conspiracy theories you believe

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Oh okay wasn't sure if it was that or something else...

So like how did the dogons know all those damndable details about the sirius solar system if interstellar dolphins didn't teach them how?

I'm not terribly familiar with the Dogon star controversy, but wiki has an extensively cited section about it in their article, which details a lot of the criticism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_p...gon_and_Sirius

[Wiffles]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOgyHcPnI70 <-- I think this debunks the theory that aliens did help make the pyramids

This guy can move 19 ton blocks by himself without the use of machinery or pulleys. Just using wooden planks. If he can do it, Im sure a bunch of Egyptians can do it. n_n

[Tadao]

Or wait, maybe aliens do exist, but they can't reach our planet because GOD told them to stay away.

[Tadao]

The proof that aliens didn't visit our ancestors is overwhelming!

[Tadao]

I feel so alone

[kahljorn]

that was kind of a half-assed response ;/

[Tadao]

But it does prove that aliens didn't come down and give us guidance.

[kahljorn]

wikipedia does?

[Tadao]

No Jeanette posting does. I'm convinced and I think I turned Christian just now.

[kahljorn]

oh

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

that was kind of a half-assed response ;/

Yes, I'm sorry. I was thinking more general terms, such as why the Mayan's "vanished" (hint: they didn't), why there are pyramids found all over the world, why the Nazca lines were carved, etc. Like I said, the Dogon controversy just isn't something I'm well versed in. I suspect this is case of an anthropologist mistranslating and/or misinterpreting a myth. Anyway, when another anthropologist went back and spoke to them, some of them identified the star that was supposedly Sirius as Venus, which is extremely bright and hard to miss.

[kahljorn]

so they talked to someone stupid and that's evidence that its all a sham?

[kahljorn]

why are there pyrmaids found all over the world and if you plot them all on a map and draw a spiral around them like connect the dots that spiral has the exact same ratio as the golden ratio?

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

so they talked to someone stupid and that's evidence that its all a sham?

They talked to a lot of people about it. Keep in mind that the fieldwork that was done that lead to all this in the first place was done in the thirties and forties, when anthropology was still a fairly young discipline. Methods and ethics weren't quite as stringent as they are now.

http://www.philipcoppens.com/dogonshame.html

Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. Van Beek actually spoke to some of Griaule’s original informants; he noted that “though they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as their name for Sirius itself], they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that, through a different position, appears as sigu tolo. All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule.” Van Beek states that this creates a major problem for Griaule’s claims
Although he was an anthropologist, Griaule was keenly interested in astronomy and had studied it in Paris. As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s – before he visited the Dogon – there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C.
The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. To quote James and Thorpe: “As for Sirius B, only Griaule’s informants had ever heard of it.” Was Griaule told by his informants what he wanted to believe; did he misinterpret the Dogon responses to his questions? Either way, the original purity of the Dogon-Sirius story is itself a myth as it is highly likely that Griaule contaminated their knowledge with his own.

Originally Posted by kahljorn

why are there pyrmaids found all over the world and if you plot them all on a map and draw a spiral around them like connect the dots that spiral has the exact same ratio as the golden ratio?

Pyramids are found all over the world because when you want to build a Big Fucking Thing, but you don't have steel and advanced engineering techniques, the easiest way to build your Big Fucking Thing is by starting with a large base and tapering that base to a point. In other words, a pyramid.

As for the golden ratio business, I'm willing to bet that they left some pyramids out. Also, if I were to pick some arbitrary sites around the world I could probably connect them to make spiral with the same ratio. That is, if I was any good at math, which I'm not.

[Tadao]

So Jeanette, what you are saying is that it is not only improbable, but it is impossible?

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by Tadao

So Jeanette, what you are saying is that it is not only improbable, but it is impossible?

When did I say it was impossible? I'm saying that there are better, more plausible explanations.

[Tadao]

Well you are saying it didn't happen, but really all you have is speculation.

[kahljorn]

OOOOH BUUUURNNN

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by Tadao

Well you are saying it didn't happen, but really all you have is speculation.

The principle of Occam's Razor is on my side. The most logical thing to conclude, based on the evidence, is that it didn't happen.

You can never know for certain that I don't have a unicorn in my yard. Maybe I grafted a horn onto a horse in my spare time and now I have my own pet unicorn. You can tell me I don't, but all you can do is speculate since you haven't seen my yard. That doesn't make you any less right when you tell me that I'm full of shit when I claim to have one.

