I didn't make this reply to "derail" this thread. I only wrote a reply because you mentioned "woo" as one of the charges against ideas you had presented, and I wanted to note for any readers (and to *prevent* a derailing about "woo") that this was in reaction to a comment made by me on a different thread, both of which are related to a previous, but closed, thread. That is all.
OK thankyou.
I don't think anyone is claiming you are stupid,
Lol thats the most unreal claim so far. Do you want me to actually go back and make a list of the language that was used. A common one used was "do you have a comprehension problem". Lol thats just a nice way of saying your stupid. Especially when it comes with other language making out its all woo and crazy talk.
but it does seem (as I discussed later in the post) that you have too willingly accepted more fantastical claims.
Like what. This is the point, you have nothing. I have not made any fanciful claims. You have conjured all this up because the topic is controversial and its common for some to conflate questioning things as Woo when its not. Believe it or not its just purely and simply questioning the obvious, the works we see before our eyes and not accepting the unreal claim that a tiny say created massive machine like cuts or a tiny sled moved a mega ton block.
I won't try to psychoanalyze you on this, but only note that sometime people don't like uncertainly. Others like novelty. Some are "defiant" personalities that like things that "challenge the mainstream". I think if you look about (or go deep into the references others provide) the expert scholars do understand quite a bit of this and in other places they can get close, if not all the way to the ancient result.
You assume people like me have not already done this and they are blindly going along. In fact I would say the smaller % of those who genuinely question and are open to all possibilities are the true scientists.
You also have to consider that the very groupthink you want to place of those who question is the very mindstate of the skeptics who get triggered when anyone questions or suggest an alternative possibility.
Believe it or not even tyhe best scientists become biased and want to maintain the status quo. Why no their entire careers are entangled in it. If anyone has an axe to grind its thse with a lot invested in it. But its funny how the woo aways goes one way from the so called experts against anyone questioning as though they have the authority.
Again -- "WAS". Mr. Petrie is dead. His work is in the past and it stands for itself. Like any scientist or scholar (including myself) he can be wrong in his own area of expertise, but unlike the living, he can no longer correct any error.
Yes of course. But the charge is Petrie was sloppy with his observations and measurements. Petrie was the pioneer of the methods of observation and measurements which still stand today.
Planes are rarely built of stone and have little need for stone machining.
What. So stones and metal machining, angles, curves, geometry, load bearings or stone buildings don't apply to metal parts and buildings. Engineers learn all the tech and math that goes into drilling. In fact Dunnhas been involved no only in the creation of the parts but in the creation of the machines and tools that make the parts.
I don't think this much scutiny is placed on other scientist who make similar claims when they align with skeptics beliefs. Its readily accepted. I see a massive hypocracy going on to discredit good scientists. That we are spending the majority of another thread on this is evidence for this.
So perhaps sjasto should close the thread at only 3 pages long as its turning out like the other one. But I will not close my thread because people propose alternative views. I will listen and investigate them first and give the scientist their fair opportunity without automatic dismissal.
I suspect (but can not prove) that Dunn may experience a sort of "professional blindness" as the *only* way to create the detailed and precise metallic parts that he works to create is with powered and (typically) computer controlled machine tools.
I think you are reading far to much into this. For one the study of the creation of modern parts includes the study and understanding of the history of non modern parts. Like any subject you look at the history to see the evolution of machining ect. Engineers specialise and Dunnhas chosen to specialise in ancient works especially Egyptian.
I would put the opinions of a stonemason who had experience using (at least occasionally) simple and primative hand tools above those of a machinist. The stone mason may not know how to cut stone with a copper saw (but will understand the principle) or to get to a fine shape using softish (copper, bronze) chisels
Yes and Dunn has stone masons on his team. Perhaps one of the best in Yousef Awyan whose father Abdel Hakim Awyan
is one of Egypts moist famous stone masons.
If you ask most of the Egyptian stone masons they say that these ancient works are beyond what stone masons can do.
I don't think anyone is challenging the measurements of the stone objects or their shape, only the interpretations about *how* they were formed.
But no one has said how they were formed. This is all heresay by skeptics trying to conflat questioning the claimed tool methods and the differences in the signatures of the stones.
No one knows how this was done. Only some spectualte that some form of advanced tech was used but they cannot name this exactly. This is a reasonable and logical conclusion considering what we see. Anyone who is not bewildered is not being honest and making massive assumptions about how this was achieved.
The more an argument rests on the credibility of the person presenting it (Dunn, for example) the more vulnerable and appropriate is to attack their credibility especially if it is not earned or deserved. Cite Dunn and his team for measuring the shape and smoothness of these artifacts all you want, but relying on his intepretations without any expertise in stone working is a bad idea and a *false* expert should absolutely knocked down.
And no one is citing Dunns opinion alone. Good science reuiresd independnt and repeatable tests and a variety of lines of evidence all converging on the same findings.
Dunn has consistently sought 2nd, 3rd and more opinions and included a number of different lines of evidence. For example the engineering incorporated in the ancient vases under the Stepped pyramid which are over 5,000 years old. Included ais Metrology and geometry analysis. All this builds the case for Dunn and others.
[For example in a debate about immigration, when someone presents an expert's argument about reasons to reduce immigration, it is absolutely on point and in bounds to note that the expert works for a notoriously anti-immigration think tank with a racist past. (And, yes, I've been tarred as using "ad hom" when I did that in the past.)
Data should only be accpeted if the person has credibility in making the measurements, analysis only if the person has credibility and expertise in the analysis, etc.
