I love reading things which take current historical and/or scientific knowledge and totally screw it up, and this fits the bill very nicely.
“Flint tools found in an English village show ancient humans settled northern Europe 800,000 years ago, far earlier than previously thought, which could prompt scientists to reassess the capabilities of early humans.”
How exciting is that? I think this is what separates religion and science (and history): Ability to embrace being wrong as a good thing.
Very cool.
Pretty cool.
What evidence is that this is from humans?
It could be from Aliens that crash-landed here or even a Alien survival training. LOL
I was going to go with “Satan put them there”, but oh well :-)
Ding, ding ,ding, right answer!
It is revealed in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, that God placed the archangel Lucifer, a cherub, on a throne on the earth. He was placed there as a ruler over the entire earth. God intended him to rule the earth by administering the government of God over the earth. And the government of God was administered on earth until the rebellion of the sinning angels.
How long these angels inhabited the earth before the creation of man is not revealed. It might have been millions–or even billions–of years.
So this story does not separate religion and science (and history). It only makes us go ah huh.
Please tell me you’re joking?
Based on FYI’s posts over the last few days I would say he’s either a really dedicated poe or a bona fide True Believer ™.
Yeah, those passages don’t say any such thing.
Poe, right? Got to be Poe?
I doubt it, considering that Christians rely heavily on the Isaiah passage in particular (14:12-15) for their conception of Satan/Lucifer. It’s painful in particular because the surrounding passages (14:16-21) make clear they’re talking about a human king, not an angel.
Sure it does. You just not comprehending what it says. Here try these, they are more straight forward, John 12:31; Matthew 4:8,26 ; John 16:11
John was written at a time when the Christian folk tradition of assigning Satan anti-God status was already rooted. The first Matthew passage is in line with the standard Jewish conception of ha-Satan as an agent of God assigned to tempt, test, or oppose. The second, Matthew 26, has little bearing on this conversation.
You have no evidence of Christian folk tradition nor Jewish conception influencing any of the scriptures, so stop with the conjectures. That’s Matthew 12:26, sorry for the type-o. All I’m saying is religion has it theory as well. For the article to suggest that this proves once and for all that only science explains such things is wrong.
What, other than the scriptures all being written based on oral traditions started by men who (if, as you believe, they even existed) were Jewish, you mean? I’d say that’s going to have an influence, myself.
No, it really isn’t. You see, the scientific position has this thing called “evidence” – your own position has precisely zero. And PLEASE don’t quote scripture as though it’s evidence – IT. IS. NOT.
You have no evidence of Christian folk tradition nor Jewish conception influencing any of the scriptures, so stop with the conjectures.
Start here. Unless you believe it’s all just Satan’s lies.
All I’m saying is religion has it theory as well.
How exactly are you defining “theory”?
Given enough money I can make science say anything about the distance past. Given enough money I can make DNA come out the way I want. The O.J Simpson trial proved that. It is just a matter of putting the money in the hands of the right PHD to get the world to accept the results desired. You have no evidence just opinions.
Theory in this case is that we know Angels were were on earth before man but are not told if they made this particular so called tool. Science has no evidence it was man made either. All they know is it may be a tool and it may be 800,000 years old. Where is your evidence, this is not undeniable evidence.
You do not accept my Bible as evidence and I do not accept you fairy tell science as evidence.
I LOL’d and then I cried.
I have to say, it is not often that I am at a loss to figure out where to start in explaining how a person has gone wrong, but here it is. It’s like the inscription of Ozymandias: “Look, ye mighty, upon my works and despair!”
@FYI
Please be a Poe, because if you’re for real then your level of ignorance is scary.
FYI – I do not think ‘theory’ means what you think it means. Lazily using the word in the colloquial sense as if it’s interchangeable with the scientific concept of a theory is either incredibly stupid or incredibly disingenuous.
Ok, sometimes I have to remember that some people are totally lost for the purpose of science -or even common sense
I have to envy the theist ability to completely pull context for scripture out of their asses…
I pull scripture out of my arse all the time. OK, technically it’s more of a wiping motion. But its comfort and absorbency is second rate.
“out of their asses”? That’s a terrible thing to say! They “wipe our asses” with scripture is more appropriate. “God’s word” as toiletpaper…..what an idea! Cheap and plentiful.
pinkocommie – FYI – I do not think ‘theory’ means what you think it means. Lazily using the word in the colloquial sense as if it’s interchangeable with the scientific concept of a theory is either incredibly stupid or incredibly disingenuous.
