Comment by andi999 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andi999 | Hacker News Reader

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Here is my bone with these 'alternative' theories, a lot contain a lot of snake oil (of course I didnt look at much) and are disingenious. Let me give you an example. (I think it was a video by Däniken). He takes a ancient egyptian metal-vessel (probaly copper amphore) and then says:'the amazing thing is, if you just add a little acid and a wire to this amazing device it will act like a battery. So did the egyptians have electricity?' Or something like that. Of course that will happen, and it will happen to any metal cup, it does not show anything about having the knowledge about electricity of a society, but people who do not know much physics will then lead astray to 'so how do you explain this'. If they would have found the wire (of a different metal) inside the jar, in some device... ok... but this is like finding a rock of uranium and saying:'they could have made nuclear power plants from this'.

When I saw they had to go this low, I was pretty sure they have nothing.

Your post is seriously meta:

To demonstrate how snake-oil people leap to conclusions and paint with a broad brush based on flimsy evidence…

…you leap to conclusions and paint with a broad brush based on anecdata.

> When I saw they had to go this low, I was pretty sure they have nothing.

Well, I remember it was one of the 'big-guys' of this alternative theories. So I believe if 'they' had something he would have used it. But please go ahead, point me to the best piece of evidence (no goal-post shifting later, please)

Possibly relevant (Baghdad Battery):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

>"In March 2012, Professor Elizabeth Stone of Stony Brook University, an expert on Iraqi archaeology, returning from the first archaeological expedition in Iraq after 20 years, stated that she does not know a single archaeologist who believed that these were batteries."

Sounds great!

OK. What are you goal posts though? :)

Here's my (hopefully charitable) reading of your argument:

1. Alternative theories of history are disingenious (sic) snake oil, because they're based on weak circumstantial evidence. They use flawed reasoning to support strawman interpretations of the data.

2. To support this theory, you mention a video you saw (well, maybe saw…) of one guy X (Däniken) claiming something about Y (vessel batteries?).

Don't you find the irony delicious?

All theories were "alternative" at some point. Some stood the test of time and evidence; some didn't (Gobekli Tepe embarrassed quite a few "mainstream" scientists in its time); some are in the academic weighing right now (the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis).

No. I do not see the irony. I am not posting a researched theory here. Also since this is a forum, anybody can point out the smoking gun/honest interpretation whatever. A little burden of proof is on the alternative theories (and I do not go that far to say 'extraordinary claims need extraodinary evidence', I am fine with normal evidence).

Well, that is my experience, too. I'm very open so I examined several so-called proofs of alternative history. Unfortunately, in all cases they can be explained in more traditional ways, or were a fabrication like the crystal skulls. This doesn't mean that we haven't been visited by alien civilizations, but as far as I can tell we don't really have any definitive proof. Unless we equate aliens with gods - but even then the only artifacts we have are just scriptures.

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