[Tadao]

Correct, and that is why I don't make outrageous staements like.

Originally Posted by Tadao X

As an unicorn student, it is my firm belief that the Jeanettes bakyard theory (which can be a considered a conspiracy theory) is the biggest pile of horseshit ever concocted. If any of you believe it, give me a specific reason as to why and I will explain to you why its a load of crap.

Any takers?

[Jeanette X]

As a student of unicornology, you would explain why you can't graft a horn onto horse, how people have tried it, and how they failed. You would provide links to articles proving my outlandish claims wrong.

People who claim that aliens visited us and built the pyramids are the one's claiming to have a unicorn in their yards over the Internet. Do you see the parallel?

Or would you say to doubters of my unicorn claim that "Well you are saying that Jeanette doesn't have a unicorn, but really all you have is speculation"?

Would you defend my unicorn claim the way you seem to be defending ancient astronaut theory?

[kahljorn]

Jeanette do you want me to quote wikipedia at you?

[kahljorn]

you can't use occam's razor to "win" arguments and you can't use the impossibility of knowing for sure whether or not there is actually a unicorn or not in your yard short of showing up there and looking which you could always claim its out frolicking or whatever unicorns do to support the notion that there is or is not a unicorn in your yard and then transfer the impossibility of knowing that into a claim about whether or not aliens built the pyramids.

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Jeanette do you want me to quote wikipedia at you?

I quoted the ORIGINAL ARTICLE you boob.

You want more? Not from Wiki? Here you go:

http://www.skepdic.com/dogon.html

Or, Griaule's account may reflect his own interests more than that of the Dogon. He made no secret of the fact that his intention was to redeem African thought. When Walter van Beek studied the Dogon, he found no evidence they knew Sirius was a double star or that Sirius B is extremely dense and has a fifty-year orbit.

Knowledge of the stars is not important either in daily life or in ritual [to the Dogon]. The position of the sun and the phases of the moon are more pertinent for Dogon reckoning. No Dogon outside of the circle of Griaule's informants had ever heard of sigu tolo or po tolo... Most important, no one, even within the circle of Griaule informants, had ever heard or understood that Sirius was a double star (Ortiz de Montellano).*

According to Thomas Bullard, van Beek speculates that Griaule "wished to affirm the complexity of African religions and questioned his informants in such a forceful leading manner that they created new myths by confabulation." Griaule either informed the Dogon of Sirius B or "he misinterpreted their references to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible companion" (Bullard).

http://www.badarchaeology.net/extrat...ial/sirius.php

However, by the time Temple had published the second edition of The Sirius Mystery in 1998, the whole question of the Dogon’s apparently inexplicable knowledge of Sirius had been blown apart. No-one had questioned Griaule and Dieterlen’s findings until the early 1990s. And this is where the problems for the hypothesis began. In 1991, the anthropologist Walter van Beek undertook fieldwork among the Dogon, hoping to find evidence for their knowledge of Sirius. As the earlier authors had indicated that aorund 15% of the adult males were initiated into the Sirius lore, this ought to have been a relatively easy task. However, van Beek was unable to find anyone who knew about Sirius B. As ought to have been obvious from the outset, Griaule and Dieterlen’s reliance on a single informant – Ogotemmêli – severely compromises the validity of their data.
But it gets worse. The Dogon themselves do not agree that Sigu tolo is Sirius: it is the bright star that appears to announce the beginning of a festival (sigu), which some identify with Venus, while others claim it is invisible. To polo is not Sirius B, as it sometimes approaches Sigu tolo, making it brighter, while it is sometimes more distant, when it appears as a group of twinkling stars (which sounds like a description of the Pleiades). All in all, the ‘inexplicable’ astronomical knowledge turns out to be too confused to bear the interpretation put on it by Griaule and Dieterlen. It is probably no coincidence that Griaule was a keen amateur astronomer and used his knowledge to rationalise an extremely confusing traditional lore that the Dogon themselves could not agree on.

Satisfied?

[Tadao]

As a student of Unicornology, I would understand that there was a time before me that we didn't fully understand our surroundings and that the facts were inaccurate. What was once impossible has become very real and everyday. I would also (since I'm a fucking genius) understand that what I know as fact today, may turn out to be very false in the future.

Blacks had tails, the universe revolved around us, dinosaur bones were in fact the bones of giants.