This is a bad example as its a social issue. Measuring rocks is not a social issue. The evidence is virtual rock solid and cannot be subjective. But if we look at say the moving of massive stones we can do some logistics or the ability of a tool such as a small saw producing large machine like finished well beyond its size and capability.
. But it seems that the skeptics who want to maintain the status quo that these works were done by the tools in the records are the ones pushing some social agenda that the evidence is based on an assumption about the capability of a cultures sheer grit that allowed them to create works beyond what anyone would believe is pushing a social or ideological belief rather than facts.
And yet neither Einstein nor Darwin are making any new claims. Most modern evolutionary biologists understand evolution far better than Darwin ever did (the rest work for AiG, hehehe). I personally know people who understand GR better than Einstein ever did. (Not me though.)
So does Einstein know anything. Does hios theory still stand.
Petrie's findings and discoveries stand on their own, but it isn't clear what he published about *why* the spiral patterns on the drill cores were the way they were. (I thought you'd written Einstein and *Newton* [englishmen, how do we keep their names separate in our minds?] and went to confirm my correct impression that Lagrange and Laplace both were far more expert in Newtonian celestial mechanics than Newton ever had been.)
Petries findings are all about observations and measuremnt in great detail. He was almost OCD about it and thats why he was renowned as one of the best pioneers of methodology because he went into such rigorous details. His observations and measurements were not disputed in his day. It was the implications that this meant that were objected to.
But Petrie did not even speculate what the findings mean. Only that he tried to speculate what sort of method fits the signature in the stone. He suggested a fixed point harder than the stone being cut which is a logical conclusion.
As to Dunn.
Metal parts machined on modern tools. Give him 300 year old tools and ask him to make replacement parts for an old watch. Does he even have experience using early modern metalworking tools, let alone ancient metalworking or any stoneworking tools?
Yes as he has been doing this from the time he was young in the 60's when the methods were more antiquated unil modern times with aerospace engineering. I recall him talking about the old style lathes he worked with. This gives a good basis as you are already in the mindset of varying ways to achieve tooling and parts. His work often involved create parts from stratch and creating the tools to create the parts.
I think he would have mopre knowledge than most. Add to this he has actually been working on Egyptian works for decades more than most becaus ehe specialised in this and I think he is one of the best when it comes to this type of stuff.
So far you've mentioned measurement specialists, I've got no problem with their measurements.
And I don't see any problem with that.
Going by "looks like" with a modern framing of what tools are available will distort one's impression of what is or is not possible.
It's is far more like finding an engine block and knowing about hand controlled machine tools (lathes, drill presses, etc.) but not the computer controlled machine tools that actually made the engine block and concluding that we have tools that are similar to those the ancient engine block builders made, but they would otherwise take a long time or there were more refined versions of the tools that we haven't found yet.
How I see it is we see an example of say precision cutting that looks machined and then someone saying the ancience still produced it by small inadequate saws, basing it with rocks and then rubbing it for a long time to make it look like it was machined.
The problem is many of the works are not on the finished pieced by the rocks they blocks came from. So are we to assume that they also made these look like precise machinging when they were never going to be used for anything. I think thats too much to ask someone to believe.
Stone hammers aren't good tools for drilling holes or cutting, but they do work well for shaping even if they are labor intensive.
Yes and we have some works with this method much later than the precise works in pre dynastic times. And they look like they were bashed into shape as they are raough and not precise. It seems there were two different methods and that the most precise and best quality were way early and the less quality comes later. Opposite to what we would think is the progression of knowledge and skill for everything else we see.
Some fancier drill could be plausible (I don't know enough to assess), but electrodes are a fantasy and chemicals would require evidence of a chemical industry and tools.
Hum, I think its ealy days to be saying electodes are a fantasy considering they have found alectrodes in the Queens chamber. Experiments have shown some interesting anomelies betwee stones and the reactions being caused. It seems some stones like limestone a conduits but granite is not. Is it a coincident thta many of these megaliths have limestone incoporated often as outer layers insulating the granot and basalt.
The golden ratio was first discussed by the Greeks millenia later. I have no idea what ratio could be "sacred". The Egyptians were fairly sophisticated at mathematics.
The sacred ratio is Sacred geometry associated with what religious beliefs call the geometry of the gods where certain shapes and geometry are incoprorated in nature and therefore reflected in the works created. A bit like the Goldren ratio but more inclusive of all geometry in nature especially with shapes and patterns.
Oh brother. Sigh.
From what I could gleam, they seem to touch a lot of topics covered by pseudo-historian Graham Hancock, but avoid mention him directly.
Ah so anything out of the oridinary is Hancocks fault. Isn't that a stereotypical fallacy and massive assumption. Plus I think its a fallacy that Hancock is being cast in this light and has nothing worth saying.
People sometimes get confused about the nature of science. We spend *most* of our time questioning things that are in the literature. Small things, big things, strange things, old things, etc. The whole point of a "reproducing study" is to question the original. While there are certainly outlets in the "science news media" that are a bit hasty to make a big deal of every shiny new paper, there is plenty of good science content built on broader understandings and at more techinical levels in review papers and monographs. The problem is that creating that content requires real expertise as does understanding raw results.
I agree.
As I was just saying, none of us are. I'm not convinced hobbiests like Dunn are either. This is why hobbiests and podcasters built on "active investigations" or their own analysis aren't that great of sources.
He's not a hobbiest as I have shown. He has decades of experience and tech knowhow on Egyptology. His findings have scientific support from varying scientific disciplines. To call him such is a gross fallacy.