Hermione Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lee Olsen Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Hermione Wrote:
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------
> > No matter
> > > the identity of the sailors, was
> such-and-such
> > a
> > > route feasible?
> >
> > Not with a balsa raft or any known boat from
> South
> > America, Central America, or Mexico. Here is
> what
> > is feasible:
>
> ...
>
> The point I was making was that Heyerdahl was
> enquiring about the feasibility of a certain
> undertaking.

Which even he knew Kon Tiki was a failure at both ends. This forced him into even more radical fantasies....the "white beards"? How about a 'Santa Clause' hypothesis?

> A good researcher would surely not
> have approached the experiment with any prior bias
> (i.e., determined to prove that one or another set
> of people had succeeded in making such-and-such a
> voyage), but would have carefully examined the
> results,....

That's just my point, he didn't do that, he was operating on complete fantasies made up in his own imagination. He was basically an early version of
Erich von Daniken, Graham Hancock, and others.

> and only then come to a conclusion, or
> set of conclusions, supported by appropriate
> evidence.

Here is the appropriate available evidence had he done good research to start with, which would have saved himself a lot of credibility loss later:
[archive.hokulea.com]

Back to good science then. You really don't prove anything, you falsify a hypothesis with evidence and move on. So I would have to agree he did do science in falsifying the balsa raft theory by his route, but by that time it was already too late, better boats and evidence (slim as it was) was already known...had he just looked instead of making up stories to save faith.

Now, had there been an equal number of balsa raft petroglyphs vs double hulled petroglyphs found on Easter Island or elsewhere further west, then I would have to concede he was a good researcher. And something else seems to be getting lost here in the conversation is the fact that the idea of a Pacific crossing wasn't even his idea to begin with, yet he received a lot of undue credit because he made a very popular movie that got a lot of rave reviews and world-wide publicity. For example, supposing I make a movie all about E=MC2 and all the proofs to go with it and never mention Einstein's name or give him any credit?
Even the link you gave to Jason Colavito's blog a researcher, Molle Guillaumee, pointed out the new DNA paper made a bad move even mentioning Heyerdahl to begin with. I hadn't seen Jason's blog on the issue until you posted it. So here I am, a layperson from nowhere, posting the same criticism on this list.


[twitter.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2020 11:59AM by Lee Olsen.