Revising Ancient Chronology

[Lloyd]

Not Yet Refuted
* Venn seems to make a good case that Dwardu has misunderstood Heinsohn in at least one instance and maybe more than that, so I'm willing to consider that Heinsohn has not been refuted.

Nick said: Great lengths to be fair? come on now. You have made no attempt to read any material by Heinsohn, Sweeney, or Ginenthal. You get all your information from Cochrane and Cardona and then came to the decision that Heinsohn is falsified. You have accused Heinsohn of presenting doctored material, but do not show any instances, showing nothing specific, so that your charges cannot be answered. Does that qualify as objective?

* I have not accused Heinsohn of doctoring evidence. I merely stated Dwardu's and Ev's accusations. I concluded tentatively that Heinsohn was refuted by Ev's and Dwardu's statements. I figured that, if my conclusion were wrong, one or more of you Heinsohn supporters would correct me. And now it appears that Venn has begun to do that.

I showed how Ginenthal answered Cochrane's charges and showed how even his primary mainstream (Roux) source did not support his description of how to account for missing strata. Have you even read Venn's posts?

* I've only read parts of them, to try to find the most relevant parts, because it takes me too long to read long posts in their entirety.

Debate, isn't that what is going on, here on this thread? Can there be legitimate debate when one side persists in making ad hom accusations? Why would anyone want to debate with someone who they consider a fraud? (From what you described Cardona accused Heinsohn of deliberately manipulating his stratigraphy to support his case, that seems to constitute an accusation of fraud.)

* The debate so far has not been very scientific. I asked for a scientific debate. That would mean agreeing who does the debating, how evidence is presented etc. Ad hominem means "Attacking an opponent's motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain". Dwardu did not attack Heinsohn's motives or character; he stated what he considered to be Heinsohn's faulty methodology. Dwardu said Heinsohn never seems to accurately portray the stratigraphic record. That can be due to using a faulty methodology, not necessarily fraud.
Scientific Debate
* If any of you are ready for a debate, I'll start suggesting possible scientific rules to follow and you can answer what you agree with and what modifications you favor.
#1) I think it should be okay for anyone to participate in the debate and be able to switch sides at any time.
#2) If we use this thread for the debate, we could allow non-debate discussion too, but we'd need a way to distinguish between debate posts and non-debate posts. To do that, debaters could start their posts with a single word, either the word PRO or CON, all caps in the first line. PRO would mean Pro-Heinsohn. CON would mean opposed to Heinsohn.
#3) We should be able to renegotiate the debate rules at any time. In that case the first line of one's post could say RULES, all capital letters.
#4) One person on each side should act as the main debaters, preferably the most knowledgeable persons. I'd like for Dwardu or Ev to take the CON side, but, if no one else has time for it, I'm willing to fill in, although my time is a bit limited.
#5) We should focus on one issue at a time and limit our debate posts to just a few sentences, say five sentences per post. Ted suggests that Neanderthals be an issue. I'm willing to accept any relevant issue, but I think we should start with the most important of Heinsohn's chronology claims first. Would that be the dating of Abraham and Hammurabi?
#6) I think PRO and CON posts should take turns, one each per turn. And they should follow in logical order. The debate posts should probably be either questions or statements of evidence.
#7) If anyone posts out of logical order, the main debater for either side should make a post saying in the first line, ORDER, and explain the problem and suggest a correction.
#8) I suppose we should try to make at least one debate post per day. If I'm unable to make a CON post on some days, anyone may do so in my place, but try to make sure it follows logical order.
* Are those rules sufficient to start the debate?
* Remember that debate posts must start with either PRO, CON, RULES, or ORDER. Non-debate posts should start with anything other than those words.
* I imagine it would be best if Heinsohn supporters unofficially discuss and agree what to post before posting a debate post. And I'll try to do the same on the CON side.
* The purpose of a scientific debate is to increase knowledge.

[tholden]

Ted suggests that Neanderthals be an issue. I'm willing to accept any relevant issue, but I think we should start with the most important of Heinsohn's chronology claims first.....

I just ran that through BabelFish to translate into English... It came back as

"Buck Buck-kaw....."

