SitchinIsWrong
Cool!
What I find quite amusing is that even though this guy has a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages (which presumably would suggest that he is a rational sort of person) he sustains a keen interest in "ufology" - the pseudoscientific study of unidentified flying objects, along with all sorts of magical aliens and mysterious coverup conspiracies.
In other words, the way I see it, he is the kind of person who would be disposed to embracing theories like Sitchin's.
And yet he is still able to see with as much ease as I have that Sitchin is a fraud and a liar... or at the very least self-deluded.
It seems that all it takes is a modicum of knowledge about any of the subjects Sitchin claims to be an expert in in order to see how wrong he is.
Hi Owen,
ReplyDeleteI just stubled on your blog, and..
Let me state up front that I do relate with people in order to grow and learn: in this sense, could you give me an example of "modicum of knowledge about any of the subjects Sitchin claims to be an expert in in order to see how wrong he is" ?
Thanks!
I'm very glad you asked. Potentially inflamatory statements like that shouldn't go unchallenged. Thanks for calling me on it.
ReplyDeleteOnly one example? Which one to choose?
I'll go with a small one that I haven't seen in any of the other works I have referenced on this site.
On Sitchin's page about elephants he makes the following statement:
"There are no, and never have been, elephants in the Americas."
If Sitchin had taken the time to research this before writing his article, he would have found this to be untrue.
Assuming, of course, that he is telling the truth about the origin of the clay elephant figure in the photograph.
I then refer you to this site which gives a very simple description of how early humans drove the elephant species that were native to the Americas (namely wooly mammoths and mastodons) to extinction.
While the extinction of those species predated the rise of the Olmec civilisation which doesn't answer the question of why Olmecs would have elephant-shaped figures, Sitchin's statement is wrong.
I have been able to prove that with only a lay-person's knowledge of paleontology... I'm no more qualified than he is.
I'm no archaeologist, so I'm not going to venture a guess as to the true origins of that elephant figure.
If you're interested, I have referenced a lot of other works disproving Sitchin's theories on this post
Thanks again, and don't stop questioning!
You raise an interesting point.
ReplyDeleteBefore I start, I would just like to clear something up. Your use of the word “establishment” implies (perhaps unintentionally) that there is some sort of controlling body that presides over the practice of science. This is not the case. There is, however, a difference between “mainstream science” and “fringe science” – and these are both quite different to “pseudoscience” and “antiscience”.
Many people mistakenly believe that science is a belief system - that theories have been built up over time and are now closely guarded by the clergy of some sort of new religion, and these are the scientists. This is also not the case.
Science is a process and a way of thinking, not a way of life. I think it’s best summed up in the axiom “The aim of science is not to open the door to everlasting wisdom, but to set a limit on everlasting error”.
In other words, science isn’t there to tell us what is true, science is there to tell us what isn’t true.
To put it another way, a scientific theory can never be proven, it can only be disproven, at which point it makes way for a better theory.
You are quite correct that mainstream science works by consensus. Only once a theory is tested repeatedly by a large number of scientists working separately, can it be seen as a valid one. And if consensus eventually agrees that the theory is no longer accurate enough, it can be discarded as well in favour of a better one.
This doesn’t just happen with little theories either, big ones have been thrown out too – Newtonian physics and Aristotelian dentistry are two examples that spring to mind. Both were regarded as virtually infallible for centuries before they were eventually disproven.
With that being said, there is nothing wrong with proposing theories that contradict the mainstream, that is how progress is achieved. But real science allows itself to be corrected. When a theory is thoroughly disproven, it is discarded.
People like Sitchin have a certain value. Their radical ideas get scientists thinking and questioning their previously held assumptions. This is healthy, as it keeps scientists from becoming lazy and sticking too rigidly to their own results.
However, Sitchin’s theories have been proven wrong again and again. There is no real evidence to support them. If he were the scientist he claims to be, he would discard those theories and try to formulate better ones that more accurately explain the phenomena he has observed.
Perhaps my usage of the word “respected” was somewhat troublesome, as it’s entirely relative. I was referring to those who are trained in scientific method, critical thinking and have made it their life’s work to study a particular discipline. They are respected by most other scientists in that field.
It should be kept in mind that scientists are humans too, and they are also subject to error, pride and being misled. Which is why the concept of consensus is so important – one scientist might allow his findings to be skewed by personal bias. But twenty scientists working separately are far less likely to share the same bias, so the combined result of all their efforts would be more likely to be reasonably objective.
The key word in that sentence is “repeatable”. The ‘evidence’ that Sitchin presents has not been repeated or verified by any scientists. His theories have failed the test of peer review and have been disregarded – much like the idea that the Earth is flat and that the moon is made of cheese.
Yet he continues to publish his theories as if they were fact.
People like Sitchin often like to think of themselves as modern-day Galileos – oppressed by a dogmatic regime. And that’s certainly the way they like to tell it… it makes them seem like persecuted heroes, martyrs, underdogs. Everyone likes an underdog.
But Galileo was in a very different situation. He was persecuted for his theories, not by other scientists, but by superstitious religious fanatics. Again, the assumption that science is just another religion is a flawed and ignorant one.
Real science doesn’t persecute different ideas, it evaluates them and determines their worth based on the evidence at hand.
Again, I would like to reiterate that I myself am not a professional scientist. I have no formal training in science, just a passionate interest in the value of the scientific process, and an objection to people who prey on the ignorance of others for personal gain.
OOPARTS are interesting. Sitchin’s elephants certainly seem to qualify as being out of place. But the fact that something’s presence isn’t immediately explainable according to currently held theory isn’t necessarily significant. OOPARTS need to be thoroughly investigated by scientists who know what they are doing, and their presence explained. If their presence really does, after repeated, scientific scrutiny, present an irreconcilable problem with currently held theory, then a new theory must be presented that fits the new facts.
That new theory must also be evaluated and submitted to peer review by other scientists and its validity determined. And so the process goes on.
Sitchin’s attempts at proposing theories to explain what he believes to be OOPARTS are flawed to say the least. They have very little basis in fact, and do not stand the test of peer review. Therefore they are not valid.