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The Bad Astronomer
Skeptic Friend
137 Posts |
 Posted - 08/18/2001 : 14:10:37 [Permalink]
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As far as the Nazca lines go: why would ancient astronauts need a runway? Wouldn't they just land vertically?
I just read an excellent debunking of Daniken's work; it was written many years ago. I believe it was called "Space Gods Revealed". You can read more about this stuff at Andy Fraknoi's page at http://www.aspsky.org/education/pseudobib.html
*****
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
"With tremendous respect to [the] BA, the problem isn't getting scientists to talk, the problem can be getting them to shut up."
Edited by - The Bad Astronomer on 08/18/2001 21:49:36 |
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Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 18:38:21 [Permalink]
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There was a german lady who studied the Nazca lines for like 40 years, and finally went blind (She still did research on them with help of assistants). I don't recall her name, and too lazy to look it up right now, lol. Anyways, she told a story about a native who could draw a perfectly straight line, just shoving away the surface pebbles, for a mile. Turns out that in the High Andes they STILL draw these lines for religious reasons, there's a documentary out about that. It's amazing the true evidence the morons have to overlook to believe this stuff. It's also sad that they totally ignore experts who have devoted their whole lives to trying to understand these things.
By the way, I credit Von Daniken with my becoming a skeptic. My dad watched those "chariot of the gods" shows that Rod Sterling hosted when I was around 8 back in the early 70s when Von Daniken was all the craze. They scared the hell out of me. I did more research and found out (at a fairly early age, I was in junior high) that Van Daniken was basicaly lying to me to make money. I've been a skeptic ever since. :)
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"? |
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Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 18:48:17 [Permalink]
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Hey, Bad, that Van Daniken link is broken :(
Going back to the Mayans (other one of my many interests, albiet at a layman level) there is a great site- "Rabbit in the Moon" at www.halfmoon.org
She has a great Bad tempered Rant from the Authorhttp://www.halfmoon.org/rant.html
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"? |
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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 19:27:49 [Permalink]
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That would be Maria Reiche.
In a Nova documentary about Erich von Daniken, we saw a picture of her walking in one of the Nazca drawings -- her height was somewhat greater than the spacing between a pair of the lines.
When his hokum in "The Gold of the Gods" was uncovered, he claimed that when one is writing a popularization, one is allowed to do "Sachboesen" (as near as I could transcribe his German word). But was he really writing for effect?
Also, in western South America, there were some stones that purportedly showed heart operations and the like; EvD claimed that they were evidence for extraterrestrial visitors, but similar stones were being made at that time in order to fleece tourists.
Also, when EvD was shown some tools that could have been used to build the Egyptian Pyramids, tools which he had claimed were "nonexistent" in _Chariots of the Gods_, he backtracked and claimed tha the visitors had only given knowledge, Yet he has yet to update CoG to reflect this discovery.
And I agree that it's interesting that EvD has paid little attention to European monuments; one would expect him to talk about the extraterrestrial construction of Stonehenge (for example), but I don't recall him ever doing so.
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Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 20:12:28 [Permalink]
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That would be Maria Reiche.
That's HER!!! Truely a remarkable woman. It really irrates me greatly that these boneheads ignore people like her.
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"? |
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The Bad Astronomer
Skeptic Friend
137 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2001 : 21:50:25 [Permalink]
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quote:
Hey, Bad, that Van Daniken link is broken
D'oh! The period got included. Try it again now.
*****
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
"With tremendous respect to [the] BA, the problem isn't getting scientists to talk, the problem can be getting them to shut up." |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 16:38:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
And I agree that it's interesting that EvD has paid little attention to European monuments; one would expect him to talk about the extraterrestrial construction of Stonehenge (for example), but I don't recall him ever doing so.
Personally, I like Dave Barry's explanation of Stonehenge: a Halloween prank whose name actually means "Hey! You kids get those stones off my lawn right now!"
Boris Karloff died for your sins. |
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 17:46:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
As far as the Nazca lines go: why would ancient astronauts need a runway? Wouldn't they just land vertically?
Bad Astronomer:
I think that at the time the book was written, not much was known about vertical spaceship takeoffs and landings. Perhaps the accomplishments of Goddard were not well-known at that time by the then creators of such baloney science.
Think of what a wonderful time you would have had back then -- debunking Van Daniken, et al.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 18:08:59 [Permalink]
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One big difficulty: Erich von Daniken's _magnum opus_, _Chariots of the Gods?_, was published in 1968 -- when big rockets had already been in operation for the last several years. And yes, that book does mention the Nazca lines.
He even has his own site: http://www.daeniken.com or http://www.daniken.com [both URL's work; the first one is to take care of the a-umlaut in EvD's name]
Interestingly, that classic movie _2001: A Space Odyssey_ also came out in 1968. It also featured an ancient-astronaut theme, though one IMO much more reasonable than EvD's.