[Lloyd]

* Do all the pro-Heinsohn members agree to debate and that Venn should be your main debater, assuming that Heinsohn or the others don't want to join the debate? And, if so, Venn, are you willing to take on that role?
* After I hear from you all, I'll be ready to be the main anti-Heinsohn debater, until a more knowledgeable member volunteers.

[venn]

* Venn seems to make a good case that Dwardu has misunderstood Heinsohn in at least one instance and maybe more than that, so I'm willing to consider that Heinsohn has not been refuted.

Thank you for acknowledging the effort.

* I have not accused Heinsohn of doctoring evidence. I merely stated Dwardu's and Ev's accusations. I concluded tentatively that Heinsohn was refuted by Ev's and Dwardu's statements. I figured that, if my conclusion were wrong, one or more of you Heinsohn supporters would correct me. And now it appears that Venn has begun to do that.

Let's just say that your way of presenting Cardona's and Cochrane's opinion read like presenting an undeniable fact. There was nothing tentatively or wanting to be corrected about it. This pattern repeated several times!

* I've only read parts of them, to try to find the most relevant parts, because it takes me too long to read long posts in their entirety.

I'm largely speechless. But this admission proves what I already suspected.

* The debate so far has not been very scientific. I asked for a scientific debate.

The method of 'discussion' you employed so far and admitted to above is based on throwing out a lot of dirt and see what sticks. If you meet resistance you suddenly did everything tentatively and wanted to be corrected. Sorry, but this sort of behavior can and will not be taken lightly by me. I can see nothing scientific in it. I think it is unacceptable. Furthermore: the rules of a “formal scientific debate” you are proposing do not fit an international forum. They seem to be made to restrict and control discussion and not to boost it. I think you can not put such restrictions on a forum without destroying it. I think they are counterproductive and also unusable. The path this discussion has taken so far and it's style is entirely your doing. If you can't handle a multi-threaded discussion where the arguments are not presented in order and/or not in nice little packets marked with PRO and CON, you should reconsider taking part in forum discussions. What you ask for is simply not realistic.

[venn]

* Do all the pro-Heinsohn members agree to debate and that Venn should be your main debater, assuming that Heinsohn or the others don't want to join the debate? And, if so, Venn, are you willing to take on that role?
* After I hear from you all, I'll be ready to be the main anti-Heinsohn debater, until a more knowledgeable member volunteers.

I think you find my answer on your proposal in my posting above.

[Lloyd]

Venn said: The method of 'discussion' you employed so far and admitted to above is based on throwing out a lot of dirt and see what sticks. If you meet resistance you suddenly did everything tentatively and wanted to be corrected.

* Now hold on there, Venn. I DID NOT THROW DIRT! I posted Ev's and Dwardu's criticisms of Heinsohn's methods. Since I had the impression that they are more careful researchers than is Heinsohn et al, I figured that their conclusions were correct. So I stated my conclusion that Heinsohn was refuted. When you later stated that Dwardu may have acted inappropriately in dismissing Heinsohn and that Heinsohn corrected his previous error, I took back my conclusion and stated that Heinsohn is not yet refuted.
* If English is your second language, you should be much more cautious in criticizing people in English. I did not suddenly pretend to do everything tentatively when I met resistance. I'm NOT a PUSHOVER. I was listening to reason. My conclusions are ALWAYS tentative, because new evidence can always throw new light on previous conclusions. So I do not suddenly pretend that a firm conclusion was just tentative. You're trying to portray me as shifty or something. I'm not that way at all and would appreciate you taking that accusation back.

Sorry, but this sort of behavior can and will not be taken lightly by me. I can see nothing scientific in it. I think it is unacceptable.

* Your inaccurate portrayals of my motives or methods will not be taken lightly by me. I was preparing to help your side have your say in a scientific manner. But I do not wish to be constantly criticized because of your and others' mistaken impressions about me, so I'm losing interest in this debate.

Furthermore: the rules of a “formal scientific debate” you are proposing do not fit an international forum. They seem to be made to restrict and control discussion and not to boost it. I think you can not put such restrictions on a forum without destroying it. I think they are counterproductive and also unusable. The path this discussion has taken so far and it's style is entirely your doing. If you can't handle a multi-threaded discussion where the arguments are not presented in order and/or not in nice little packets marked with PRO and CON, you should reconsider taking part in forum discussions. What you ask for is simply not realistic.

