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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
 Posted - 08/10/2001 : 02:27:36
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I see two big problems with the early-human-history extraterrestrial-visitor hypothesis:
Where is their infrastructure?
Why didn't they reveal anything nontrivial?
First, infrastructure. These ancient astronauts are pictured as having flown rockets and having built airfields (the Nazca lines). But where is the infrastructure. An airfield would need paved runways, control towers, maintenance facilities, fuel tanks, and so forth. Which are simply not found.
Second, lack of nontrivial revelations. If the ancient astronauts had taught people how to build big monuments, then why that and not some other things, especially simple things like the approximate sphericity of the Earth? Including the handling of Lactantius's Paradox (Divine Institutes 3:24), to the effect that anything on the other side would fall off. Why not teach that eclipses are caused by shadowing effects and not monsters trying to eat the Sun and the Moon? Or sorcerers trying to control them? Why not teach that the sky is not a solid bowl overhead but a vast void, and that the air extends for only a few days' walk upward?
Extraterrestrial visitors would find it easy to get an eyeful of the Earth's shape as they traveled to it; one who wanted to teach important things to us benighted Earthlings would certainly have told us about the Earth's shape.
There are other simple things that could be taught, like the framing and testing of hypotheses, including making hypotheses falsifiable; experiment design, including controlled experiments; such simple mathematics as a number-notation place system, zero, and negative numbers; and certainly other things that do not require a lot of background to appreciate.
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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
 Posted - 08/10/2001 : 08:59:16 [Permalink]
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I forgot to add earlier:
And that does not even cover the infrastructure required for the launch of big outer-space-capable rockets; simply consider places like the Kennedy Space Center and the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which have launch pads, service towers, propellant tanks, assembly buildings, access roads, mission-control buildings, etc., and are sprawled over several square miles/km.
Not to mention all the junk 
And where are the literary descriptions of such faciliies and of the details of big rockets? Details such as them being hollow and them getting filled up with liquid air and naphtha water.
Edited by - lpetrich on 08/10/2001 09:00:15
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Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2001 : 04:56:46 [Permalink]
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You're absolutely correct. I got into it with a guy on another board about this. He could not conceive that the Ancient Egyptians could have built all their monuments without exta-terristrial help. Forget trial and error, forget a lot of stuff fell down due to faulty design. He also didn't take into consideration that if you throw enough money, people, and resources at a project, you can accomplish some pretty incredible feats.
Lisa
Chaos...Confusion...Destruction...My Work Here Is Done |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2001 : 08:52:12 [Permalink]
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I remeber that Lisa. Yikes! I liked the part about the Cydonia *Face* connection, that cropped up in that one. Built by the ancient Eqyptians but we couldn't go to the moon. Remember? Who was that? pipes.
He's YOUR god, they're YOUR rules, YOU burn in hell! |
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Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2001 : 11:20:14 [Permalink]
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I forget who it was, but it actually wasn't Piper. I think it was either Conspiracy Dave or Rob. (Not the nice smart Rob, but the Rob who spouted nonsense.) He didn't think the Egyptians were capable of building the pyramids by themselves. I pointed out exactly how they could have accomplished it. Apparently he's pretty impressed by people piling rocks one atop the other. Nastiness led to more nastiness, with me finally implying he was a racist. Didn't exactly cover myself in glory with that one, huh? But at least he shut up.
Lisa
Chaos...Confusion...Destruction...My Work Here Is Done |
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Piltdown
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2001 : 11:54:23 [Permalink]
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Way back in July, 1980, I won an honorable mention in Omni Magazine's anagram contest with this:
"E. von Daniken UFO theory---- O, invent one, hokey fraud."
I liked another honorable mention a lot better:
"Chariots of the gods---It's good for the cash"
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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2001 : 20:46:30 [Permalink]
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I never did comprehend the extraterrestrial pyramid connection. Every time I see a photograph of the pyramids I think of slavery, death, torture, and very hard work. Well supposedly they did volunteer for the work and they sang songs while pushing, pulling and prying large heavy stones while consuming onions, bread, and Ale.
I believe the success was due to the skilled craftsmen, excellent supervision, and methodologically sound engineering practices. Did I mention the torture thing, that could have had some effect.
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2001 : 03:57:57 [Permalink]
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Why is it always that visitors from outer space came to solve our problems. The people who invent these stories do not wish to give human beings any credit for the work that they have done. Perhaps the people with the silly theories cannot understand the methods which could have been used to erect these magnificent structures. Since they did not understand it, how could anybody else? Therein comes the farce about extraterrestrials doing it for us.
An extraterrestrial wrote this post.
ljbrs, E.T.
