XPost: sci.skeptic, alt.atheism, alt.conspiracy   
   XPost: alt.religion.christian   
   From: jtem01@gmail.com   
      
   The truth is, if there isn't an obvious commercial   
   or national security application, there is no such   
   thing as science. It's all politics...   
      
      
      
   Now there are thousands of men & women sporting every   
   conceivable academic credential & boasting of decades   
   of experience, all willing to stand in line to tell   
   me that I’m wrong, that I’m an idiot, that I don’t   
   know what I’m talking about. But the truth is that   
   Paleoanthropology is not a real science, and if you   
   have any idea what real science is you’re going to   
   agree with me.   
      
   Let me prove it to you.   
      
   To illustrate the biggest issue I’ll start with an   
   old joke which I will now repeat here quite poorly…   
      
   So it’s late at night and a man is walking down the   
   street when he comes across this gentleman under a   
   street lamp, on all fours & frantically searching   
   for something.   
      
   “What’s the problem?” the first man asks, more   
   curious than concerned.   
      
   “Well,” explains the second man,“ I was standing   
   over there,” he says while pointing to a dark corner   
   on the other side of the street, “when I dropped my   
   house key. I’m going to need it to get inside my   
   home.”   
      
   “But if you dropped it way over there, why are you   
   searching for it here?” the first man asked.   
      
   Gesturing towards the street light above, “The light   
   over here is better,” he explains.   
      
   Of course you can see the stupidity in searching for   
   something where the light is better, instead of   
   where you lost it. It doesn’t matter how good the   
   light is, or how much help you get, if something   
   isn’t there you’re never going to find it. You   
   understand this. This makes sense to you. This,   
   however, is diametrically opposed to the workings   
   of Paleoanthropology.   
      
   It’s all about the ice age.   
      
   For most of human evolution, and certainly this is   
   true for the last 3 million years or so, the ice   
   age was the engine of change. The glaciers rose,   
   sea levels dropped – opening up vast treks of new   
   land. But, not just land, these were highways for   
   our prehuman ancestors to travel, to spread out   
   of Africa, across to the Arabian peninsular and   
   beyond into Asia, Europe and even Australia.   
   Mainstream paleoanthropology accepts this,   
   preaches this even, and yet they throw it aside   
   and base all their conclusions on a model where   
   this doesn’t exist at all.   
      
   See, if the coast was the highway which spread   
   our pre modern ancestors across the world while   
   keeping us genetically linked (a single species),   
   then our ancestors were living on the coast. They   
   didn’t have dune buggies. They weren’t just   
   driving along the beach for some hours each day,   
   and then pulling off at a nearby Savanna to hunt   
   & gather. They were living off the ocean. They   
   were adapting to the aquatic environment. But,   
   regardless, these coastal populations, these   
   spreaders of humanity, this conduit of human DNA   
   is what made us human. As evolution produced new   
   genes in, say, Africa or even Asia, it was   
   through these coastal populations that they   
   arrived elsewhere, keeping us one.   
      
   Nobody cares about these populations.   
      
   Paleoanthropology doesn’t even acknowledge that they   
   would have to exist. It’s dependent upon them 100%,   
   sure. It requires there existence to get our   
   ancestors out of Africa in the first place, it even   
   posits numerous waves leaving Africa(*), but then   
   paleoanthropology immediately turns around and   
   pretends they don’t exist.   
      
   Nobody has ever even looked for them. Again, it’s   
   all about the ice age.   
      
   Now the ice age isn’t what most people think it is.   
   They think that an ice age is when Europe and north   
   America are under a sheet of ice, and when they are   
   not under a sheet of ice the ice age is over. WRONG!   
      
   An ice age isn’t one long stretch of frozen glaciers.   
   Nope. It’s actually a cycle. The glaciers grow,   
   spread and then retreat again as a warming period,   
   called an “interglacial period,” takes over. This   
   warming period comes to an end and the whole cycle   
   repeats itself… again & again. We are inside an   
   interglacial period now. That’s right, we are still   
   in an ice age. It hasn’t ended ended. What did end   
   was the last glacial period. There is another one   
   set to begin within the next few thousand years.   
      
   During the height of the ice age – glacial maximum   
   – the sea levels were much lower. Sea level was more   
   than 100 meters lower than it is today!  For   
   Americans:  We’re talking almost 400 feet!  That’s   
   how much sea level dropped. And what this means is   
   that the coastal routes traveled by our pre human   
   ancestors, the environments they lived in, adapted   
   to, the physical remains of those populations   
   responsible for making us human are presently below   
   some 100 meters or more of water.   
      
   Nobody is looking for them.   
      
   This brings me back to my joke, the one about the   
   man searching for his key NOT where he lost it,   
   but where the light is better. Paleoanthropologists   
   don’t look for our ancestors where they most likely   
   lived. They don’t look for our ancestors where their   
   very own models say they need to be.   
   Paleoanthropologists look for our ancestors where   
   it’s convenient for them to look, and they base all   
   of their decisions on those finds. This is a   
   selection bias. None of their conclusions meet   
   decent scientific standards, all are based on   
   cherry picked and likely unrepresentative data and   
   they all know it. And swear it isn’t true.   
      
      
   This was from a 2012 thread of mine, elsewhere on   
   the Interwebs (not usenet)   
      
      
      
      
      
      
   --   
   https://jtem.tumblr.com/tagged/The%20Book%20of%20JTEM/page/5   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)