* My proposals seem entirely reasonable to me, esp. since I included the rule that the rules can be renegotiated at any time by anyone in the debate. I was merely offering what I thought were reasonable rules and waiting to hear from the rest of you as to whether you accept those rules, or if you propose changes to any of them or prefer entirely different ones. Since you aren't at all diplomatic or courteous, and since you don't seem to be able to handle some scientific discipline in a debate, I withdraw my offer to debate with you. So long.

[starbiter]

Nick said,
[...]
I showed how Ginenthal answered Cochrane's charges and showed how even his primary mainstream (Roux) source did not support his description of how to account for missing strata. Have you even read Venn's posts?


Lloyd said,
[...]
* I've only read parts of them, to try to find the most relevant parts, because it takes me too long to read long posts in their entirety.
Debate, isn't that what is going on, here on this thread? Can there be legitimate debate when one side persists in making ad hom accusations? Why would anyone want to debate with someone who they consider a fraud? (From what you described Cardona accused Heinsohn of deliberately manipulating his stratigraphy to support his case, that seems to constitute an accusation of fraud.)

Me again,
Hello Lloyd: Admitting you only read parts of posts if they are too long, speaks volumes. You have the gall to accuse Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky of poor scholarship and You don't read things that are too long. What if Dr. Velikovsky made such a statement?


Lloyd wrote:
* I have not accused Heinsohn of doctoring evidence. I merely stated Dwardu's and Ev's accusations. I concluded tentatively that Heinsohn was refuted by Ev's and Dwardu's statements. I figured that, if my conclusion were wrong, one or more of you Heinsohn supporters would correct me. And now it appears that Venn has begun to do that.

Me again, when You quote Dwardu and Ev as authorities accusing Ginenthal and Heinshon of fraud, You are accusing Ginenthal and Heinshon of fraud. You declared them the winner. Did You look at the sources Lloyd, or were they too long? Did You ask for examples of wrong behavior?

Lloyd said,
[...]
Experts vs. Amateurs
* Cardona is someone whom I consider to be a careful and knowledgeable researcher. He said he actually checked many of Heinsohn's references and found that Heinsohn often misquoted sources. He also stated that Heinsohn often leaves out strata in illustrations that were in the original and he never found an accurate stratigraphic illustration by Heinsohn. Ev Cochrane is also a careful researcher, I believe. I think he and Dwardu are experts, having read them for many years, since the 1980s. Heinsohn and Ginenthal seem to be amateurs who are not careful researchers. The people here who support them seem not to check Heinsohn's and Ginenthal's sources, the way Dwardu and Ev have done.
Velikovsky, an Amateur
* Dwardu said Velikovsky's book, Earth in Upheaval, was much better researched than Worlds in Collision. Ev said Velikovsky's book, Ages in Chaos, was very poorly researched. Heinsohn and others have taken some of Velikovsky's poorly researched ideas from WiC and AiC and apparently added many more erroneous ideas. Heinsohn's redating of Abraham would put Moses, King David and others well after 500 BC.
Conclusion
* Dwardu and Ev et al are not afraid to buck convention. They both accept the Saturn Theory, which is even more unconventional than Velikovsky was prepared to accept. Dwardu and Ev accept that ancient history from, I think, about 2,000 BC needs to be down-dated, somewhat, but not history more recent than that. My judgment remains that Dwardu and Ev are right, that Heinsohn et al are wrong in their redatings.
Lloyd

Posts: 1879
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:54 pm



Me again,
I encourage tough questions on issues. I'm trying to learn from this discussion. I've learned quite a bit already. If there are problems with Dr Velikovsky, Dr Heinshon, or Mr Ginenthal i want to know the specifics, not something vague. That way i can learn more.


michael steinbacher

[venn]

* If English is your second language, you should be much more cautious in criticizing people in English.

I think my command of the English language is good enough to be able to get the meaning of the words/sentences and understand this kind of discussions. starbiter (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... =60#p57380, http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... =90#p57560), nick c (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... =60#p57378, http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 444#p57444) and tholden (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... =90#p57458) seem to think on the same lines regarding your style and they are all native speakers. So I feel comfortable with my assessment.

[venn]

I think it is time to return to the topic at hand. I also think it makes sense to step back and look at the bigger picture for a moment.

