Ever wonder "how do we know this?" (in terms of science, history, etc.)

[skykiii]

OK, I better reply to this before the bullshit religious flamewar gets out of control and the ORIGINAL purpose of the thread is lost forever

I wouldn't worry too much. To be honest the Bible slapfight is something I only continue because I'm bored and its interesting.

It's better than the first derail this topic attracted, back when it was first posted--go back to pages one and two and almost immediately upon posting, some people decided to bring up the fucking Holocaust. I was happy for the topic to go dormant for awhile.

That said I think the real problem is just that people tend to memory hole the actual discrepancies that they see in history/science/whatever, or else the ones they do see are very modern and are obviously the result of political grifts and just there's no meat on those bones. It doesn't help that people like James Randi have successfully gaslit entire generations into thinking that defaulting to denialism is "rational."

(Speaking of which, I've considered making a James Randi topic, because that guy is the archfiend of bullshit and yet is put on a pedestal by so many).

Sorry, thought this was kiwifarms, not reddit. Just assumed you had some inference skills based on context and the topic at hand etc

Oh I understood what you meant. I was just curious whether you would actually go so far as to say "having a mom counts as living in sin" or if that would be a bridge too far.

Exactly. Because God doesn't lie. What he was telling Moses or Ezekiel of course will align with reality. The pagan cultures cribbed from god, not the other way around

Not even once did god change his mind

.... Okay, dude, you can stop now.

This was fun when I thought I was arguing against a genuine crazy born-again person, but the more you speak the more intensely clear it is that you haven't actually read the Bible at all, because half the shit you say is either blatantly wrong or doesn't make a lick of sense.

It was a fun ride, but be more convincing next time.

 

[cybertoaster]

There are several surviving codices from the aztecs so its not really a lost culture.

Plus that seems like the kind of custom some remaining native populations would keep doing even after christianization. Even in the middle east you got customs that seem islamic but go back to the old pagan ways, there's a type of bread in iraq that is the exact same and its made the exact same way as sumerians did over 5000 years ago.

 

[The Tall Man]

Do you have a cd / dvd / bluray drive?

Please elucidate how lasers apply particle theory beyond the quantized transfer of energy in matter.

If you had watched the explanations from Huygens Optics, there is unanimous agreement that matter emits energy in quantized amounts, as far as our measurements indicate. However, a straightforward interpretation involving a quantized threshold for energy transfer in matter being an innate property of matter is equally, if not more, rational.
Why is it more rational? Because, only in the particular case of measuring light through energy transfer in matter, does the explanation involving discrete particles hold true. In all other instances, only the wave explanation accurately describes the observed behavior of light.

Matter necessitates a minimum energy threshold before initiating measurable light emission. Anticipating the absence of a minimum threshold is irrational, as nothing in nature exhibits a true gradient.

This phenomena doesn't imply the existence of discrete marbles within matter that depart only under specific pressure. Instead, it emphasizes that a specific energy threshold must be supplied to matter to facilitate the emission of light waves.

The photon manifests only at the point of measurement because what academia labels as a photon represents the minimum threshold required by the sensor to trigger a signal. In all other instances, light behaves as a wave.

The same principles apply to electricity.

You can either accept the idea that light particles exhibit peculiar and irrational behaviors, such as teleportation or instantaneous interaction. In this context, Lawrence Krauss's assertion that the irrationality lies not in his theoretical explanations but in the nature of reality itself might resonate with you.
Alternatively, you can embrace the perspective that light behaves as a wave, and the measurement process alone is adequate to account for the quantized signal. With this viewpoint, your explanation stays coherent, and the nature of reality retains its rationality.

Or did you mean an entirely different phenomena found in optical drives?

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Yes, there are many instances of such things and all make great examples of "how do we know this?"

Graham Hancock illustrates this in another way quite well when referencing South American Amazon tribes and Ayahuasca. I'm sure there's a better example, but you can find him referencing it briefly in the first two minutes of this video. Basically, from the thousands of different types of plants throughout the Amazon rainforest? Humanity managed to find not only the two that were required for brewing Ayahuasca, but also the exact amounts of each and the time required for said brewing. Uh-huh. Suuure.

Incidentally, if one were to ask the Amazonian tribes how they came to know this information? They'd tell you they learned it from a spirit/god who taught them how to do it a long, long time ago.

Makes sense to me. What else is someone who specializes in medicine going to do for fun, especially since medicine men are documented to have functioned as businessmen (and still do where they exist, African witch doctors advertise on Tiktok these days)? They mess around with plants, and one day one of them found the ayahuasca recipe, and since ayahuasca makes you trip balls, they say a god taught them.

