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Subject: 
Re: Adventurer Maps
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 14 Dec 1999 20:33:40 GMT
Viewed: 
476 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jeff Thompson writes:

Occam's razor:  http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html

"one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities
required to explain anything"

No reason to add aliens into the mix to explain the pinacles of
ancient human achievements.  Humans are amazingly clever enough to be
explanation enough.

The idea of ancient astronauts is a nice romantic idea, but it seems
insulting to me, too.  Humans are, as I said, an amazingly clever
lot.  We like to think of our modern culture, with our high tech
gadgets, as being smarter than people in the past, but, the truth
is, we just have more toys.  People's brains were just as big back then.
The capacity to generate a Leonardo Da Vinci or an Einstein has been
with us as long as we've had this genetic structure that makes us
homo sapiens.

What is amazing about the pyramids is to think about the
staggering social structure capable of ruling that many people
that tightly to bind their subjects into working that hard and
that long to build such massive structures.  That's the awe-inspiring
thing to me.  Not imagining that UFOs helped build them.

I recommend reading the old book "Crash Go The Chariots," a thorough
debunking of Erich Von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" books.  I'm
sure there are more recent books that address more recent claims.

On the other hand, some of those mayan carvings really do look
a bit like space-suited aliens at the controls of spaceships.
I do have a bit of the romantic in me.  It's a fun idea.  But
I'd rather give people the credit for building the pyramids.

--

jthompson@esker.com   "Float on a river, forever and ever, Emily"

You're right.  It is insulting.  But, it makes great fiction : )



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Adventurer Maps
 
(...) mistaken. (...) If (...) Occam's razor: (URL) should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything" No reason to add aliens into the mix to explain the pinacles of ancient human achievements. (...) (25 years ago, 14-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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