The base for chronology criticism
(partially sourced and translated from texts by Gunnar Heinsohn)

The historic time frame we all learned about in school is humanity's toughest dogma. You can discuss almost anything in history controversially, but the placement of the events on the time scale is considered to be irrefutable. The chronology is sacred.

Every educated person understands himself as a connoisseur of chronology. The best minds are distinguished by the fact that they can recite the most important facts of history by heart – beginning from school time. Those who do not have the year numbers in their head, know renowned works of history where they quickly – they believe – can look them up reliably.

But nowhere in the world there are degree courses or at least professional institutes that deal with the basic assumptions and controversies from the time of the creation of today's scholarly chronology. Standard lectures on the history of the chronology of education are not offered. Even looks at some parts of the chronology by so-called auxiliary sciences are the rare exception. Central issues such as the discrepancy between the amount and length of the historical epochs in the textbooks and the number and thickness of the stages of history actually excavated in the ground are left without systematic treatment.

If everyone knows exactly about chronology, although no one can study it systematically, the doubter to the reliability of something that is known best by all will attract and provoke claims of charlatanry. He should be wondering himself if his results are any good, his work could only have happened on his own without support and without public scrutiny and criticism.

But what is the basis of the scholarly chronology? It is not part of the school canon of knowledge that the world chronology has been pieced together between the 10th and 17th century and was already more or less canonized by the Franco-Italian Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) in his works Opus de emendatione temporum (1583) and Thesaurus temporum (1606). During this time frame there was no verification of sources, no archeology, no international comparisons, and no scientific methods.

We are asked by today's scholars to assume that the chronology that was put together by those early chronology-tinkerers (by todays standards) was mostly correct from the beginning. Why should we believe them? Why did bright minds like Isaac Newton [Newton, I. (1728): The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, London] over a hundred years later still reject this combination of religious traditions and mystical number rhythms? Because it is for a bigger part simply pure fiction!

Conclusion: Chronology can't be an exception to scientific scrutiny as it is now because so much is based on it.

Sources:

Heinsohn Gunnar (2001): Karl der Einfältige (898/911-923) – Imitator oder Urmuster?; in Zeitensprünge 13 (4) 631-661; also available at http://www.fantomzeit.de/?p=13
- (2009): 300 Jahre mehr oder weniger: Ein Gedankenexperiment zum frühen Mittelalter; http://www.fantomzeit.de/?p=1809

[Lloyd]

* You folks can go on discussing without me. You misinterpret what I say and then criticize me entirely unfairly. It's totally ridiculous to expect members of the forum who post on a thread to read everything that everyone posts there. I'm not a member of the Thunderbolts team and I made no agreement to read what everyone says on any thread. I work most days of the week and have other things to do besides read every word of any thread.
* I was very open to hearing your explanations of why Dwardu and Ev were wrong about Heinsohn, but after hearing numerous insults by Venn and Michael S, I give up trying to communicate with you. I don't tolerate insults and won't speak to either of you henceforth, unless you apologize.

[tholden]

* You folks can go on discussing without me. You misinterpret what I say and then criticize me entirely unfairly.....

I've put a number of thoughts about Heinsohn's claims wrt hominids up on another thread here. There's no law to prevent you commenting...

[tholden]

Me again,
I encourage tough questions on issues. I'm trying to learn from this discussion. I've learned quite a bit already. If there are problems with Dr Velikovsky, Dr Heinshon, or Mr Ginenthal i want to know the specifics, not something vague. That way i can learn more.

michael steinbacher

An analogy might help here.....

Consider the difference between Harlan Sanders and Bill Gates.





Col. Sanders and KFC make no claims to expertise in any area on the face of the Earth other than fried chicken, which they claim to be the world's best at. That is at least possible, and they at least come close to it.

Bill Gates and MicroSoft on the other hand aspire to be the Chengis Xhan and Mongol empire of computer science, i.e. they want it all. There is of course no really legitimate way for anybody to dominate every possible area of computer science with superior products in every possible area and in many areas, they dominate with a combination of third-rate software and fascist marketing practices, for instance, telling software vendors that if they wrote software for OS2 they'd be out of the loop for 32-bit Windows development WHEN it arrived; the clear problem is that the next time the United States has to wait four years for Bill Gates to catch up, it might be Japan or India which catches up... A current exact analog of that situation exists in the question of CRM and SalesForce products versus MicvroSoft CRM; the one product actually achieves the very difficult task of true multi-tenancy and cloud business software functionality, the other talks the talk but cannot walk the walk.