I do know what it means smart guy, as well as it’s other meanings. In this instance it means contemplation or speculation. If you new what it meant you would have known that but since you did not I guess that just makes you incredibly stupid.
Yoav – @FYI
Please be a Poe, because if you’re for real then your level of ignorance is scary.
And your level of intelligence is pathetic. Do you need the definition? It seems others are having problems defining the simplest of words.
@ FYI:
I love that you grandly declared that you do know what theory means when used in this context, and then pompously proclaimed the wrong meaning. Out of interest, how many people have told you before what “scientific theory” means? And how many times have you ignored or otherwise failed to assimilate that new information?
Let’s go for one more just so I can say I tried:
As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena… A fact is something that is supported by unmistakeable evidence… It is a fact is that fossil skulls have been found that are intermediate in appearance between humans and modern apes. It is a fact that fossils have been found that are clearly intermediate in appearance between dinosaurs and birds… Facts may be interpreted in different ways by different individuals, but that doesn’t change the facts themselves… Creationists refuse to subject their “theories” to peer reviews, because they know they don’t fit the facts. The creationist mindset is distorted by the concept of “good science” (creationism) vs. “bad science” (anything not in agreement with creationism).
Clearer now?
Okay all you christian cluster-fundies who parrot “It takes as much faith to believe in science/evolution/atheism as it does in christianity”: notice the ability to say, “What we knew until now was inaccurate, in the light of further evidence and information”. You fundies have complete inability and refusal to change the pimple at the top of your spinal cord (not really a mind if you can’t and won’t learn and change it, is it?) even in the face of lack of any evidence or information.
I could spend the whole day tomorrow posting evidence page after page but I don’t believe Daniel would like that and the delete button would be used as fast as I could post them. I could also post all the inaccurate, failed and flat out fraudulent science fed to society in the last 50 years as well. Evidence is not what you want, you just want everyone to think you are smarter than believers. That your pea brain is superior to our pimple brains. Well it is not and if you think it is, were is your evidence?
FYI, if you could post evidence to back up your religion, you would be the only theist in the world who could. Well, I have access to the spam list for this site, so: If you commit now to posting all of the “evidence” which we’ve somehow failed to get from the last several hundred fundies who’ve posted here about the “evidence” they claim to have (but won’t show us), then I promise to watch the spam list and make sure Daniel doesn’t delete anything that obeys forum rules – not that I think for a second he would. Consider, he could have deleted thousands of my posts and banned me many times over; as bloggers go, he is extremely tolerant.
So: Let’s see your evidence. Who knows, you might even make a few converts.
Converts? Are you kidding? You can’t be converted! Your at enmity with God. You have been given over to a reprobate mind. I don’t want to convert you. All the evidence in the world can’t change that. That is not why I am here. I am here For Your Information LOL.
And yet you fail to provide information which you claim to have. Could it be that you are here to Make False Claims For Jesus LOL?
Dumb troll is very dumb.
Very un-Christian of you.
So you are knowingly wasting your own time? (I mean even more so than the rest of us.)
For Your Ignorance.
What a hate-filled, closed-minded (closed-pimpled?), judgmental asshole – that claims to be christian.
But that what most fundamentalists do! In fact christianity has been doing that for far too long. That is their “faith”…..unreasonable, isn’t it?
FYI, After you fulfill Custador’s request for the evidence to back up your religion, can you please work on providing the information you reference in this gem of a statement:
“I could also post all the inaccurate, failed and flat out fraudulent science fed to society in the last 50 years as well.”
Thank you.
Nope, it will all be deleted. I did my home work before I jumped into this pool of sharks. I have gone back and read comment after comment. There were many gaps in postings trying to state their case and present evidence that never got to see the light of day.
That is absolute crap, pure and simple. You’re so obviously lying now that it’s just painful. Or can you provide examples (you know, EVIDENCE) to back up the accusation you’ve just made? Also… Whay hasn’t the accusation itself been deleted? I love theists who lie and call it “faith”, I really do…
Theists don’t lie! They smudge the truth, find anybody who will fall for that crap and when confronted by those who know better, they simply insinuate that you are either under demonic influence or unable to comprehend their “faith” due to lack of spiritual insight! It’s not a matter of lying, they just have faith that we’ll all be gullible enough to buy their misrepresentations.
