More Evidence For a Clovis-Killer Comet 210
fortapocalypse sends word that a new paper was published today in the journal Science on the hypothesis that a comet impact wiped out the Clovis people 12,900 years ago. (We discussed this hypothesis last year when it was put forth.) The new evidence is a layer of nanodiamonds at locations all across North America, at a depth corresponding to 12,900 years ago, none earlier or later. The researchers hypothesize that the comet that initiated the Younger Dryas, reversing the warming from the previous ice age, fragmented and exploded in a continent-wide conflagration that produced a layer of diamond from carbon on the surface. While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."
Re:Very true (Score:3, Insightful)
An event that could create a lethal environment for early civilization won't necessarily have the same 'impact' on modern civilization. The scenario described here is that the impact caused weather patterns to change dramatically which lead to widespread famine. These people relied upon natural weather for their survival (rainfall for irrigation, etc.) and while this would cause huge issues for any society today it's not likely that it would be nearly as widespread or as long lasting.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:1, Insightful)
I would guess that the gp means that John McCain "won" in the sense that he now doesn't have to deal with all the troubles of the country.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
I heartily disapprove of this "play nice" rhetoric.
A few points:
1) Apologists like you prefer to think that the literalists are a small minority. A third of the people I know are young earth creationists, and I live in Massachusetts. 48% of the US public are young earth creationists. 16% of high school BIOLOGY teachers [plosjournals.org] are young earth creationists. If you only get one thing out of this, let it be this: have some fucking intellectual integrity and stop understating the issue. Please.
2) You're right to suggest that an argument can't be productive if there's no common ground from which to argue. It is, however, insulting to assume that there is no such common ground. To suggest that the concepts of Bayesian inference, justifiability, history and psychology are not inaccessible to a deeply religious person is condescending to the extreme -- certainly far more condescending than the comments of the GP.
3) Your comment implies that there is no merit to demonstrating intolerance to bad ideas. That's a very popular conception, and I think that, as a liberal policy, it's been utterly disastrous. Now, clearly, it can be effective in a discussion or argument to assume that the other person is capable of meaningfully participating in that discussion or argument, but that's not the same as tolerating bad ideas. Cultural pressure is one of the great factors in meme progression and suppression, and it needs to be used.
When you don't believe in apodictic truth, it's easy to have reservations about sharing your ideas, because they aren't so much correct as "merely" good. Secularists need to sack up and realize that good is good enough to be loud. Timidity is not a good policy.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't just leave it alone can you. You need to retake you statistics class again. And for religious zealotry it usually falls along the normal distribution curve. (...) You wonder why the radical evangelics fights so hard against science. Because the scientist want to mock them and prove them wrong.
Funny, I thought it was because when you do prove them wrong time and time again, people might start to question the rest too including the belief parts. That people have an incredible capability of cognitive dissonance and explaining away anything the parts that lead to conflict is fairly well known though. It's not just to mock, but it's to point out that it's sort of a package deal - you can't believe in half the commandments, the odd pages of the Bible or whatever. Far too many people simply cherry pick the parts they want, so that they don't have to deal with all the things that are flat out wrong and still believe that everything else is accurate. There's always a good excuse for why some parts shouldn't be taken literally or seriously which happens to fit your own opinion.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
didn't you get the memo? Barack H. Obama is the new messiah. HE has brought forth HOPE. HE will pay for our cars and houses. HE will create 3 million new jobs. And HE has totally ripped abs.
I used to think this was a joke, but a journalist on NPR recently stated: "[description of economic woes ...] Is there any light at the end of this darkening tunnel? Where is what the Greeks called the deus ex machina -- the god who descends at the critical moment to sweep all our troubles away?
That could be President-elect Barack Obama [...]"
NPR says he's a god now, not just Limbaugh.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98912392 [npr.org]
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone goes up to you and tries to open a religious flame war, just respect their beliefs
You know, I'm sick and tired of being told I have to play nice with religious people.
Why? Why do I have to respect their beliefs? Why do I have to pussy-foot around the fact that they're choosing to believe in an imaginary friend with absolutely no empirical evidence?
Sure, that's your choice... But why do I have to respect you for it?