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2001 : 07:35:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Why is it always that visitors from outer space came to solve our problems. The people who invent these stories do not wish to give human beings any credit for the work that they have done. Perhaps the people with the silly theories cannot understand the methods which could have been used to erect these magnificent structures. Since they did not understand it, how could anybody else? Therein comes the farce about extraterrestrials doing it for us.
Actually, the ancient-astronaut hypothesis is the ultimate in diffusionism; the idea that inventions are always made only once, and spread elsewhere. Thus, there are some who have claimed that Central American pyramids were inspired by Egypt's pyramids.
Even though those two sets of pyramids had very different purposes -- a temple foundation vs. a mausoleum -- and even though pyramid-building had gone out of style in Egypt something like 3 millennia before Central Americans even started building pyramids. So the most reasonable conclusion is that pyramids were invented separately in Egypt and in Central America.
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2001 : 08:20:05 [Permalink]
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ancient astronaut theories are every bit as valid as astrology, creationism and the psysic friends network. its a lot easier to believe the ancient astronaut nonsense than the great flood myth.
comrade billyboy |
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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2001 : 21:01:30 [Permalink]
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Ipetrich,
Don't forget the Chinese Pyramids at over 5,000 years old, they may be the oldest.
The folklore is that the "sons of heaven, who roared down to this planet on their fiery metallic dragons" actually built the pyramids. They told everyone that they were decedents of visitors from outer space. I wonder if they could conceive of a ‘ray-gun' or perhaps drawing with the use of ‘perspective'.
Those two dimensional drawings without the use of perspective just ruin the extraterrestrial visitation theory for me. Speculation that even simple minds could fanaticize, or is it fantasize.
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2001 : 06:39:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Variety is the spice of something or other, I am told. I am a bit too old to remember just what it is.
The saying is: "Variety is the spice of life." I'm just glad that about 95% of HB's don't have this. Makes them easier to handle.
The way I see it, christians are godless too...they just don't know it yet. |
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2001 : 07:38:35 [Permalink]
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James:
I like your new look. I simply did not mention it before. Red and black are good color combinations.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2001 : 07:47:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
James:
I like your new look. I simply did not mention it before. Red and black are good color combinations.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth...
Ah, I'm blushing....
That old thing? I threw it together from some scraps I found lying around.
The way I see it, christians are godless too...they just don't know it yet. |
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2001 : 08:54:57 [Permalink]
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James:
Oops. I accidently hit *delete* so this altered post is now down underneath some of the replies. Sorry about that.
Could be an example of *deja vu* all over again...
So, here goes nothing from something.
A (skeptic) friend of mine (who was a member of my skeptics group awhile back) and who is an expert on things Mayan and Middle American, retired from his anthropology professorship at a nearby University (my own alma mater) a few years back to go down to Texas to live nearer to his boyhood stomping grounds (Mexico). The author of numerous scholarly papers and books, he had often been amazed at the unfounded (ignorant) ideas of people who were attempting to link the pyramids (and statuary) in Central America to other pyramids (or architectural structures), including those in Egypt and in other locations in Africa and the Middle East. He explained to us that the Mayan pyramids are completely different in structure from the African (Egyptian, etc.) pyramids. The earthen structure inside the Mayan *pyramids* also had an earthen-filled structure inside each of the steps (a construction completely different from those found in the Egyptian pyramids). The entryways were completely different in the Mayan buildings from those found elsewhere in that they lacked keystones (and therefore lacked arches) as found in the Mideast and elsewhere. The construction of the temples was completely different in Middle America.
This same skeptic/anthropologist friend always laughed about the attempts to show that the Egyptians were responsible for the Mayan (and other Central and South American sites). He has written a number of scholarly papers and books about this subject.
It is nice to have a Skeptics site where one can get away from the true believers now and then. Variety is the spice of something or other, I am told. I am a bit too old to remember just what it is.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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Espritch
Skeptic Friend
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 12:14:51 [Permalink]
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There could very well be a racial dimension to the claims that "ancient astronauts" were responsible for the pyramids, the Nazca lines, etc. I think it was James Randi who pointed out in one of his books, that the people who make these claims never claim that ancient astronauts were responsible for the construction of the great cathedrals of Europe. Apparently, they have no problem with the idea that their own ancestors were capable of remarkable feats using rather limited technology. It is only when builders are of another race or culture that they doubt they could have been clever enough to have figured it out for themselves.
P.S. Thanks for the Chinese Pyramid link. I had never heard of these. Too bad the guy who made the site is such a fruit cake. It could have been a really interesting subject on it's own merits. 
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