You lying sack of fecal matter. I’m certain your imaginary sky friend and his incarnated suicidal son are really thrilled with you.
Custador – Clearer now?
I did not say “scientific theory” moron! I said “religion has it theory as well”. Not only can you not define words your having comprehension problems as well. Now are we clear?
Please leave the preparatives at home. We were discussing a scientific theory, ergo when you responded to that discussion with “religion has it theory as well”, it was reasonable for the rest of us to assume that you were using the word in the same context that the rest of us (very obviously) were. Your furious back-pedalling is serving only to dig you deeper and make you look more foolish.
Now, can we have some of the evidence you mentioned, please?
Custador, please be patient. I am sure there is so much evidence to back up his religion that it will take a while to compile it all and present it to us simple folk.
Indeed – so much time could elapse that it might seem like he’ll never actually post any of his “evidence” at all, I suspect.
A couple days to make sure the bulls have been well-fed and then it’s time for their enemas.
Custador , stop you back peddling. The context of religion not science was very clear.
No evidence for you!
LLLLLLOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL…. You are both an idiot and liar.
I am not a liar nor an idiot. What lie am I accused of ?
You can add “fails at reading comprehension” to the list of accolades, too.
OK FYI, how about some evidence for the rest of us? Custador, you have to promise to close your eyes and not read his evidence.
yahweh- your name is blasphemy!
No evidence for you!
Face reality, FYI – no evidence for anybody because you don’t have any. Because there isn’t any. You can lie about that all you like, even to yourself, but that doesn’t alter reality.
Are you the “evidence nazi” like Seinfeld’s soup nazi episode?
No, Custador, I honestly believe FYI just doesn’t feel like taking the time to post all the “evidence” that is only convincing to witless people. Thanks for pissing him off anyway.
Ok, Ok, here is one peace of evidence for you. Are you ready?
Your DEAD, your all dead, nothing that you can do or say will change this fact. Science will not save you, enlightenment can’t save you, you are all simply dead. Deny it, don’t believe it but your walking zombies spiritually dead and in the time of God’s choosing physically Dead. You are the evidence of this fact. There is no truth in you and evil is all you will ever be.
That’s it? That’s the best you could do? A threat? I think we can add hard-failing netwarrior to idiot, troll, liar and failure at reading comprehension as we tally up your score. I’ve met twelve year-olds more mature than you.
Does this mean that I now also not get any evidence from you?
So how do we then know that you have any evidence?
@ Olaf:
I think FYI wants us to treat him the same way he treats the Bible – he says something, and then he says it’s true – so it must be true. That’s “evidence”, right?
Lol…. Such a failure…
“Your DEAD, your all dead”
My dead what? My all dead what?
@ coffeejedi: I was SO going to go there too :D
@FYI I’m not dead! Perhaps less judgement(Matthew 7:1-2) might be prudent. Getting upset over mere words might cause stress that would cause you to seek medical help from the medical(scientific) community.
coffeejedi- you don’t even exist. There is no evidence for you. Remember?
(plays the Still Alive song from Portal)
Custador- you are dead in your sins. You lust day and night, you lie contentiously and you can’t stop. You can try all you want but you can’t stop.
You can’t control it, it controls you. It does not matter if you think it is wrong or right. What matters is it controls you and effects your thoughts, which are always evil. God said it would and it does.
Actually FYI, you’re right, I don’t actually exist in Earthly form. I’m really a manifestation of God on His own holy PowerMac up in heaven, created to annoy you on the internet.
And you have no proof that I’m not, so by your logic, you have to believe me.
@FYI Perhaps if you touch your monitor and call forth the power to force the demons out of everybody visiting this site, you may accomplish more. Many televangelists command people to touch their TVs, to get healing or be saved from demon possession. But you must use faith without any doubt what so ever as even the smallest miniscule of doubt will accomplish nothing.
Something tells me that FYI is very young.
FYI is a Poe. Has to be. This is drivel even for the fundie trolls we usually get.
@Olaf. You forgot to add “very young…..and stupid”.
[copy/paste evangelism deleted, just as FYI predicted. —DF]
- Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Yea, just like I said getting that delete button ready!
