Using Erroneous Information to Support a Hypothesis...

Ancient Aliens avid supporters/researchers Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and Eric Von Daniken have 90% of their claims debunked here:

www.youtube.com...

That video also has a section about Sitchin, but this site goes into great detail about how wrong he is:

www.sitchiniswrong.com...

So according to learned experts, and people who can look at facts and back up their claims, these people listed above should be considered knaves. Anything they publish should be viewed with tons of salt.

However people use their work, some of which has been double and triple debunked, to support wildish, outlandish claims about the past.

I whole heartedly believe that history repeats itself. I am convinced their have been past civilizations, possibly far more technologically advanced that we currently believe. We only need to look at the Sumerians, Mayans etc. to see that there can be massive civ's lost in time. Things get convoluted and unbelievable when people decide to start using known con men as their source material.

There are many other Authors who have been debunked, but the main point of this post is to ask:

Why do people continue to use the people as source material? Do they think that these people are right and the vast majority is wrong? Are they not familiar with the information they use in the claims? (For example claiming that the stones of Pumapunku are granite and diorite, when in actuality they are Sandstone)

reply to post by raifordko
I haven't noticed very many people around here using them as references, other than those who haven't been around long enough to get "schooled". From all of my readings on these boards people who use any of the three are often attacked quickly and methodically, just as if they were using Sorscha Faal or Steven Greer as a reference- and rightfully so. It equates to using The Onion as a news source.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by raifordko

 

I haven't noticed very many people around here using them as references, other than those who haven't been around long enough to get "schooled". From all of my readings on these boards people who use any of the three are often attacked quickly and methodically, just as if they were using Sorscha Faal or Steven Greer as a reference- and rightfully so. It equates to using The Onion as a news source.

I just read a thread (Granted in another forum) where the guy quoted Sitchin constantly. His post was ridiculous IMO.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I like ancient aliens, it's fun to see the things that really don't have an explanation.

Plus I'm a believer that ancient man has had very advanced civilizations, more than once through out the world.

And I take certified archeologists with a grain of salt (I give them a lot more credit than the above mentioned)

As far as I know they're still telling us the pyramids are tombs. There wasn't a way in until they blasted in, then when no body was found they said, tomb robbers got there first.

Tomb robbers? And then what they felt bad about destroying the pyramids, and fixed them back?

Originally posted by raifordko
Why do people continue to use the people as source material? Do they think that these people are right and the vast majority is wrong?

Good question. There's a certain amount of weirdness going on around us and the charlatans you mention provide easy, sexy answers, while earning themselves a pile of dough. What I will happily concede, though, is that many...myself included...become inspired by the topics raised and start to investigate them on a more intellectual basis. Discovery and innovation are fueled by imagination, but imagination all by itself doesn't get you very far.

reply to post by raifordko
I guess everyone is entitled to believe what they like, but it's definitely not common here. Anyone that spends a considerable amount of time reading the evidence that has been consistently presented on the ATS boards has learned to take anything referenced to Sitchin or any of those mentioned by your OP with not just a grain- but a big tablespoon of salt.

I currently am unable to watch the youtube video, but I hope I could ask a question with respect to its content.

Does the video address Puma Punku at all? As i believe this to be a very mysterious site and Georgio is all over that one.

Originally posted by raifordko
...Why do people continue to use the people as source material? Do they think that these people are right and the vast majority is wrong? Are they not familiar with the information they use in the claims? (For example claiming that the stones of Pumapunku are granite and diorite, when in actuality they are Sandstone)

To begin - some people have considered both sides of said arguments, and were not as easily convinced of the "debunking/s" as you appear to be.
Some people look at "what's at stake" when one group sets out to "debunk" another group's claim or explanation, and temper said arguments accordingly.
In my opinion, someone who claims they have higher knowledge than anyone who disagrees with them, is simply someone with a lot to learn.
Unless you have proven something for yourself - you're just "picking sides" (just like those you're belittling in this Rant).
So - a simple answer to your question is - People who continue to use the arguments of those that You do not care for...have chosen to discount the arguments of those You do care for (right or wrong - and just like you).

