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[Swordfishtrombone]

Ecaiki wrote...

Swordfishtrombone wrote...

There are differences between REAL proven conspiracies, and conspiracy-theories
that are not founded in reality. One is that of scale - the larger the
conspiracy, the more people it must involve, the less plausible it is
that it would survive for long without exposure. People gossip, people
leak information, and people have their own agendas. It is not easy to
control a conspiracy involving many people, especially when those people
are separated by large distances, come from different backgrounds, and
enter the field where this grand conspiracy is supposed to be playing
out, with innocent notions and enthusiasm for scientific discovery.

No conspiracy of this kind is remotely plausible, given simple human psychology.

To say this shows a level of naivete bordering on dangerous.

No, it is not naivete, it is realism, based on an understanding of human psychology, and ample historical evidence. The bigger the conspiracy, the faster it fails. I'm not saying that there haven't been conspiracies, and even successful conspiracies, but that the ones that are successful, tend to be the ones that require the smallest number of tightly-nit participants to be "in" on the conspiracy. With every new member "in the know", the danger of exposure is increased exponentially.

We are raised to trust in authority, be that police, government, or any
other body that represents something.  If someone dressed as a police
officer tells you not to enter somewhere you'll do as they say.  If the
government tells you something is good most people take it at face
value.  All it takes is those in charge with an agenda to cause no end
of trouble. 

I'm not saying that you should blindly trust authority - if I was saying that, then surely I would not have used as an example of a real life conspiracy, a government conspiracy!

The problem here is in the last sentence - "All it takes is those in charge with an agenda to cause no end of trouble". No, that's not all it needs. All it needs is those in charge, and those executing their questionable orders, to agree to go against whatever they are supposed to do, and follow a secret agenda - for this to work, all the people involved have to be in the know, and agree to do wrong.

Most people are basically good - even people who get into politics. Even when they are missguided, they tend to justify their actions in terms of serving a greater good. Further, people aren't very good at keeping secrets for long, especially when the secret is big. The more people you have involved, the greater the chance that someone leaks information, purposefully or inadvertantly - or that someone has a change of heart, and defects - or that someone is careless and leaves some damning documents to be found by someone. The more people involved, the larger the conspiracy, the more likely it is that it will be discovered, sooner, rather than later.

Today, when we have a site like Wikileaks dedicated to helping whistle blowers, this just makes grand conspiracies even harder.

Again, please expose yourself to views CRITICAL of conspiracy theories as well, and not just resort to reading conspiracy material. You can't make up your mind, justly, with being familiar only with one side of the argument. The book I recommended earlier "Voodoo Histories" by David Aaronovich is a great book to read to get an idea of what makes a conspiracy realistic, and what makes a conspiracy the stuff of fantasy.

Not saying that this is happening in the scientific
community, just trying to show that it's so easy to have it happen.

And I've given you specific reasons why it COULDN'T happen in a scientific community - why everything in the scientific method is geared against the possibility of such things. New ideas, when they are founded on good evidence, are rewarded by research grant money, not shot down to preserve the status quo. The one way to sabotage your science career is to simply rehash what is currently known, and never to come up with an original idea that goes against the grain.

If you think that such a world wide science conspiracy could happen, and not only that, could EASILY happen, then you simply haven't given the subject enough thought, and/or study.

If you are going to form an opinion, do the favor to yourself of exposing yourself
to differing views, and not limiting yourself to the
conspiracy-alien-archeology-paranormal sources. The book I recommend is a
real eye-opener, when it comes to how conspiracy theories are formed,
and how they spread, what makes them so attractive.

The very fact that I think the way I do is because I exposed myself to differing views.  I just happen to agree with the alternative ones.

So you KNOW the skeptical arguments against those alternative ideas? Then why did I have to answer you regarding the bolivian ruins and the antikythera mechanism?

Clearly you were NOT awere of what real historians and archeologists, who weren't advocates of those "alternative ideas" were saying. I would dare to say that if you were, you'd be more skeptical of those alternative ideas, because the difference in the quality of research and presentation of evidence is quite apparent.

Also you never did answer my question; would you defend alien theory if it was the first and officially accepted version?

I DID, in fact, answer that question - quite thoroughly in fact. It's the 8th post from the bottom on page 3 of this thread, please read it.