Okay now that I’ve read this I almost feel bad for deleting it. FYI, you were right, I don’t want it up there. Guys, stop goading him!
If you want to defend your faith in your own words, that’s fine, but please don’t copy and paste large sections from apologetic material. If it’s something from somewhere else, just post a link. I’d allow it since people are asking for it, even though it’s technically evangelism. It’s not that we’re afraid of it (many of us have written such things before), I just want to stay someone on topic and not have an evangelism war.
Hmmmm. FYI claims an awful lot of knowledge about me considering we’ve never met!
Is his proof a copy and past of a whole sections of the bible?
That is his evidence?
Maybe I should copy and paste a part from Lord Of the Rings. There is far more evidences that Orcs do exist.
“Guys, stop goading him!”
Yes dad. You never let us have any fun :-(
Go mow the yard!
But you told us to get off the lawn!
All these pointless arguments and backstabbing amongst yourselves is useless. Tools were found that date from approx. 800,000 years ago and the Old Testament was written approx. 796,000 years later.
Why does religion have a problem with this? If they had found an 800,000 year old biblical document, would that still bother the fundamentalists? I would suppose in that case they would say that the world could not have been created 6,600 years ago.
I doubt it. I think it’s more likely that they’d call it a fake, say the devil put it there, say the scientists who tested its age were liars or that their tests were unreliable. Those all seem pretty standard issue fundie tactics.
I must say, I thought this topic would be a slight moment of light relief rather than anything as serious as all this.
Are you trying to insinuate that the tablets that Joseph Smith found were not deposited by the angel Moron? Does this mean that the book that the LSD church calls the “word of god”, was actually planted by satan to test people’s faith and make them stumble? Funny, isn’t it…..the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in somebody’s backyard just like the revelation of god’s word found in J Smith’s backyard. I wouldn’t be surprised if the scrolls were placed there by the devil to see if christians would stumble. They stumbled and bought the fruitcake! I have heard christians, in heated arguments with atheists, declare that “even the devil knows the word of god”. Do you suppose the devil wrote the bible?
Rofl… “LSD church” – good description for it, I’d say!
He certainly seems a more likely author than God. After all, the Bible has successfully led people to retarded conclusions for millennia, and isn’t that what Satan is supposed to do?
Dare we presume that god wrote “the satanic bible”? Oh hell….why not?
Just a point. Science has done great favours for mankind. Through medical knowledge we have been made free of plagues, science found ways to improve our lives and made them more comfortable….etc. In the years predeeding the bubonic plague, religious leaders determined it was best to kill all cats as they were servants of the devil. If the leaders knew god so much, how could they have made such a terrible blunder that caused the lives of millions? They killed the cats that would have hunted for the rats that carried the plague! God made an inhuman judgement call! It was only when science freed itself from the clutches of religion that it found ways to improve all of our lives. Sure, science has made some mistakes but without it we would all still be as bad off as life was like in the Dark Ages. Would religion today still admit that the earth is flat and that the universe revolves around the earth? Science determined those assumptions to be wrong and everyone now knows the truth, including the religious folk(hypocrites?) who now accept what science states. I wonder if the fundmentalists, who now knock science, would enjoy a trip back in time to when religion was number one and scientists were being persecuted for their beliefs. But make sure to take along antibiotics(oops…invented by scence), vitamins(oops… discovered by science) as food was really quite awful back then and plenty of soap(science, once again) as folks back then stunk bad and religiously didn’t bathe. Have a good trip!
Something to think about: Don’t knock science unless you are willing to give up all that it has done to make your lives more comfortable. Scientists have better things to do than spend time finding ways to make christians stumble. Only small minds think that science is out to make them stumble.
Please bear with me, I want to play a little role-play experiment: I call it The Curious Fundie. I intend not to mock this oxymoronic state, but to ask basic questions due to the Curious Fundie’s fundamental lack of understanding anything that’s not in the bible (channeling utter cluelessness) so that I don’t automatically reject scientific findings and conclusions when my first instinct is to reject it for not matching up because it’s too complex to understand and therefore sounds just as much like magic/impossible to me as the bible does to you. I read the article and some things I wondered:
1. How do they know that’s not just a rock?
2. (a) How do they know how old it is and (b) not just someone made that and “found” it in their yard?