reply to post by raifordko

The whole Ancient Aliens stuff gives me the smiles! Especially when something can't be explained right away concerning so called "Tool-marks", and then it has to be Aliens!!!
I recall an event when visiting my birth town in Austria a few years ago. In the local museum is a rock displayed that has maybe 10-15 totally smooth bored C-shaped bores along one side. Polished to mirror smoothness! Unfortunately my town's museum has all explanations in German only. Needless to say, an American tourist sees these bores and exclaims "Alien tool marks".
Then I explained him the history of this rock. My town was renown for early iron and steel fabrication, just that the source for the iron was some 100 miles up river. So all mined iron ore came down river by rafts and then the same rafts were pulled upriver by horses walking along the banks of the river, pulling the raft on arm thick ropes behind them. On one particular bend in the river, the wet ropes would rub against this rock. And since this iron trade had gone on for over 1,000 years, naturally the wet hemp ropes cut those deep C-grooves into the rock.
In the late 1800's when a railroad replaced the rafts for transport, my town simply removed the rock with these grooves in it as a testament of its over 1,000 years of being in the iron trade.
So much for "Aliens".

I'm skeptical of debunkers. With the right data and enough perseverance, anything could be debunked on any amount of people; people could accept it just on the grounds that they want señor buzzkill to go away. Just because you may have a serial debunker doesn't mean he or she is right all the time based on reputation for debunking alone.

A debunker often relies on the most popular lean of the land to assert his truth superiority over the smaller facts -- actually a debunker is just a spin doctor. There is science that happens to be and then science that gets pushed because a debunker wants it that way. Sounds like a personal problem.

I see the argument about the root of the whole chain of thought. On what grounds? Who said it was erroneous? Who claims authority over people who don't want to believe a certain way? Who has authority to enforce these details upon the minds of others? These questions can go on for decades between groups of authorities on the subject, and then decisions are made on other factors, like budgets and regional judges...and juries and peers.

Let people do what they do. Scientific conformists are the hardest people to reason with. Remember science is a model and reality just doesn't care about what is being written about it.

I like Sitchin's arguments and it's interesting to see what people make of it. Not erroneous. Your claim of erroneousness is erroneous. Now what?

Originally posted by Sandalphon
Scientific conformists are the hardest people to reason with.

I know...they tend to require proof and awkward stuff like that.

I don't pay much attention to the Ancient Alien theory. I have never even watched a show about it. That doesn't mean that I automatically believe every theory that was created by archeologists either. I think there were some advanced societies long ago,societies that had very good ways of building these structures. It is possible that Humans only remodeled these structures also, having been built by a different Humanoid race.

It was not impossible for there to have been iron tools back then, just because archeologists have not found them does not mean they did not exist. Iron would have been very difficult to process so the metal would definitely been recycled till there was nothing left. Any evidence of the iron would now be oxidized and undiscernible.

Although I think that the Ancient Alien theories are just entertainment, I will not discount all their evidence either. A lot of their evidence can be applied to other theories. There is no way of carbon dating rock placement, all we have to work by is the theories of old archeologist that guessed the ages originally and the writings of ancient people that could possibly stole the original work as their own. Ancient texts to collaborate something is not always good evidence, the victor in battle usually writes history. This would be extremely evident in the warring areas of Egypt. Everyone seems to lay claim to history as their own.

Humans and Humanoids have been on this planet for a very long time. An assumption that they were unintelligent and could not build big structures is flawed. We really don't know what happened long ago, the only way to sort through it is in the way the archeologists are doing it...But they cannot keep tossing out evidence that they do not think is pertinent, discounting things that go against their beliefs. This is still happening today, it is getting a little better but it is still happening. Someday maybe it will turn around, as long as they don't destroy the evidence they think doesn't apply. Sorry to say that this happens every single day.

Like I said I have never watched Ancient Aliens. It is possible that Beings from another planet could be involved but I would rather believe that there were some very intelligent cultures or Humanoids around back in our history. They did not seem to have all the electronic gadgets we have...but that does not mean they were not twice as intelligent as us either. They could have developed other types of technology. Either way, they destroyed a lot of land area to build their structures and were at war. This shows that they also were not as intelligent as they thought they were. Destroying the environment we live in to build big buildings is not a sign of intellect.

Originally posted by rickymouse
I don't pay much attention to the Ancient Alien theory. I have never even watched a show about it. That doesn't mean that I automatically believe every theory that was created by archeologists either. I think there were some advanced societies long ago,societies that had very good ways of building these structures. It is possible that Humans only remodeled these structures also, having been built by a different Humanoid race.

