go unnoticed.

What I am trying to say is, why go questioning a theory that is supported by all evidence in favor of one that has no evidence supporting it?

i think if the ice melted of Antartica there would be some ancient city or artifacts found.

The ice has been there a long time and it is a continent under the ice huge land mass something must be down there for sure.

The Vedas which were written 4000 years ago by the ARAYANS, spoke of great technology, and civilizations.

Though these technologies are yet to be found?

Deep

The more technologically advanced a race, the more of a mark it leaves on the planet.
Previous civilisations may have been aware of certain aspects of technology that has got lost in history but I doubt that overall they were more advanced than Western civilisations today.
Sure, there may be certain artifacts discovered which are deemed to suggest some sort of message from superior civilisations but they haven't exactly been easy to decipher which one would expect if they were a message. Most messages are purposefully made easy to understand. After all, what is the purpose of a message if no-one can read it.
Couple this with the fact that any previous civilisation would have made an identifiable impact on the eco-system as they were progressing and it is doubtful that there was any large civilisation that was more advanced than those which we know today.

If we go back in time, we can find plenty of evidence of ancestors who were much less advanced. The logic would be that those who were more advanced would have left a bigger signature or at least one of the same size as the less technological races. As it is, there is nothing that can be said with surety to prove that there was a species of man with an advanced technological society.

why would a more advanced technologically race leave evidence of its past?

Surely it could become advanced then clean up afterwards hardly leaving an proof of its existance, also more advanced means more automated ie Humans doing less and less there fore if a catalysm happened not alot of people would know much ie knowledge or technology, take today for example what would you know to do or make etc etc if a comet wiped out 4 billion people and we went back to stone age technology......

we knew it existed but could we build it NO

look at space shuttle or computers, you need machines to make them do you know how to build the machines that are needed to build our technology i bet hardly anyone does.

Why would they clean up after themselves? We don't do it now and we never did. If they all died in an apocalyptic event, they wouldn't have the time to clean up. If they left earth, why bother cleaning up? You're leaving anyway. I agree that an advanced civilization must have left some remains for us to find.

These "Advanced Civilizations" are still here today.

Does thier blood not run through ours? Now Im getting a hint that people are suggesting that they just shot out into the stars?

Deep