[grregg]

Ecaiki wrote...

(...)

To say this shows a level of naivete bordering on dangerous.

We are raised to trust in authority, be that police, government, or any
other body that represents something.  If someone dressed as a police
officer tells you not to enter somewhere you'll do as they say.  If the
government tells you something is good most people take it at face
value.  All it takes is those in charge with an agenda to cause no end
of trouble.  Not saying that this is happening in the scientific
community, just trying to show that it's so easy to have it happen.

It is enough to run a simple calculation to see that the probability of staying secret decays exponentially with the number of participants in a conspiracy. In other words, 'vast conspiracy' is an oxymoron. That is not to say that governments, companies, etc do not TRY to maintain secrecy, it's just that they are unlikely to succeed.

There were multiple attempts in history to coerce science to maintain certain line, and even with use of deadly force they were not spectacularly successful (check out Lysenkoism if you're curious).

Ecaiki wrote...

(...)

We live in an age where someone being murdered in Brazil can be filmed,
uploaded, and on every news site around the world before the body
cools.  To our knowledge there has never been a point in human history
when information flowed so freely or so quickly.  500 years ago however
it was much easier to control the flow, and to have people believe
whatever the ruling body wanted.

I think this is a bad example. 500 years ago you and I would not know about someone being murdered in Brazil, but that's because we would pretty much NOTHING about what's happening in Brazil anyway. Human societies simply worked on a smaller scale back then. So would we know about someone being murdered in the next town? Probably. Via gossip and rumor instead of YouTube, but that's only a difference in technology, not in functionality.

Ecaiki wrote...

(...)

Also you never did answer my question; would you defend alien theory if it was the first and officially accepted version?

I would like to think that if an alien theory was backed up with solid evidence, absolutely. Heck, if current wild conspiracy theories ever graduate to something solid, I'll gladly eat my words. It's not like I have a personal dislike of advanced ancient civilization, I just want evidence.

[Ecaiki]

Ok I'll answer the social and psychology stuff, and that's it. 

@ Swordfish

One very important thing about people is that they are willing to do almost anything if you absolve them of responsibility.  The Milgram experiment is a very good example of this.  With that in mind it's easy to see how the word of those in charge could turn good people into accomplices.  That's all it really takes to get things started, throw in a little following of what authority tells you and you have a conspiracy.

As for wikileaks, well that only proves my point about how easy it is to spread information today.  The less channels, and the harder it is to get word around the easier it is to have people believe whatever you want.  North Korea is the poster child for this kind of thing if you want a modern example.

I'll leave you to your belief that scientists are somehow immune to this kinda thing.

@grregg

Read what I said above with regards to secrecy and the modern age compared to history.

[Swordfishtrombone]

AwesomeName wrote...

Who the hell is Philip Coppens? Has any of his work gone through any scientific scrutiny or has he just bypassed that whole process and published everything directly online?

Philip Coppens seems to be, as I learned through a brief search, an "outside the establishment" "maveric", sporting all the signs of your arch-type pseudoscientist, including conspiracy theories involving the official scientific community. I'd be surpriced if he's actually published any of his ideas in peer reviewed archeological journals.

There's a brief article regarding him on the "badarcheology" site.

As it is, I would be hard pressed to trust anything he says as reflective of the full scope of the evidence - pseudoscientists rarely give you the whole picture, but rather cherry pick the parts that make their prior beliefs seem more credible.

[grregg]

Ecaiki wrote...

Ok I'll answer the social and psychology stuff, and that's it. 

@ Swordfish

One very important thing about people is that they are willing to do almost anything if you absolve them of responsibility.  The Milgram experiment is a very good example of this.  With that in mind it's easy to see how the word of those in charge could turn good people into accomplices.  That's all it really takes to get things started, throw in a little following of what authority tells you and you have a conspiracy.

As for wikileaks, well that only proves my point about how easy it is to spread information today.  The less channels, and the harder it is to get word around the easier it is to have people believe whatever you want.  North Korea is the poster child for this kind of thing if you want a modern example.

I'll leave you to your belief that scientists are somehow immune to this kinda thing.

@grregg

Read what I said above with regards to secrecy and the modern age compared to history.

Yes, perhaps we should wind down.

Still, some parting remarks...

