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| August 07, 2001 01:20PM |
<HTML>Hey Claire -
You wrote:
"However I would defend his [Schoch's] methodology - he is claiming to employ scientific method here - I see lots of dissent about his conclusions, but not much about whether his method is wrong."
I am no geologist either, but I take it from several sources (one of them is Dr. Clair Ossian, who was to have spoken at the PSU debate) that Schoch's methods wrt the Sphinx are not widely admired within the profession, esp. those who work at Giza.
However, I have criticized his methodology on other grounds in posts on the GHMB and the former IAB MB. And it's because of his questionable methodology that I disagree with his conclusions.
Put simply, geologic erosion patterns are not a good means of dating archaeological artefacts in the absence (or, worse, in the face of) other dating information, for two interlinked reasons: (a) geological time operates in orders of magnitude significantly greater than all of human history put together; and (b) the rate of erosion is not known to be consistent (Schoch admits as much) and so it cannot be used "count back" to a specific date in a non-geologic timescale (that is, to a date in human history). Saying "this rock has eroded to this form over millions of years" is one thing, saying "this rock has eroded to this form specifically over the past 7,000-9,000 years (and cannot have doen so before or after)" is quite another.
The archaeological evidence is also unequivocal. Finds from the Sphinx enclosure *start* in the Old Kingdom. There is simply nothing before the Old Kingdom from the site, not even from Egyptian pre-Dynastic times. Nor is there anything from the site to suggest a neolithic carving of the Sphinx. Nor anything to suggest a 10,500 BC or earlier carving. No evidence. Now if the OK people can leave so much evidence of their activity, why can't the culture that supposedly built the sphinx have done likewise? One burial, one potsherd, one hairpin would be nice. Instead, nothing at all. Complete silence.
This, it seems to me, is a consistent and fatal problem with any "alternative" view of archaeological matters: it is constantly starved for evidence. That is why they resort to arguments from geology, from astronomy, from myths, from images, etc. They can't present any evidence of the sort archaeology needs (or if they do, it is spurious -- see their abuse of Tiwanaku).
Now this is not some trivial or pedantic nit-pick. It's a pretty central issue, really. Hundreds of human cultures, many vastly less sophisticated than the AEs, have left us masses of evidence of every sort spanning about 100,000 years of homo sapiens' existence. Why is that? Why is there NOTHING from these oh-so-significant seeding supercivilizations? To me, it's utterly damning for the whole proposition.
Finally, back to Schoch. His method is also shown to be flawed when Occam's Razor is applied to it (recently parodied wonderfully by Michael Lehmann on the GH M
. As you know, Occam's Razor states that, given competing explanations, the one that requires the fewest unnecessary elements is to be preferred.
For the Sphinx we have two explanations:
A). It was built by the OK Egyptians and has weathered to its current condition over the 4,500 years of its existence (a pretty long time, by the way). Now we know the Egyptians existed, we have evidence of OK activity at the site, the Sphinx sits in the context of an Egyptian OK site, and various geologic options are available to explain the weathering within the past 4,500 years. For this option, Occam's Razor requires no unnecessary elements.
. It was built by some earlier civilization/culture and could only have been weathered this way BEFORE OK Egypt. To favor this proposition, we have to accept the existence of a unknown culture for which no evidence has turned up at Giza or anywhere else for that matter; we have to ignore the archaeological evidence from the site itself; we have to ignore the Sphinx's context; and we also have to accept that Schoch's weathering thesis is the ONLY possible explanation for how the Sphinx came to look like it does (and it isn't). On the basis of the first problem alone (the acceptance of an unknown and unattested culture in a well-studied site) Occam's Razor would require this proposition to be rejected.
Best,
Garrett</HTML>
You wrote:
"However I would defend his [Schoch's] methodology - he is claiming to employ scientific method here - I see lots of dissent about his conclusions, but not much about whether his method is wrong."
I am no geologist either, but I take it from several sources (one of them is Dr. Clair Ossian, who was to have spoken at the PSU debate) that Schoch's methods wrt the Sphinx are not widely admired within the profession, esp. those who work at Giza.
However, I have criticized his methodology on other grounds in posts on the GHMB and the former IAB MB. And it's because of his questionable methodology that I disagree with his conclusions.
Put simply, geologic erosion patterns are not a good means of dating archaeological artefacts in the absence (or, worse, in the face of) other dating information, for two interlinked reasons: (a) geological time operates in orders of magnitude significantly greater than all of human history put together; and (b) the rate of erosion is not known to be consistent (Schoch admits as much) and so it cannot be used "count back" to a specific date in a non-geologic timescale (that is, to a date in human history). Saying "this rock has eroded to this form over millions of years" is one thing, saying "this rock has eroded to this form specifically over the past 7,000-9,000 years (and cannot have doen so before or after)" is quite another.
