The first Americans: how "clovis first" is a perfect example of the basic flaws inherent in science

Daniel

Daniel

Carpal tunnel level member
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This came up in another thread. I think it deserves its own. Science has several inherent problems.. when people say "I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE", it's quietly amusing to me, because most of them don't remember what "science" is, from the 6th grade. What they actually believe is what someone told them is the scientific consensus about things like the formation of the universe, evolution, human origins, human physiology, gravity, quantum physics, etc. What they actually believe in is often nothing more than a story, a narrative. And many times this narrative is the result of an elaborate and well-funded PR campaign, or even propaganda.

Narratives like the only way to stop the spread of this terrible pandemic is for everyone to take a vaxxine that science assures us is safe and effective after 2 months of testing. You better take it before you kill grandma. Of course... we had to skip the animal trials because we were working at the "speed of science." Please don't ask why no other mRNA technology has been able to pass the animal trials in the last 20 years. And of course the most ridiculous statement is Fauci saying "I AM the science."

Anyone who is paying attention and has the common sense of a 3rd grader can see that, in the plandemic, science was manipulated and falsified by big pharma and other institutions that made billions in profits by deliberately fabricating a story and calling it science. This is a perfect example of one of the many problems and limitations of science. That is: science is performed by deeply flawed human beings, who will deliberately falsify science to pursue profits and power.

Another clear example of the flaws and limitations of science resulting from human shortcomings is the "Clovis First" narrative that was held up as "science" for decades, well after enough evidence to the contrary had been documented that no rational human could deny it. Yet any young scientist who tried to say that "the emperor has no clothes" was putting their career at risk. Here, the human flaw is not so much abject greed, though the professors who held themselves to be the unquestionable experts in the field were certainly making bank from their prestigious positions as academic authorities at great universities. Here the human flaw is the inability to admit you got it wrong: that the entire story you built your career on was wrong the whole time.

NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THAT THEY WERE WRONG. NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THAT THEY WERE FOOLED. NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT, IN LIGHT OF NEW EVIDENCE, HOW STUPID THEY WERE.

We can call this human defect hubris. The thing I like about the example of hubris affecting science in the "Clovis First" narrative is that the average person doesn't have his or her ego at stake in the conversation. Most people don't really care how many thousands of years ago the first humans set foot in the Americas. So most can look at the facts objectively and see how the science was manipulated for decades. I offer this perspective as a means of showing how as humans, we are often so attached to our stories that we are willing to ignore and dismiss evidence to the contrary, no matter how significant. As arborists, we are subject to the same bias. This is the way I was taught by Marv in 1974, so it must be true.

50 years later and the industry is still attached to Shigos misguided teachings on target pruning. The three-cut method for limb removal still appears in educational materials; the notched must be 1/3 depth is still held as gospel by many, though few can provide a complete explanation. etc..

So let's get back to "Clovis first", again because few have any ego on the subject..

 
I guess as scientific knowledge improves, perhaps due to advancing technology, the better understanding superceding the previous lesser understanding - the previous lesser understanding can be considered a complete failure. Thus the quest for scientific knowledge is futile - because of the failure.

Gravity waves - pish posh. No one's ever seen or held a neutron.

There's a little cartoon devil dude with a pitch fork on my shoulder ...
 
Notice how 99.61 of the original science is still in place and used in these "new" discoveries.

The narrow view is archeology has been turned upside down but that really isn't the case at all.

This is how science works and it all fits into the scientific method.

It's not discrediting science even a little bit, but it does show a very gullible mindset.

...and it's of course going to lead up to Damiel's anti vax BS, once again.

787208353_4471313373197102_7533097454889418154_n.webp
 
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Daniel

Thread 'MISINFORMATION: Note Edit Kubrick Admits he faked the moon landing videos'

EDIT By Tom Dunlap

This is a thread that should be read From the end first. Scroll down to post #33...or...this:

here is a 1998 interview with Kubrick...
same time period as the op video

obviously these are not the same person.

So I apologize for falling for and spreading misinformation.

ps... the moon landing was still faked IMO.

for me this is a good lesson in discernment and reservation.






let the truth be known though the heavens may fall...
  • Haha

Lest we forget..
 
  • Haha
Reactions: ATH
Bart_ said:
I guess as scientific knowledge improves, perhaps due to advancing technology, the better understanding superceding the previous lesser understanding - the previous lesser understanding can be considered a complete failure. Thus the quest for scientific knowledge is futile - because of the failure.

Gravity waves - pish posh. No one's ever seen or held a neutron.

There's a little cartoon devil dude with a pitch fork on my shoulder ...
Click to expand...

Yeah, that Newton-level math got us to the moon, but if they had somehow done the impossible and traveled near the speed of light, quantum mechanics tells us things would have been different. Work or not, that Newton dude had it completely and utterly wrong. The highest form of failure.
:cool:
 
Daniel said:
This came up in another thread. I think it deserves its own. Science has several inherent problems.. when people say "I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE", it's quietly amusing to me, because most of them don't remember what "science" is, from the 6th grade. What they actually believe is what someone told them is the scientific consensus about things like the formation of the universe, evolution, human origins, human physiology, gravity, quantum physics, etc. What they actually believe in is often nothing more than a story, a narrative. And many times this narrative is the result of an elaborate and well-funded PR campaign, or even propaganda.