3. How did the people 800,000 get to England without a boat? Or did they already have a boat? Any evidence of boats?
4. How can they know stuff about humans, animals, and vegetation from this type of artifact?
5. How do they know this item is related to humans and not another animal? — With all due respect, the CF wonders if this is new information we didn’t know about humans, how do you know there isn’t stuff we never knew about an animal, like it made tools in England to cut their meat?
6. How do you know it didn’t fall from the sky? It looks too shiny to be old, so it may be part of a star or something?
7. I think it’s fake, it has writing on it.
8. You said, before we knew something and it was by this finding to turn out to have been wrong. How do you know this is correct information?
I think that’s a start. It’s hard to imagine this not making sense to someone or them not accepting it, although admittedly, I sometimes need little steps in between what I already accept and understand and some articles about science reaching conclusions with the assumption that everyone is up to speed.
I had an idea that it’s not only that it contradicts the bible, but fundies start with so little information that science does look like someone just made it up and we all believe in it. In one way, being skeptical themselves, but I added the curiosity to really build that bridge. Any helpers?
Are those questions rhetorical or do you want me to have a stab at answering them? I’m pretty sure I can if you want me to.
I mean for them to be answered. The Curious Fundie says, “the article makes conclusions that are far removed from my extremely narrow basis of understanding the world around me. The conclusions are too alien to me and complex. Scientists just make up stuff and it’s too unbelievable. Help me get from here to there, because I’m not afraid of it, I’m Curious!”
That’s what the Curious Fundie said. I might do this again in the future.
Alrighty then Kodie, I’ll have a go. Please be aware that I’ve just dragged my carcass out of bed and I’m not going to look anything up, I’m just going to answer from what I know of similar finds.
1) With flint tools, you get tell-tale marks that they’ve been worked into shape by striking against other rocks. One on its own might possibly look like it was worked just by flukiest of coincidences, but 70 of them in the same place? Not possible.
2) Carbon dating of decayed organic matter in the surrounding soil, depth of burial and sign of soil disturbance (or absence thereof) age of the rock itself (radioisotope dating again) and weathering of the edges where it has been worked, I think.
3) Britain and Europe were still one landmass back then, there was no English Channel in between them.
4) Because flint tools were worked into blades, when they’d been used there would be traces of matter left on them and in the cracks which could be analysed.
5) There’s no archaeological evidence that anybody but humans ever did this in Britain, and I don’t believe there were even any other tool using primates 800,000 years ago.
6) Flint is volcanic glass; no other process produces it than volcanism. And again, it had been worked into shape, so in a way the source of the original rock doesn’t really matter.
7) Archaeologists mark some finds with wax pencils so that they can catalogue exactly what they are and where they were found.
8) Well, we know what we know about this find is true. It’s possible that we might make future finds which push the date back even further. What we know about this find will still be true, but we will then have evidence about another find which will increase our knowledge still further; historical and scientific knowledge is based on evidence, we go where the evidence takes us.
The Curious Fundie and I thank you for taking some of the mystery out of this article and the conclusions it makes. I wish I had enough patience to take it to the next level of incredulity, but I feel as though I’ve pressed far enough this time, and I appreciate your helpful answers.
@Custy
I don’t believe that carbon dating is of any use for something of that age …
One could carry the same thoughts about the bible. What are the chances that Adam and Eve were criminals from an alien world, desposited on our planet as punishment. They mixed with early humans, narrated their stories and voila…..The Bible! I can’t prove it but then again the fundamentalists can not disprove it. Wasn’t there some talk of a wheel within a wheel in the book of Ezekiel? Maybe a spaceship coming back to check out their exiled criminals? Maybe Jahweh is the name of that spaceship. After all, Elijah WAS carried up into the heavens, he didn’t die and go to hell like jesus did. Elijah must have been a good lad and was ‘beamed’ up!
Considering so much talk of the rapture(more beam up technology…..science at it again), it does provide fuel for thought that maybe christianity is more alien than we previously assumed!
Any other thoughts?
Wooo that is dangerous, a letting a fundy think for themselves. They can’t handle that!
I don’t know what came over me. Sometimes, I myself am confused by exactly what I’m looking at with some of the advanced science articles. I read the article, but I want to be careful that I don’t just accept things even in science. I’m not a fundie or ex-fundie, but I think the science education at my school was very poor, and I never followed up, I don’t even know where to begin. I think science is cool. I wish I didn’t think it was so boring in school that I would have read more earlier and been caught up and as excited as everyone else about new findings, and just be able to have some sense of whether an article was informative or bunk.