I agree with you there. I simply think that we had several Hi-Lo periods of development. Just thinking of the mega eruptions of the Indonesian some 60K years ago. And similar possible other mega events we have not even yet discovered, - a MEGA event would pretty much leave little trace of civilization. Just the resent series "Life after people" shows just how a "normal" non existence of us would make the earth unrecognizable a mere 5K years from now.
MEGA is not mega for nothing! Since naturally most advanced civilizations would be on rivers and oceans for the ease of trade, a MEGA tsunami, some gigantic eruption and so forth would leave little trace of them.
If we just consider the 2004 tsunami and this one was just a few dozen ft high, what about one that is 300ft tall?
I just can't believe that development took some 1/4 million years for homo-sapiens to just gradually evolve and develop and then in just a few 1,000 years begins to build civilizations and then in just the last 200 years goes from ox-cart to ISS.

reply to post by Guenter


You are just about right on with the way I think. The technology of these ancient people could have been different than we have. It appears that they may have been trying to harness the electromagnetics of the earth to accomplish what they wanted. I see that this technology is utilized in some of the advanced physics of our sciences, it is not something that needs to be discovered. Using the electromagnetics of the earth could not supply all the needs of power for the societies that we have nowadays though. It could power a portion of a small city to run centralized refrigeration and some lights. It could never run all the factories and wasted power that is happening now.

We waste power on such a large scale. This wasting of resources is not new, people have been exploiting the earth to stimulate the economy for thousands of years. Stripping the clay out of the land to make pottery contributed to expanding the deserts. Once deserts are form the deserts keep growing. Sand blows around and covers fertile land. Look how much waste it took to build the pyramids, what was the area like there before they were built. Did they actually cause the destruction of the environment in the area?

Nobody knows for sure, history has been rewritten many times to cover the tracks of the ones who destroyed things.

Originally posted by MDDoxs
I currently am unable to watch the youtube video, but I hope I could ask a question with respect to its content.

Does the video address Puma Punku at all? As i believe this to be a very mysterious site and Georgio is all over that one.

Yes it does. Spends quite a bit of time on it.

Originally posted by terriblyvexed
I like ancient aliens, it's fun to see the things that really don't have an explanation.

Plus I'm a believer that ancient man has had very advanced civilizations, more than once through out the world.

And I take certified archeologists with a grain of salt (I give them a lot more credit than the above mentioned)

As far as I know they're still telling us the pyramids are tombs. There wasn't a way in until they blasted in, then when no body was found they said, tomb robbers got there first.

Tomb robbers? And then what they felt bad about destroying the pyramids, and fixed them back?

Excuse me? Blasted in? The great pyramid was opened during the middle kingdom of egypt about 500-800 years after it was built, there are records of this. Herodotus wrote in 500BC that long before his time people had opened the tombs and taken the riches.. Then it was opened again during the Arab occupation in 820 AD and found empty. Again there is documentation of this. Caliph Abdullah al-Mamun is the man credited with that job. You act like we came along in WWII, found these giant pyramids and opened them up for the first time ever...

The pyramids were ransacked by the arabs to build other structures in egypt, hence the polished white surface stone of the pyramids and cap stones being gone.

Now, do I think the pyramids were built in 2500 BC? I personally do not. I think they are much older. But the ancient aliens video has some pretty solid proof that they could have been built in 2500 BC with the technology of the time. My request would be for people to use actual peer reviewed proof to prove their age, not the writings of a man who wanted to sell books by taking advantage of laymen.

Originally posted by terriblyvexed
I like ancient aliens, it's fun to see the things that really don't have an explanation.

They haven't covered a single thing that doesn't have an explanation.

You just don't like the explanations.

Originally posted by terriblyvexed
As far as I know they're still telling us the pyramids are tombs. There wasn't a way in until they blasted in, then when no body was found they said, tomb robbers got there first.

The Great Pyramid was tunelled into long before Westerners blasted their way into various chambers within.
You ever heard of Caliph Mamun?

Shortly before his death, during a visit to Egypt in 832, the caliph ordered the breaching of the Great Pyramid of Giza looking for knowledge and treasure. He entered the pyramid by tunneling into the Great Pyramid near where tradition located the original entrance.

Source: Wiki

You can read more about him here.

There's a link on that page to the ancient (sort of, it was the Common Era) writings that tell us this.