And two years before, in 1966, Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovskii published their classic book _Intelligent Life in the Universe_, which contained some ancient-astronaut speculations in it. However, CS was much more cautious and restrained than EvD, and in later publications, CS would be much more skeptical, rejecting EvD's work as "speculative fiction". |
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 18:22:25 [Permalink]
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Look at it this way. If there was no foolishness to gripe about, this would be one dull thread. Of course, not really.
ljbrs   
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 20:21:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
He even has his own site: http://www.daeniken.com or http://www.daniken.com [both URL's work; the first one is to take care of the a-umlaut in EvD's name]
Interestingly, that classic movie _2001: A Space Odyssey_ also came out in 1968. It also featured an ancient-astronaut theme, though one IMO much more reasonable than EvD's.
And two years before, in 1966, Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovskii published their classic book _Intelligent Life in the Universe_, which contained some ancient-astronaut speculations in it. However, CS was much more cautious and restrained than EvD, and in later publications, CS would be much more skeptical, rejecting EvD's work as "speculative fiction".
Well, the Fermi Paradox certaintly allows for us having been visited before, and I am opened minded enough for the possibility. EvD's 'evidence' however is poor. And I think, personal opinion here, he lies to sell books.
The really annoying thing is he uses things that have rational explantions (Nazca Lines were built by Native Peruvians, The Pryamids built by egyptians, no real connection between the pyramids of different cultures- if you want to build a big stone building a pyramid is the way to go, etc. etc. ad nauseum) as 'proof'. Forget Maria Reiche who literally went blind studying on the Nazca Plains for most of her life, she can't possibly know as much as EvD. PLEEEEASE. This isn't really an argument of authority as much as it is common sense. Who should we believe, the scientist that studied the dang thing for 40 years or the 'author' who is tring to make a fast buck.
I don't know if I should go to his website or not. I'll get pissed. :) I became a skeptic because of him and have an unabashed (and unashamed) hatred of his brand of pseudoscience.
"Goddammit! The world is just filling up with more and more idiots! And the computer is giving them access to the world! They're
spreading their stupidity! At least they were contained before--now they're on the loose everywhere!"? |
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Dog_Ed
Skeptic Friend
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 23:52:05 [Permalink]
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Returning for a moment to the original post: Not only are there no ruined control towers or fuel tanks left from visits by ancient astronauts, no archeological dig has ever turned up any aluminum, titanium-steel alloy, telescope lenses, carbon-fiber composites, transistors or diodes, plastic, or any of the other stuff that makes high technology possible.
I can hardly believe the heirs of EvD are still able to push this obvious balderdash and have anyone listen to them. Oooo it just toasts my bagels to think about it.
"Even Einstein put his foot in it sometimes" |
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Mespo_man
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2001 : 05:58:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Returning for a moment to the original post: Not only are there no ruined control towers or fuel tanks left from visits by ancient astronauts, no archeological dig has ever turned up any aluminum, titanium-steel alloy, telescope lenses, carbon-fiber composites, transistors or diodes, plastic, or any of the other stuff that makes high technology possible.
Some great archeological discoveries have been made just by digging through the latrines and commodes of ancient cultures. There was a great Nova show on the Vikings showing an analysis of their diets by what they, uh, expelled in their villages. So in addition to the lack of exotic metals and instruments, where are the septic tanks and out houses? Assuming in-door plumbing, where are the pipes or even the trenches for the pipes. Not even a lousy Charmin toilet roll tube!
(:raig |
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lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2001 : 15:29:43 [Permalink]
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The excrement question brings up another question: where are the stray microbes?
They might be recognizable as having some oddball biochemistry; there is no good reason to expect an extraterrestrial microbe to use the exact same biomolecules that Earth ones use. And even the simpler ones that they might use may differ from Earth ones in their having different asymmetries.
For example, all Earth life uses a certain set of 20 amino acids as some of its building blocks; these have a structure of a central carbon atom connected to a hydrogen, an amino group (-NH2), a carboxyl group (-COOH) [the acid part], and a characteristic side chain, often shown as R for radical.
For the simplest, glycine, R is hydrogen, and the central carbon atom is symmetric. For all others, the central carbon atom is asymmetric, and there are two ways of attaching all 4 groups to it, to within rotations.
All known Earth life uses only one of these choices of asymmetry; an extraterrestrial microbe might either feature that choice or the opposite.
Likewise, an extraterrestrial microbe's genetic information might be carried in a molecule much like Earth's nucleic acids, but with various differences. So an attempt to search for DNA in such a microbe might come up confusing and inconsistent, if not blank.
This is essentially the same sort of criterion as what I had posted on recognizing extraterrestrial-manufactured objects; lots of details would be different, even if the overall form is similar.
I'm fairly sure that there are no surviving extraterrestrial macroscopic life-forms on Earth. Since they are likely to be biochemically incompatible with Earth life, the most likely survivors would be primary producers: extraterrestrial plants. Extraterrestrial ones may even have an edge over Earth ones, because it would take some time for natural enemies to evolve, due to biochemical incompatibility. And the first ones to do so would be various microbes; some bacteria are known for being able to eat a wide variety of organic compounds.
And although such extraterrestrial plants would likely have stems and leaves, there would likely be lots of differences, such as different photosynthetic pigments. This may cause them to be some color different from Earth-plant green.
But no such vegetation has ever been discovered.
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ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2001 : 19:52:34 [Permalink]
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lpetrich:
Now, all of that is out of my educational background, although I have read enough to understand it.
You are truly brilliant. I cannot add to that, and it is so very interesting to read.
ljbrs 
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
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