I don't think Swordfishtrombone meant that scientists are immune to 'this kinda thing.' Scientists have agendas, ambitions, delusions, and weaknesses like everyone else. However, science is designed to be immune or at least pretty resistant. I have little doubt that in North Korea you can coerce scientists to say whatever you want, they want to live as much as the next guy. But how do you plan to do it worldwide?

In other words, scientists are fallible, but science is inherently self-correcting. It might go down some false trail, but sooner or later (and usually sooner), there will be someone pointing out that we're heading the wrong way.

[Swordfishtrombone]

Ecaiki wrote...

Ok I'll answer the social and psychology stuff, and that's it. 

@ Swordfish

One very important thing about people is that they are willing to do almost anything if you absolve them of responsibility.  The Milgram experiment is a very good example of this.  With that in mind it's easy to see how the word of those in charge could turn good people into accomplices.  That's all it really takes to get things started, throw in a little following of what authority tells you and you have a conspiracy.

As for wikileaks, well that only proves my point about how easy it is to spread information today.  The less channels, and the harder it is to get word around the easier it is to have people believe whatever you want.  North Korea is the poster child for this kind of thing if you want a modern example.

Yes, I am aware of all of this, and ALSO of the fact that to accomplish such compliancy, you have to set up a system of absolute authority.

Notice that in both the experiments, and in North Korea, the participants are isolated from the rest of the world that doesn't bow to the particular authority involved. What does North Korea do? It isolates itself from the world, in order to maintain the power structure. This kind of control doesn't work if you can't achieve this kind of isolation - if you are talking about a conspiracy where the individuals would have to function in a regular society, then that participation in the society would itself erode the psychological pressure that gives the authority it's absolute control. ERGO - such control could not be used to set up a conspiracy unless the conspirators were completely isolated from the world, and only conversed with other conspirators. Which would kinda defeat the purpose of any conspiracy, wanting to affect the world.

I'll leave you to your belief that scientists are somehow immune to this kinda thing.

As soon as you demonstrate absolute authority of the kind in North Korea in ANY scientific discipline, I'll be happy to give your idea of there maybe being a conspiracy more credence. But as it stands, and as I've explained, the reward structure set up by science is ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN, and ANTI-STAGNATION. The greatest rewards are to be found in the hope of overturning some established notion - nothing could be more personally rewarding for an archeologist than to uncover evidence of a highly advanced civilization, overturning our notion of the level of sophistication at some point in human history!

Such an archeologist's name would go down in history, and grant money would be overflowing - they'd be set for life. It is the stuff any scientist DREAMS of.

There's no global authoritative control structure to science, but the whole endeavour is massively spread out, with no central control structure, the kind which would be NECESSARY, at the very least, to set up a condition where any sort of a large scale desception could take place.

If some local group desides to deceive, to fabricate results, their fraud is short lived and unwise - as it is in the best interests of other groups, both financially, and for personal reputation, to uncover any such fraud. If you study the history of science, you see how such fraud attempts end very badly; even when scientists make bold claims, and then fail to have their results replicated, that can have a cooling effect on their careers. Which is why in scientific papers, you see the ADVOCATE of some interpretation also point out potential problems with their theory; in an attempt to anticipate the critics, and ward off any accusation that they were negligent in their research.

If you know anything about how science works, then you should know that any large scale conspiracy is not possible in that discipline - that is one of the strengths of science, and why it has persistently provided good, functioning knowledge, way, way better than any other human endevor in the history of humanity has done.

Now I've given you reasons why such a conspiracy would NOT work in the context of a scientific community - I've yet to hear from you any reasoning as to HOW, in practice, such a conspiracy would work. Do you have anything on this front?

Modifié par Swordfishtrombone, 04 décembre 2010 - 04:35 .

[Swordfishtrombone]

grregg wrote...

I don't think Swordfishtrombone meant that scientists are immune to 'this kinda thing.' Scientists have agendas, ambitions, delusions, and weaknesses like everyone else. However, science is designed to be immune or at least pretty resistant. I have little doubt that in North Korea you can coerce scientists to say whatever you want, they want to live as much as the next guy. But how do you plan to do it worldwide?

In other words, scientists are fallible, but science is inherently self-correcting. It might go down some false trail, but sooner or later (and usually sooner), there will be someone pointing out that we're heading the wrong way.