To me, this looks like a tool that was made by humans. The article makes a lot of assertions that others have the background to accept. I think fundies are inclined to think it’s bunk on the face of it. The earth isn’t that old, science is magical conspiracies heathens make up, it was planted by satan to fool people who are too unholy to have Jesus in their heart, Intelligent Design is the real science, etc. and so on.
I mean, imagine being so afraid of knowledge that it threatens you, because you are in actuality, stupid to the core. I’m trying to soften the blow, get out the step stool and climb up to check it out. To accept some complex and outrageous claims of science, CF needs more information. In the vein of “there are no stupid questions,” the Curious Fundie is not afraid to ask a lot of stupid questions and maybe be less afraid of knowledge. Some of them are actually my own questions, and some of them are even stupider.
Science articles can be confusing and does not mean that they are automatically true.
NO scientist will ever write a paper that this is “THE TRUTH” and the only truth.
The intention of the science papers is so that other scientists can look into it and confirm his findings or tell him where he is wrong. It is the job of other scientists to redo the experiments or build on top of those experiments to confirm or reject the science paper.
Unlike religion, any science papers are based on mathematical formula’s. So if you take a paper, start to dig into that field you will hit the bottom and everything will make sense. It might be years to understand the paper and its details but it is all documented.
I do agree that for someone that does not have a background of science, the science seems to be some kind of believe because you lack the background knowledge. But once you learn the background, you see it all makes sense especially when you test it with reality.
Most of what I read here, I tend to take at face value, read the article, read the comments, and adjust my acceptance as necessary. I agree they wouldn’t be printed or reposted if someone else hadn’t reviewed the materials and/or hadn’t had the background knowledge to have confidence in the conclusions that the article reached, to go ahead and share it.
I, however, remain skeptical of articles I find on my own, especially if I’m not confident in the source (news agency, science site, a published study – could have an agenda). I look at the date, I look for other links, and if something looks like a “finding” or conclusion to me, I’m a little shy to believe it completely because a later article may have been written which contradicts it, it might make me go “WOW!” and everyone else knows it’s fake, debunked, or maybe just old news, and I look for language that suggests it was written by non-scientists or ID advocates to appear scientific. I don’t want to fall for impressive-looking science-esque buIIshlt, and I’m not sure I have enough background to tell the difference a lot of the time — I don’t want to use these articles to back up any arguments and get laughed at. I tend to go a lot by what others who (sound to me like they) know what they’re talking about agree upon.
Anyway, I did read this article, I agree they look like tools to me, they look like a rock from earth (which I’ve seen and maybe held in my hand) to me that has been designed by a human to cut things. I think I know the properties of this rock and how easily it can be shaped if someone wanted to, that it becomes sharper more easily than other rocks, so is a smart human long ago to figure that out.
And then it asked me to believe they can tell things from the tools which I can find believable, but the process of knowing what they know about just from finding the tools is a little mysterious to me.
I had the same reaction to that universe map a couple days ago. I find the conclusions believable because it’s established how old the universe is, how vast it is, and I might have even taken an astronomy class in college (very basic) which helps me understand how they can measure how old the light is, but there were some pieces of that article that leapt from A to B without an A1, A2, etc. for me.
I think a bible-thumper in either case (+ more) has a lot more questions they may not be able to ask because it all goes against the firm conclusions they’ve reached, starting with a basis that only points toward that conclusion, so immediately looks fishy without some middle steps. In their place, I’ll ask what the heck I’m looking at.
Thanks for responding to me, though, it does help a lot.
The science stories in newspapers are basically all wrong. So never take those as face value. Somehow I think that these science article editors in news papers have no clue about science.
But even the articles posted here must never been taken automatically be true. The author might be mistaken, used a bad source… I always cross-check with other sources.
How astronomers determine how far objects are is a very interesting topic. Check for the “astronomy cast” podcast: http://www.astronomycast.com/
It is one of the best and easy sources explaining science and the universe.
Check out the “sceptical guide to the universe” podcast.