If you tell me that you can fly, do I have to respect that belief too? What if you tell me that paper isn't flamable? What if you tell me that cyanide is a healthy supplement to have with breakfast? At what point does it become acceptable for me to call you a flaming idiot?
People kind of grin and chuckle at the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Flying Spaghetti Monster... But religions like Christianity are just as ridiculous. The only reason Christianity gets any kind of respect is because it has been around longer. So, in a couple thousand years, are people going to have to respect the beliefs of a Pastafarian? Or will they still be allowed to grin and chuckle?
And, of course, this respect only goes one way. We're all supposed to respect the beliefs of the religious folks... But they don't have to respect ours.
Religions are constantly trying to impose their beliefs on anyone and everyone around them. I'm not just talking about evangelists who just won't take no for an answer... Take a look at the big battle of Proposition 8 in California.
It doesn't matter whether I believe that you should be able to marry whoever you want...the religious folks think it should just be between a man and a woman. Are they willing to respect my beliefs? Are they willing to let atheists and agnostics and whoever else go around marrying who they want to, and just worry about keeping their own flock on the straight-and-narrow? Nope! No same-sex marriages for anyone!
Maybe not (Score:1, Insightful)
First of all, Clovis people in Canada 12,900 years ago is a stretch, considering the amount of ice still around then.
Killing off all the Clovis people in North America would represent a larger explosion than the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and would then need to explain why only North America is effected and not global populations.
Second, good evidence that Clovis people killed off the viable breeding populations of mega fauna. No need to bring a comet into it.
Third, the Younger Dryas is part of the Pleistocene cycle started 2 million years ago. Glacial melting in North America and cold fresh water runoff into North Atlantic disrupts global oceanic currents and thus the climate. No need for a comet to explain it.
This hypothesis arises by trying to explain the nano-diamonds. Explanation could be a comet. So if that's the explanation then what are the implications? And, here we are.
There is another explanation for presence of nano-diamonds and their origin is unrelated to Clovis people or mgafauna.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, like slavery? One group decides to continue to tolerate it, and another group decides not to. A big bloody fight ensues. One side wins. The intolerable idea becomes insignificantly present in the resulting, altered culture. Or are you suggesting that we should tolerate it, because it's gosh darn socially awkward to tell someone that they're wrong?
Liberal policy of live and let live is really all about the first part. You will never be left to live in peace unless you're willing to do the same to others
Yeah, except for the part where there are some people who consider the very act of you living the way you want to, peacefully, with things like daughters who are allowed to read and write, and marry who they choose... to be sufficient grounds to kill you. And your family. Can you really find moral comfort in that scenario by just physically removing yourself far enough away from the person who considers the nature of your day to day life to be an abomination requiring your death? Does your eager embrace of tolerance for every point of view include tolerating someone who doesn't tolerate you, and feels a religious duty to erase you from the planet?
You do realize that suppressing a meme requires oppressing the people who would pick it up or keep it
Or simply demonstrating in very plain, obvious ways that it's wrong. Or that embracing and pushing an incorrect world view or bad piece of information has consequences. Are you really equating a solid science curriculum that actively looks to shut down absurd superstitions in its students with Stalinism? Man, it must be exhausting to work so hard at moral relativism.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you're ignoring the fact that the fight was necessary, and had the result of ending the applicability of the bad idea. The bad idea wasn't tolerated, and now it's gone. Tolerating the bad idea is tacit approval of it.
I don't think anyone's argued that you should tolerate people trying to kill you.
How about tolerating them moving into your neighborhood, and changing the laws under which you live such that the women in your family are no longer allowed to go to work, at the risk of being stoned to death? After all, it's just an idea. And if the majority of people in your neighborhood begin to hold that idea, why... tolerance dictates that you allow them to, right?
but getting the hell away from people trying to kill me has worked just fine for me this far
Would you say that it has worked for everyone in London? In Madrid? In Bali? In New York?
Actually, believing that the world is 6000 years old is unlikely to have any consequences.