Exactly. And I explained this in some detail in my post on the third page (eight post, counting from the bottom of the page), which is why it's somewhat annoying that such an accusation of me believing scientists to be immune to biases and agendas would persist.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Swordfishtrombone wrote...

AwesomeName wrote...

Who the hell is Philip Coppens? Has any of his work gone through any scientific scrutiny or has he just bypassed that whole process and published everything directly online?

Philip Coppens seems to be, as I learned through a brief search, an "outside the establishment" "maveric", sporting all the signs of your arch-type pseudoscientist, including conspiracy theories involving the official scientific community. I'd be surpriced if he's actually published any of his ideas in peer reviewed archeological journals.

There's a brief article regarding him on the "badarcheology" site.

As it is, I would be hard pressed to trust anything he says as reflective of the full scope of the evidence - pseudoscientists rarely give you the whole picture, but rather cherry pick the parts that make their prior beliefs seem more credible.

I believe this Teotihuacan fact is true. nuff said ...

[Swordfishtrombone]

^ Yes, if you believe that, then sure, go ahead. If you want to convince anyone who cares about the quality of evidence though, you'd better find some reliable sources - sources that publish for peer review - to back up your claim.

[Ecaiki]

It's not the knowledge itself that I call into question, but how that knowledge is interpreted and used. The system of science is perfect in itself, however then that old saying about humanity kicks in.

Lets take marijuana for example. As far as what the stuff does and how harmful it is there shouldn't even be a debate, yet there is. On one side you have doctors and scientists saying it's fairly harmless and actually has many medicinal benefits, yet the other side claims it's as bad as any drug and can cause mental illness.

So why hasn't the scientific community come together and proven one side or the other right? If science is as pure as you say then why do we even have such controversy? The only answer I can come up with is those with agenda's are stepping in and messing with both the research and those that govern it.

Modifié par Ecaiki, 04 décembre 2010 - 04:43 .

[Swordfishtrombone]

Ecaiki wrote...

It's not the knowledge itself that I call into question, but how that knowledge is interpreted and used. The system of science is perfect in itself, however then that old saying about humanity kicks in.

Lets take marijuana for example. As far as what the stuff does and how harmful it is there shouldn't even be a debate, yet there is. On one side you have doctors and scientists saying it's fairly harmless and actually has many medicinal benefits, yet the other side claims it's as bad as any drug and can cause mental illness.

So why hasn't the scientific community come together and proven one side or the other right? If science is as pure as you say then why do we even have such controversy? The only answer I can come up with is those with agenda's are stepping in and messing with both the research and those that govern it.

First, I never, ever said that science was PERFECT. It is far from perfect. But it IS incompatible with the sort of authoritarianism that would be required for a grand conspiracy to distort the results. This is my point.

As to your question, this is because in science, on the borders of research, there are things that are not clear-cut. Medical effects of various substances would be a PRIME example - the human body is incredibly complex, and substances can have a variety of effects, and the effects can even vary from person to person, to a degree. The whole issue is thus muddled.

When something is being researched - like the effects of marihuana - different studies use different parameters, and differing controls. There are a multitude of sources of complexity that can affect the result. This means that any new subject being studied will tend to yield results that vary - even sometimes giving the opposite impressions to different researchers.

What settles the matter, eventually, is when enough large scale studies, with proper controls, have been done - gradually the scientific consensus will shift towards what those studies indicate. There are also meta-studies, which help in determining what the majority of research has concluded at any given time.

This sort of complexity does not exist, to any such a degree, in archeology. When you find a pottery shard, you find it. Nobody's going to claim that it's an elephant, not a pottery shard. It is not controversial that you find rather simple tools and items consistent to the time period, when you dig at a site dated to some specific time. And it is not controversial that none of these findings justify a belief in a very technologically advanced culture in the ancient times.

[Ecaiki]

The proper controls eh? Just who determines those I wonder...

By the way, I'm curious who decided that their technology had to be anything like ours. Perhaps we've already found examples, but if people are looking for transistors and micro chips then of course they're going to miss it.

Is that honestly what you're expecting, that there's an ancient Egyptian rolex buried under the sand?  Perhaps a Mayan convertable just waiting in a stone garage somewhere?