Whenever I see an article headline that catches my eye online, I mostly realize they are reporting in their own words or a summary couple paragraphs from an original report, so I tend to pursue them to what I think comfortably is a reliable site or original source (regarding any topic, not limited to science). Similarly, what’s posted here or other blogs generally has a source site, but sometimes is another blog, so I dig links until I get to the original source if I can or a reliable science report that examines the findings and adds some insight or analysis to the findings. A lot of times, I admit, I don’t care that much, and say, oh neat! and just keep going. In that way, I fail to be responsible to keep up with the basics that would help me when I read something else in depth, as well as sharpen my BS detector, and I’m trying to put a little more effort into it.
Thanks for the astronomy podcast site link. I thank you for your patience and help providing sources for simpler explanations of science that will help me sort out the more complex stuff.
Not an archaelogist, but trying to answer…
1.- They don’t found a rock, they found (you can read the link in custador’s post) up to 70 rocks who seemed hand crafted (i.e: the sharp edge, the polished and flat surface and the circular marks -were the circular marks done when they hit the original rock to get the tool?)
2.- Archaelogists usually date non-organic things by the strata they found it in. They can lie, of course.
3.- England was not always an island, at glaciation times you could go from France to England walking -the sea level was pretty lower. It doesn’t fit with the sentence “which suggested humans had managed to reach Britain about 700,000 years ago, when the climate was warm enough to be comparable with the Mediterranean today” but, as they are reporting Mammoths at the same time, it could be a typo.
4.- Tools do have uses, you can imagine what they were used for so you can know about humnas abilities and diet. Animals and vegetation are not directly infered from the tools, but from other evidences -fossils lying on the same strata or in other dated stratas.
5.- We can’t know, but we have other evidences from human in england around 700.000 years ago. Those ones are “only” 100.000 older. The simplest theory is that they were made by humans, but of course it could be another intelligent species wich we don’t have evidence yet. Or aliens. Just not probable.
6.- It looks hand crafted, and other 70 rocks look also hand crafted. On another hand, meteorites composition are different from earth rocks to some extent, and not usually made of the same rock.
7.- The writing is a code for classification purposes put after it was found. No one is trying to say that the writings were there before, they are not part of the finding.
8.- Not wrong, innacurate. We don’t know exactly when humans settled in England, The previous date was 700.000 years ago because that was the age of the oldest findings. That finding is older, so they must have settled before. It is possible, in theory, that tomorrow we will find oldest proofs so we should change the date. As far as we know now, humans were in england AT LEAST 800.000 years ago.
Then I saw custador’s reply…
Only one thing:
“age of the rock itself (radioisotope dating again)” dating the rock doesn’t help with knowing when was hand crafted, does it?
No, but it does prove that the rock actually existed 800,000 years ago. Volcanic glass gets produced by the planet quite a lot still.
CF and I could use a little more clarification around this point. Are you saying the rock can be dated one way, but gaugeing when it was made into a tool is dated by the layer of soil? Is there more to this, can you spell it out a little more clearly? Thanks!
Also, thanks Francesc for your set of answers to the CF experiment.
That distinction would make sense to me.
But there’s more to the story than just some pieces of flint. Here is the British Museum’s Happisburgh site. It appears to strike a good balance between technical details and more general info. It has a page on how they date the site.
Now you are expecting me to believe Happisburgh is pronounced “Haze-boro”??? Lol, no way! Thank you for these links. I looked around a bit and found the micro-CT demonstration quite interesting. As for the dating estimation, I saw on the 4 slides that they narrowed the date of inhabitancy a bit at a time until they had the narrowest timeframe based on other data collected near the site, or what was already known about other plants and animals and geological historical eras of the glaciers and extinction and emergence of life forms, the state of the tools themselves (whether they were weathered or preserved well), etc.
The 4th slide got me. It says:
Both those dates are more than 800,000 years ago, and I’m wondering, unless I skipped something, how we guess 800,000 years ago and not the earlier? Is it that the later is a safer bet, we cannot know for sure it might have been even earlier, or is the earlier a lot less possible for some other reason?
To try to answer my own question, see if I deduce correctly — since the earliest we knew of was previously 700,000 years ago, it would seem more likely humans inhabited that part of England only a relatively little earlier than much earlier, which would be supposing too much. Or how does the idea of the earlier date fit in with our knowledge about humans, human migration and tool-making in particular? Does that fit in somewhat likely or mostly near impossible?