Narratives like the only way to stop the spread of this terrible pandemic is for everyone to take a vaxxine that science assures us is safe and effective after 2 months of testing. You better take it before you kill grandma. Of course... we had to skip the animal trials because we were working at the "speed of science." Please don't ask why no other mRNA technology has been able to pass the animal trials in the last 20 years. And of course the most ridiculous statement is Fauci saying "I AM the science."

Anyone who is paying attention and has the common sense of a 3rd grader can see that, in the plandemic, science was manipulated and falsified by big pharma and other institutions that made billions in profits by deliberately fabricating a story and calling it science. This is a perfect example of one of the many problems and limitations of science. That is: science is performed by deeply flawed human beings, who will deliberately falsify science to pursue profits and power.

Another clear example of the flaws and limitations of science resulting from human shortcomings is the "Clovis First" narrative that was held up as "science" for decades, well after enough evidence to the contrary had been documented that no rational human could deny it. Yet any young scientist who tried to say that "the emperor has no clothes" was putting their career at risk. Here, the human flaw is not so much abject greed, though the professors who held themselves to be the unquestionable experts in the field were certainly making bank from their prestigious positions as academic authorities at great universities. Here the human flaw is the inability to admit you got it wrong: that the entire story you built your career on was wrong the whole time.

NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THAT THEY WERE WRONG. NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THAT THEY WERE FOOLED. NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT, IN LIGHT OF NEW EVIDENCE, HOW STUPID THEY WERE.

We can call this human defect hubris. The thing I like about the example of hubris affecting science in the "Clovis First" narrative is that the average person doesn't have his or her ego at stake in the conversation. Most people don't really care how many thousands of years ago the first humans set foot in the Americas. So most can look at the facts objectively and see how the science was manipulated for decades. I offer this perspective as a means of showing how as humans, we are often so attached to our stories that we are willing to ignore and dismiss evidence to the contrary, no matter how significant. As arborists, we are subject to the same bias. This is the way I was taught by Marv in 1974, so it must be true.

50 years later and the industry is still attached to Shigos misguided teachings on target pruning. The three-cut method for limb removal still appears in educational materials; the notched must be 1/3 depth is still held as gospel by many, though few can provide a complete explanation. etc..

So let's get back to "Clovis first", again because few have any ego on the subject..

Click to expand...
While scientists as individuals are often stubborn, proud, and dogmatic, science as a collective process is utterly submissive to hard data.
When the evidence becomes overwhelming, the consensus moves. It doesn’t matter how powerful the tenured professors are, how much money is tied up in the old theory, or how beautiful the old narrative was.
 
Best I know it’s the high water marks from lake Missoula where the glacier impounded the water in a valley. There are 11 or more terraces on the valley walls, so as the glacier dam blocked the valley it broke, then re-impounded again and again.
 
Science fiction writers somewhat bridge the gap/relationship between science and technology. As a coolest/latest example look up the lithography machinery that fabs current generation silicon chips. If you proposed such tech to someone not all that many years ago they'd think you were on crack.

The mind expander is acknowledging some of these crazy technologies might be achieved, however unfathomable they are now. And tech and science kind of snowball into each other. My grandfather marvelled at remote controls and LCD digital watches. His mind got expanded with moonshot technology which to him probably seemed unreal like a Star Trek tv episode set. At the time there was some new tech but mostly heavily applied application engineering of then-current technologies, based on viewing it in hindsight.

I once read an original typed hand signed NASA report where the scientist reported that, in orbit when the astronaut was supposed to put on an EEG helmet for monitoring/experiment he started to and then went, to paraphrase, "eff this I'm not doing it". So no data. Priceless!
 
Best I know it’s the high water marks from lake Missoula where the glacier impounded the water in a valley. There are 11 or more terraces on the valley walls, so as the glacier dam blocked the valley it broke, then re-impounded again and again.
 
Mike Islander said:
While scientists as individuals are often stubborn, proud, and dogmatic, science as a collective process is utterly submissive to hard data.
When the evidence becomes overwhelming, the consensus moves. It doesn’t matter how powerful the tenured professors are, how much money is tied up in the old theory, or how beautiful the old narrative was.
Click to expand...
And yet here we are in 2026 and see that the three cut pruning method is still in the books, and Shigo's take on target pruning is still taken as gospel, and false narrative that reducing limbs should only be done to a lateral one third the diameter of the parent stem still remains a nearly universal belief among educated arborists.

And to the extent that the collective process moves towards a better understanding of truth, does not excuse or make irrelevant the human tendencies that subvert the scientific process' quest for knowledge and truth. Science and scientists do not deserve to held in the religious-like reverence that
 
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Whether or not the Clovis culture was first here in America, they were here when the mammoth roamed the plains. Kill sites have been discovered where mammoth were killed using the Clovis points and then butchered. From a Creationist standpoint, it has always amused me that the most difficult projectile points to manufacture are also some of the oldest (a contradiction to basic evolutionary theory). Most of the knappers I know who are able to reproduce a Clovis style projectile use a fluting jig to produce the long flutes on both side of the point. Without the jig, the likelihood of snapping the point increases tremendously. Although I have tried to recreate a Clovis style point, I have yet to succeed. Here is a Clovis clone that a friend from Texas made with a jig.
IMG_0716.webp
 
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