Modifié par Ecaiki, 04 décembre 2010 - 05:22 .

[Swordfishtrombone]

Ecaiki wrote...

The proper controls eh? Just who determines those I wonder...

They aren't decided upon by some comittee - they are controls that are based on reason and practical evidence, with the purpose of eliminating known biases and possible factors  which might distort the results. Further, they aren't some secret code, that only annointed scientists are privvy to - like all in science, the controls, and the reasons for them, are open for anyone with the interest and patience to study.

For example, the requirement of double blinding, with a placebo control. Meaning that if you want to test the efficacy of some medicine, for example, you have to have a randomly selected group that receives the medicine, and another randomly selected group that receives a placebo, that is outwardly indistinguishable from the real thing, but that has no medical function. Double blinding means that neither the patients, NOR the doctors administering the medicine, can know whether they are dealing with the real thing, or the placebo.

After the trial is done, and AFTER the results for each volunteer patient is evaluated, it is revealed which patient was in the placebo group, and which received the real medicine. The results of the groups are then compared, and in order to show efficacy, the group that got the real medicine has to show a statistically significant improvement OVER what the placebo group showed.

Because of the placebo effect, it is likely that both groups experienced some improvement - and it is to decipher what is the contribution of the placebo effect, and what is real medical effect, that this whole rigorous methodology is necessary.

The blinding will eliminate any conscious or unconscious distortion of the results by the biases of the doctors.

Another control would be sample size - the greater the sample size, i.e. the more people involved in the study, the more reliable the results. A Very small sample size may give false results simply by chance variation.

There are many no-nos that a good study will avoid (such as "optional stopping and starting"), and each of them are reasoned out, and very difficult to disagree with, when you see the reasoning, and what possible error the lack of those controls introduces into a study.

The system is not perfect, when it comes to medicine - there are legitimate problems that may bias the results in favor of greater efficacy in some cases, and a need for revision of policy, and law to correct those. However, with the majority of lay critics of "big pharma" going for wild conspiracy theories, instead of focusing on the legitimate loop holes, and not really understanding the issues in the first place, there's insufficient pressure for the legislators to do anything, at least at the present.

Rather than have this nebulous suspicion of science, why don't you actually familiarize yourself with the process? It is, as I said, open and transparent, and anyone who cares to can learn what is done and why.

By the way, I'm curious who decided that their technology had to be anything like ours. Perhaps we've already found examples, but if people are looking for transistors and micro chips then of course they're going to miss it.

So, something that looks like a pottery shard, and when put together with shards found near by, makes up a pot, confirmed as being made of clay, maybe with painting on the surface is actually.... what? A disguised microwave oven?

The objects found aren't that complex that there'd be room to miss some functionality. We DO have quite sophisticated materials analysis, and ways to probe the insides of solid objects, so this notion that they'd somehow be complex technology that just HAPPENED to look like, say a clay pot, or a solid stone slab, is patently ridiculous.

It is also a fallacy to found a belief in an ancient advanced civilization on such a far fetched hope - it's using absense of evidence as evidence of what you'd like to be true. That's simply not sufficient. You need actual, solid evidence.

Is that honestly what you're expecting, that there's an ancient Egyptian rolex buried under the sand?  Perhaps a Mayan convertable just waiting in a stone garage somewhere?

YES! Not a rolex, but SOMETHING equivalent. Some sort of mechanism, used for mundane purpose such as telling time. If there WAS in fact a technologically advanced civilization at the time, then it would be quite reasonable to expect an abundance of such finds.

Barring that, how about an object made of stainless steel in the bronze age? The Bronze age is called a bronze age, because by all the evidence found, they had not mastered the making of stronger metals at the time. SURELY an advanced civilization would know how to make steel - and very high quality steel at that. Why would the only metal objects it left behind be bronze objects?

Further, this notion of simple things somehow masking complex technology falls apart when you consider things like what you pointed to earlier - The antikythra mechanism! Why would a hugely advanced civilization, that was capable of making some kind of "magic" technology disguised as clay pots and simple carved items or bronze tools, resort to making a celestial calendar-device with big bronze clockwork-gears?

When you look at ALL the evidence, in context, the notion of a highly advanced ancient civilization simply finds no support, nor does there seem to be any room for such a thing in all of thus far discovered archeology.