Also, for what it's worth: Graham Hancock's work is a fine exercise in the greater topic of the thread. While it's certainly not my cup of tea (dramatic presentations and modern 'made for consoomer' media): his Netflix series is surprisingly on point when compared against his research presented elsewhere. I'm shocked it wasn't overly tainted for the sake of captivating an audience or some shit.

Graham Hancock's work is trash that demonstrates a lack of faith in human ingenuity.

 

[Fek]

Makes sense to me.

Fair enough. Trial and error could have been all it was, although that is some impressive odds.

Graham Hancock's work is trash that demonstrates a lack of faith in human ingenuity.

I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion from the man's work. How does pointing out evidence of construction/architecture that rival (and sometimes surpass) our current day methods inherently imply a lack of faith in human ingenuity? He's certainly argued we're a species with collective amnesia of a time with better/different technology prior to the most recent cataclysm (with supportive evidence the world over), but I'm failing to see how that translates into anything beyond what is stated.

If you happen to know an answer or two regarding monolithic structures and our lack of ability/willingness to reproduce them as precisely as they were made thousands of years ago (in some cases tens of thousands) and in such manners that they last millenia, then by all means share.

---

Beyond that: my own realization that the textbooks storybooks crammed into our little school-bound craniums were anything but truth has led me to draw similar conclusions based on his/others work alongside older historical/spiritual texts. It seems inevitable for any inquisitive mind to realize what we're taught under an assumption of knowing is, on many subjects, partial/complete fabrication. Most archaeologists, as an example, seemingly gatekeep to stay relevant and ostracize threats to their racket much like other groups covered in the thread thus far. They market themselves with coined terms and trend towards speaking with an authoritative confidence only a fool could possess.

Do please understand, though - I'm not saying I >know< all the answers. I'm just tired of being lied to.

 

[Suck the Cock]

Trial and error could have been all it was, although that is some impressive odds.

Homo Sapiens have existed for 300,000 years, civilization for 10,000. Near-human-level intelligence has existed in all sorts of animals for billions of years! That's a long time, with a lot of people who were crazy enough to do anything.

Maybe the better question isn't about the odds of finding this one specific interaction, but how many other common plants and chemicals have uniquely useful interactions that we just missed? It's crazy to imagine finding a specific chemical out of all the millions out there that does exactly what you want. There's trillions of combinations, maybe quadrillions or quintillions if you need specific amounts. But if there's billions of potential combinations that would all be uniquely interesting, suddenly it starts being a lot more likely at least one will be found by random chance.

 

[Vecr]

Near-human-level intelligence has existed in all sorts of animals for billions of years

I'm going to doubt that, even if the Homo Naledi stuff is correct (and there were more somewhat intelligent hominids than previously discovered) that does not really push the timelines back much at all, even if you take a statistical view of it.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Fair enough. Trial and error could have been all it was, although that is some impressive odds.

I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion from the man's work. How does pointing out evidence of construction/architecture that rival (and sometimes surpass) our current day methods inherently imply a lack of faith in human ingenuity? He's certainly argued we're a species with collective amnesia of a time with better/different technology prior to the most recent cataclysm (with supportive evidence the world over), but I'm failing to see how that translates into anything beyond what is stated.

If you happen to know an answer or two regarding monolithic structures and our lack of ability/willingness to reproduce them as precisely as they were made thousands of years ago (in some cases tens of thousands) and in such manners that they last millenia, then by all means share.

Because his entire thesis is literally "I don't think the primitive people who lived here could figure that out themselves, therefore they learned it from aliens an advanced civilization founded before the Ice Age." Not a single bit of evidence has ever been found for his theory that cannot be explained through better means, and not a single bit of evidence has ever been found for such a pre-Ice Age civilization which should, ya know, leave genetic traces of themselves, their animals, their crops, etc.

Beyond that: my own realization that the textbooks storybooks crammed into our little school-bound craniums were anything but truth has led me to draw similar conclusions based on his/others work alongside older historical/spiritual texts. It seems inevitable for any inquisitive mind to realize what we're taught under an assumption of knowing is, on many subjects, partial/complete fabrication. Most archaeologists, as an example, seemingly gatekeep to stay relevant and ostracize threats to their racket much like other groups covered in the thread thus far. They market themselves with coined terms and trend towards speaking with an authoritative confidence only a fool could possess.

Do please understand, though - I'm not saying I >know< all the answers. I'm just tired of being lied to.

Most gatekeeping is for a good reason. There's glaring things archaeologists assume and probably don't actually know, but it's on the level of "there actually wasn't an ancient empire here despite what the majority of the field says" rather than "this civilization actually learned everything from Ice Age refugees hundreds of thousands of years ago." The papers are out there (and thanks to Libgen, free) and you can see the methodology which we know is broadly effective since you can test it on 20th century sites with ample written records. What makes Graham Hancock's methodology so good compared to this?