You're kidding, right? You can't imagine the consequences to a child's life for having been raised believing in magic and nonsense? You can't see how that might impact the way they vote, the manner in which they relate to other people, or the chances that they'll become - by virtue of having been convinced that a plainly irrational world view is accurate - the very sort of intolerant, narrow-minded people you so dislike? No consequences for trapping your mind in the middle ages? Here's a consequence of that: the middle ages. And another: whole religious movements, which run whole countries and their militaries, that prefer the way they had things in the middle ages. The young earth loonies aren't any different than the "our prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse" loonies.
I'm saying that "using social pressure to suppress memes" sounds suspiciously like Stalinism
No. "Killing tens millions of people who didn't conveniently get with the program" sounds like Stalinism. Using your voice to shame parents into teaching their kids that the world isn't flat and that dinosaur bones weren't cleverly planted in the back yard as a humorous test of faith from On High - that's hardly Stalinism. It's getting people to grow up and stop with the Magical Thinking, already.
Re:Please be careful when taking excerpts (Score:3, Insightful)
These have the same meaning. What is the problem?
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think atheism is just as ridiculous as you think Christianity is. Yet I think your foolish thinking makes you no less of a human being, deserving of dignified treatment. I think you should be given respect, and given platform to fully express your beliefs. I think this because when beliefs are clearly stated in a respectful manner, it is left to the light of reason to chose which is superior and which is inferior; and the light of reason favors the truth. The truth can stand under it's own power in the presence of anyone who desires it. It needs no help from me. It needs no one to shout down, mock, or silence those who speak foolishly. It stands on its own. If you had confidence in your own beliefs, I would think you would similarly extend those same courtesies to those whose beliefs you find foolish. If nothing else, everyone will think better of you for it. Difference of opinion is nothing to fear, except for those who fear being wrong more than they love truth. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth."
Re:oldest event preserved in history? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is utter horseshit. You don't have to have records through the entire cycle to measure the length of a cycle - all you need is the ability to measure the rate of change and a bit of simple mathematics. (For example, we know the earth's poles precess at such a rate that it requires 28,500 years to complete a cycle - even though astronomical records only go back something like 5,000 years.) It's also horseshit because if the culture existed earlier than currently believed - where are the artifacts?
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you can be pro-science without being anti-religion, and you can be pro-religion without being anti-science.
For any system of understanding, even scientific ones based on pure logic using facts supported by data, you have to begin with some axioms, postulates, or principles, etc. that must be taken on faith. Most religious people question and examine their religious assumptions, despite some religions condemning doubt. Science does not encourage all scientific assumptions to be examined and questioned, since you always need a framework to work within. So it would take a lot of work to overcome fundamental assumptions of science even in the face of good evidence to the contrary. Rational people in both fields (not that there are many people who are often rational) should be able to find a lot of common ground. Don't let the anti-science of particular intolerant religions lead you to conclude that science requires you to be anti-religion in general.
For what it's worth, you make some good points in the rest of your post.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:2, Insightful)
What exactly is it in the religious person's arsenal of beliefs that qualifies as "objective"?
It's precisely the lack of any objective reasoning on the part of religionists that causes all supernatural claims to be thrown out of the scientific window.
Look, you can have your philosophy, and we don't mind. We mind when you start saying we're the ones who lack objectivity. Given the shameful history of violent church suppression of inconvenient scientific facts, methinks the lady doth protest too much. How many religious people have been killed or tortured by Atheists because they said God exists? Can you give a single example?
The fact is that even if we found Jesus's corpse in a tomb, complete with a crown of thorns, and an official, contemporaneous certificate of death from Pontius Pilate, it wouldn't stop Christians from saying he arose bodily from the dead and ascended to heaven, merely on the basis of stuff written long after his death. That's what a lack of objectivity looks like.
As for me, if you can offer any evidence whatsoever for your claims, I'll examine it. If the facts warrant, I'll even start praying to Yahweh. First, you need to provide some evidence that Yahweh exists. Next, show me some evidence that An, Anu, Anat, Aphrodite, Appollo, Artemis, Athena, and Atlas, to name just a few of the A's, do not exist , because I want to be sure not to anger them, if I'm praying to Yahweh.
Go ahead and get started on that and get back to me.
Re:12,900 years ago? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Deus ex machina" literally means "God from the machine," and it figuratively means "divine intervention." You must be intentionally thick to have misread that article so badly.