Excellent review of Prehistory Decoded by Alistair Coombs
Debunking YouTube's archaeoastronomy skeptics
Image from Scijinks.gov Some YouTube commentators, like Milo Rossi of MiniMinuteman and Stefan Milo, have made ignorant comments about the astronomical interpretation of Gobekli Tepe and Pillar 43. Below, I make the scientific case for this interpretation. Q: What is science? A: Science attempts to create consistent models of reality. Q: What is a good model? A: One that has a lot of explaining power relative to its inputs. This is also known as Occam's razor, parsimony, and model efficiency. Q: How do we measure the 'explaining power'? A: There are many ways, but the best is to use statistical methods, including hypothesis testing. Examples of statistics in science Suppose 100 pills given to a random sample of people, of which 50 are placebos. Suppose all those taking the pill are dead by the next day, but none of those taking the placebo are dead. Conclusion: the pill is deadly. The hypothesis “The pill is deadly” is made a posteriori
Working my way through your youtube videos, and I am very much enjoying the detailed review of the literature. I am relatively satisfied that the uniformitarian defenses of the standard narrative are wrong, and there was a catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteI am curious, do you ever address the Dr. Schoch perspective that there was a catastrophe, but it was not an impact, at least not on earth. An extraordinarily over simplified version of his perspective was that there were extreme solar activity, coronal mass ejections, possibly driven by solar comet impacts driving instability and massive electromagnatic effects, including massive global lightening activity (repeated solar storms driving hundreds of lightening strikes per sq km over years), enhanced by earthquake and volcanic activity.
Essentially, he looks at the same things evidence of catastrophe, but comes to the conclusion that is evidence not of impact, but of extreme solar driven electromagnetic activity+volcanism.
I would love to get your perspective on whether the conclusion that the black mat evidence must be earth impact as opposed to possibly extraordinary solar electromagnetic induced activity & vulcanism. Is it could be earth impact, could be solar impact plus instability, or must it be one or the other? What does your perspective on the evidence say?
Thank you, if you've previously addressed and I missed it, I would appreciate a pointer to where.
I haven't looked at his ideas in any detail. I am familiar with the general idea of a solar outburst or flare explanation from the papers of Paul La Violette. It's a much more complex scenario than the comet theory and also doesn't fit the evidence nearly so well in my opinion. Moreover, I don't think there is any evidence that a solar flare of the required size has occurred, or can ever occur. Moreover, to my knowledge, Schoch has never published a peer-reviewed paper on his ideas. Finally, my interpretation of Gobekli Tepe's pillars suggests they were keeping a close eye on the Taurid meteor stream and had developed a new comet cult, inspired by the impact event.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reply, appreciate he has not published as it is far outside his field of geology. I think his hypothesis is much more than a single flare or an outburst, but waves of intense solar instability, quite possibly driven by comet impacts, not into the earth, but into the sun. So although certainly much more indirect, but consistent with a comet cult.
ReplyDeleteI'll probably buy his book soon and see what he has to say. Maybe a video on YouTube. But right now, it seems like an over-complicated idea, with little evidence to back it up. Let's see.
ReplyDelete