The archaeological evidence is also unequivocal. Finds from the Sphinx enclosure *start* in the Old Kingdom. There is simply nothing before the Old Kingdom from the site, not even from Egyptian pre-Dynastic times. Nor is there anything from the site to suggest a neolithic carving of the Sphinx. Nor anything to suggest a 10,500 BC or earlier carving. No evidence. Now if the OK people can leave so much evidence of their activity, why can't the culture that supposedly built the sphinx have done likewise? One burial, one potsherd, one hairpin would be nice. Instead, nothing at all. Complete silence.
This, it seems to me, is a consistent and fatal problem with any "alternative" view of archaeological matters: it is constantly starved for evidence. That is why they resort to arguments from geology, from astronomy, from myths, from images, etc. They can't present any evidence of the sort archaeology needs (or if they do, it is spurious -- see their abuse of Tiwanaku).
Now this is not some trivial or pedantic nit-pick. It's a pretty central issue, really. Hundreds of human cultures, many vastly less sophisticated than the AEs, have left us masses of evidence of every sort spanning about 100,000 years of homo sapiens' existence. Why is that? Why is there NOTHING from these oh-so-significant seeding supercivilizations? To me, it's utterly damning for the whole proposition.
Finally, back to Schoch. His method is also shown to be flawed when Occam's Razor is applied to it (recently parodied wonderfully by Michael Lehmann on the GH M
. As you know, Occam's Razor states that, given competing explanations, the one that requires the fewest unnecessary elements is to be preferred.For the Sphinx we have two explanations:
A). It was built by the OK Egyptians and has weathered to its current condition over the 4,500 years of its existence (a pretty long time, by the way). Now we know the Egyptians existed, we have evidence of OK activity at the site, the Sphinx sits in the context of an Egyptian OK site, and various geologic options are available to explain the weathering within the past 4,500 years. For this option, Occam's Razor requires no unnecessary elements.
. It was built by some earlier civilization/culture and could only have been weathered this way BEFORE OK Egypt. To favor this proposition, we have to accept the existence of a unknown culture for which no evidence has turned up at Giza or anywhere else for that matter; we have to ignore the archaeological evidence from the site itself; we have to ignore the Sphinx's context; and we also have to accept that Schoch's weathering thesis is the ONLY possible explanation for how the Sphinx came to look like it does (and it isn't). On the basis of the first problem alone (the acceptance of an unknown and unattested culture in a well-studied site) Occam's Razor would require this proposition to be rejected.Best,
Garrett</HTML>
| Subject | Author | Posted |
|---|---|---|
|
IAB | August 06, 2001 02:08PM |
|
Derek Barnett | August 06, 2001 02:18PM |
|
IAB | August 06, 2001 02:24PM |
|
Derek Barnett | August 06, 2001 02:43PM |
|
IAB | August 07, 2001 10:29AM |
|
JoeRoyle | August 07, 2001 10:47AM |
|
IAB | August 07, 2001 11:06AM |
|
ISHMAEL | August 07, 2001 09:02AM |
|
Katherine Reece | August 07, 2001 09:08AM |
|
JoeRoyle | August 07, 2001 09:54AM |
|
Claire | August 07, 2001 10:16AM |
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JoeRoyle | August 07, 2001 10:29AM |
|
Claire | August 07, 2001 11:20AM |
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Garrett Fagan | August 07, 2001 01:20PM |
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Claire | August 07, 2001 02:14PM |
|
Garrett Fagan | August 07, 2001 03:18PM |
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Claire | August 07, 2001 04:11PM |
|
ISHMAEL | August 08, 2001 09:29AM |
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Claire | August 08, 2001 11:27AM |
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ISHMAEL | August 09, 2001 08:01AM |
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Litz | August 07, 2001 03:24PM |
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Claire | August 07, 2001 04:19PM |
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Greg Reeder | August 06, 2001 03:47PM |
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Graham'O | August 06, 2001 04:04PM |
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Joanne | August 06, 2001 06:13PM |
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Greg Reeder | August 06, 2001 10:57PM |
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Don Barone | August 07, 2001 05:36AM |
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Greg Reeder | August 07, 2001 10:24AM |
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Joanne | August 07, 2001 07:36AM |
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Garrett Fagan | August 07, 2001 09:38AM |
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Katherine Reece | August 07, 2001 10:15AM |
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Joanne | August 07, 2001 02:19PM |
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IAB | August 07, 2001 02:28PM |
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Garrett Fagan | August 07, 2001 03:26PM |
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Joanne | August 07, 2001 05:48PM |
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IAB | August 07, 2001 10:41AM |
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Garrett Fagan | August 07, 2001 12:45PM |
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IAB | August 07, 2001 01:00PM |
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IAB | August 07, 2001 10:37AM |
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D.Przezdziecki | August 06, 2001 09:22PM |
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Mattcarps | August 07, 2001 05:04AM |
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IAB | August 07, 2001 10:53AM |
|
IAB | August 07, 2001 10:51AM |
|
Greg Reeder | August 07, 2001 03:32PM |
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