Thanks!
Yeah but be fair, Kodie, you Septic Tanks struggle with some fairly common British place name pronunciations. “Edinburgh” springs to mind. It’s pronounced “edin-bru” not “edin-boro” ;-)
Having gone to college in, and later living for a few years in western NY state, I’m used to towns not knowing how to pronounce themselves. Steuben is ‘stu-BEN’, Nunda is ‘nun-day’, and Chili is pronounced with long Is, hard to transliterate, it rhymes with bye-bye.
Now I live in Massachusetts. Quincy is ‘Quinn-zee’, Worcester is ‘wusta’, Peabody is ‘pibbidy,’ I think a little more English in the lazy mouth here and not as much unintuitive long vowels as WNY.
“As far as we know now, humans were in england AT LEAST 800.000 years ago.”
Yup. Still there in the House of Lords…
Daniel- It’s not that we’re afraid of it (many of us have written such things before)
Yea Riiiiiiiight. Evidence is evangelism in your view. Is that what your saying ?
“The III” – Sock puppetry is considered just as much a problem as cut-n-paste argumentation. If you’re supporting someone from that person’s own IP address, I’m going to have to assume that you’re actually the same person.
Sounds like it to my untrained internet sense.
“The III” is an old story around here. My favorite thread of his/hers was this one where he/she accuses us all of being unrighteous liars for thirty-four straight posts. Notably none of which were omitted or deleted.
Special troll is special.
They all sound the same to me :-)
Funny that III shows up again at this moment. I was thinking that he/she was also I v I, because of the similarity of the monikers.
Did anybody smack The III / FYI with the ban-stick yet?
> Evidence is evangelism in your view. Is that what your saying ?
No, it’s the other way around. What we’re saying is that evangelism is not evidence. Quoting from the Bible is not evidence. Preaching about your moral superiority is not evidence. It’s just annoying and useless.
vorjack, do I understand you correctly that the IP-addresses of The III and FYI match?
FYI actually made a post the other day that didn’t match his other generic gravatar symbol:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/07/06/hanging-jesus/#comment-107155
I noticed that he had made two posts in a row that didn’t have the same gen. gravatar, but it’s not exactly unusual to have more than one email address, or perhaps this The III popped up and tried to pretend he was FYI, and nobody noticed? Either way, sock puppets.
Interesting. I don’t see how III could’ve gotten hold of FYI’s email address, or vice versa, without them being the same person. So, yeah, sock puppetry at play.
Lying makes baby Jesus cry. Except I think by now he’s so used to lying fundies that he just shrugs and goes “meh”.
Fundies to jesus are like the crazy and/or drunk uncle you have to see once a year at the holidays.
Either FYI is The III, or the slim possibility that The III used his own email address and wrote in someone else’s name hoping no one would notice the different gravatar. Sort of like how I could fill in the field for my name trj and try to pretend I’m you without knowing your email address, using possibly another email address and getting one of those quilt patchy things randomly assigned to me, hopefully green like yours. But I won’t.
I noticed FYI made two posts in a row with different gravatars, but then pressed on the point of coffeejedi’s identity as FYI, so I think FYI and The III are the same person, plus they are aggravating in the exact same way.
Hm, I assumed there would be a validation check to prevent someone from using an existing user name with another email address. Not that it really matters, as I think the reputation(s) of FYI/III are as low as they can be, but now I’m just curious. Do you mind if I borrow your identity for a simple test post, Kodie?
Go ahead and try it. I seem to remember someone else doing the same thing, but it might have been a mod with special powers, or I might have it mixed up with another sock puppet show. Try to post as Kodie if you want, sure.
Nah, nevermind. Come to think of it, I know you can change the email address of your own user, so there’s nothing preventing you from impersonating a user (except a check to see if the new email address is already in use by another user, which would strongly suggest sock puppetry, but I doubt such a check exists).
What the heck, I’ll do it anyway.
Will the real Kodie please stand up?
Yep, it can be done.
For science! Lol, good job.
Dunno why given the current prevalence, but I cannot take seriously anyone who confuses ‘your’ and ‘you’re’
wow, been away for awhile and POW!
I just spent the last hour and a half reading this thread…………makes the old gray-matter spin.
just an aside, but this FYI person surely doesn’t check for proper spelling much
besides being a total jackass, that is…. ;)