Also, you should realize that the Egyptians themselves knew how to get inside, obviously. There are very good reasons to believe that the Egyptians themselves raided the tomb or, at least, removed everything from within to some secret location to prevent robberies. It has been documented that many ancient Egtyptian tombs were robbed - in several different eras - it's right there in the Egyptian texts.

It is thought by some that the priests themselves may have robbed tombs during times of financial crunch, and also the Pharoah could order anyone to take anything from any tomb, if he wanted.
At any rate, the Great Pyramid has a designed entrance. The fact that it was lost (it's found now) doesn't mean it was always lost.

Harte

Originally posted by WanDash

Originally posted by raifordko
...Why do people continue to use the people as source material? Do they think that these people are right and the vast majority is wrong? Are they not familiar with the information they use in the claims? (For example claiming that the stones of Pumapunku are granite and diorite, when in actuality they are Sandstone)

To begin - some people have considered both sides of said arguments, and were not as easily convinced of the "debunking/s" as you appear to be.
Some people look at "what's at stake" when one group sets out to "debunk" another group's claim or explanation, and temper said arguments accordingly.
In my opinion, someone who claims they have higher knowledge than anyone who disagrees with them, is simply someone with a lot to learn.
Unless you have proven something for yourself - you're just "picking sides" (just like those you're belittling in this Rant).
So - a simple answer to your question is - People who continue to use the arguments of those that You do not care for...have chosen to discount the arguments of those You do care for (right or wrong - and just like you).

So if on the one side they use a blatant lie (Type of stones used @ Pumapunku) and on the other they use only what has been found and observed, which side would you go with? The side who lies to try and support their case, or the side who is just doing the best they can with what they have?

And don't even lecture me on Academia. I know how hard it is when the people farther up the food chain are entrenched in their current doctrine. With my field of research I was lucky enough for the DoD to hand us a check and say "Hey, figure out what this is, if it's dangerous to craft in low earth orbit and how to tell when/if it is going to happen". They didn't say "Hey, figure this out, and GLOBAL WARMING!"

Science always advances. You can't argue that fact. The truth ALWAYS comes out with science. Sure some guys are in it for the money and will work their data to get paid, but the majorityof those in the scientific fields want the truth to come out, and they want to be credited with finding it.

Originally posted by MDDoxs
I currently am unable to watch the youtube video, but I hope I could ask a question with respect to its content.

Does the video address Puma Punku at all? As i believe this to be a very mysterious site and Georgio is all over that one.

Yes. A transcript of sorts appears below the vid (not sure if it's a word for word transcript) in case you can't view the vid.

Click here.

Harte

Originally posted by Sandalphon
I'm skeptical of debunkers. With the right data and enough perseverance, anything could be debunked on any amount of people; people could accept it just on the grounds that they want señor buzzkill to go away. Just because you may have a serial debunker doesn't mean he or she is right all the time based on reputation for debunking alone.

A debunker often relies on the most popular lean of the land to assert his truth superiority over the smaller facts -- actually a debunker is just a spin doctor. There is science that happens to be and then science that gets pushed because a debunker wants it that way. Sounds like a personal problem.

I see the argument about the root of the whole chain of thought. On what grounds? Who said it was erroneous? Who claims authority over people who don't want to believe a certain way? Who has authority to enforce these details upon the minds of others? These questions can go on for decades between groups of authorities on the subject, and then decisions are made on other factors, like budgets and regional judges...and juries and peers.

Let people do what they do. Scientific conformists are the hardest people to reason with. Remember science is a model and reality just doesn't care about what is being written about it.

I like Sitchin's arguments and it's interesting to see what people make of it. Not erroneous. Your claim of erroneousness is erroneous. Now what?

Sitchin blatantly lied about this photo:www.sitchiniswrong.com...

He knew what the symbols meant, but he looked at the image and said "Hey, I can probably sell a lot of books if I say these were planets and the egyptians counted 12..." He had already seen hundreds of images of the same symbols arranged in different ways. He picked this specific one because it fit what he was selling.

Then he took english transtlations of hieroglyphs, and CHANGED them to other english words which weren't even close to meaning what the original hieroglyph meant. But he KNEW that people would go, hmmm, that word IS similar to the other english word...must be true, sosmrt".

Defending this guy is like defending someone who claims the earth is flat (which btw is an urban legend. Most people have always known the earth was round...)