Likewise there is no real way to be the worlds ultimate authority in every aspect of neo-catastrophism. In my view this is close to what you're looking at regarding the claims of anybody in the Thunderbolts crowd "debunking" Gunnar Heinsohn, Charles Ginenthal, and Emmet Sweeney in areas involving Chronology. Again in my view those three have put something like ten or twenty times the time, energy, and effort into the question of chronologies. The Thunderbolts crowd is preeminent in solar-system prehistory and the new cosmology, but that does not make them omniscient.

[starbiter]

* You folks can go on discussing without me. You misinterpret what I say and then criticize me entirely unfairly. It's totally ridiculous to expect members of the forum who post on a thread to read everything that everyone posts there. I'm not a member of the Thunderbolts team and I made no agreement to read what everyone says on any thread. I work most days of the week and have other things to do besides read every word of any thread.
* I was very open to hearing your explanations of why Dwardu and Ev were wrong about Heinsohn, but after hearing numerous insults by Venn and Michael S, I give up trying to communicate with you. I don't tolerate insults and won't speak to either of you henceforth, unless you apologize.

Hello Lloyd: IMHO, the people owed apologizes are Dr Velikovsky, Dr Heinsohn, and Charles Ginenthal. You seem to feel sorry for yourself after defaming innocent people. Please, look at yourself.

michael steinbacher

[nick c]

Lloyd,

You folks can go on discussing without me. You misinterpret what I say and then criticize me entirely unfairly. It's totally ridiculous to expect members of the forum who post on a thread to read everything that everyone posts there.

Well, I hope that you will stay on the thread. Bringing up the possibility of contradictions or anomalies within in any historical/chronological framework will stimulate healthy debate from which everyone can benefit. If Heinsohn's (or any other reconstruction) can be falsified, then the theory would need to be revised or discarded, in either event our understanding of the past would be advanced.
I still am interested in the Chaldean/Sumerian stratigraphy test. The Sumerians are conventionally assigned to the 3rd M BCE and the Chaldeans to the 1st M BCE. Heinsohn has made an impressive case that the Sumerians are nothing more than the Chaldeans misplaced in time by modern historians- who were working in a library at a desk. Since their respective empires occupied much the same region, it stands to reason that there should be some archaeological site where there is a lower level of Sumerian strata, and an upper layer of Chaldean strata, with in between layers that could account for the centuries that seperate the two empires. Heinsohn has made this outrageous equation (Sumerians=Chaldeans misplaced in time) almost 25 years ago, which it seems to me, can be easily falsified.

Nick

[tholden]

Lloyd,

You folks can go on discussing without me. You misinterpret what I say and then criticize me entirely unfairly. It's totally ridiculous to expect members of the forum who post on a thread to read everything that everyone posts there.

Well, I hope that you will stay on the thread. Bringing up the possibility of contradictions or anomalies within in any historical/chronological framework will stimulate healthy debate from which everyone can benefit. If Heinsohn's (or any other reconstruction) can be falsified, then the theory would need to be revised or discarded, in either event our understanding of the past would be advanced.
I still am interested in the Chaldean/Sumerian stratigraphy test. The Sumerians are conventionally assigned to the 3rd M BCE and the Chaldeans to the 1st M BCE. Heinsohn has made an impressive case that the Sumerians are nothing more than the Chaldeans misplaced in time by modern historians- who were working in a library at a desk. Since their respective empires occupied much the same region, it stands to reason that there should be some archaeological site where there is a lower level of Sumerian strata, and an upper layer of Chaldean strata, with in between layers that could account for the centuries that seperate the two empires. Heinsohn has made this outrageous equation (Sumerians=Chaldeans misplaced in time) almost 25 years ago, which it seems to me, can be easily falsified.

Nick

For anybody who might have missed it earlier I say again, attempts have been made to falsify Heinsohn by demonstrating layers which according to Heinsohn should not be there; it didn't work:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cPMPUU ... qa&f=false