Atlantis Found. Again.

Tufriast writes "Paul McCartney and Mythic eat your heart out! BBC News has an interesting revelation regarding the lost city of Atlantis: "American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus."" Hey, here's an idea: The idea of an almost mythical lost civilization is common thread throughout all old human societies - much like, say, really big Floods. Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

Comments

More than one story that fits?

[fracai]

OR perhaps all the stories originated from one actual occurance, but have become distorted through years of relay from one generation to the next.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[saider]

Until there is evidence against the existance of such a creature, you cannot say they do not (or did not) exist.

Go back several hundred years and tell them that there was ice on a moon of Jupiter. You would probably be laughed at, since everyone knew that anything in space was just a lump of rock.

Again, proving a negative is not possible without evidence. Scientists several hundred years ago would not laugh at ice on the distant moons. They would simply want to see what evidence you base your assumption on. If you had no evidence, then you very well might be laughed out of town ( or excommunicated from the church ). But if you offered some equations based on some experiments that you conducted, then others would likely take a good look at what you had and validate or disprove your hypothesis.

I get worried by people that ask me to prove something does not exist. That is not the scientific process. If you claim that something exists, then offer proof. Don't put an idea out there and say "Disprove this". This is often the basis for pseudoscience and is very dangerous because people not familiar with the scientific method (most people) will accept an unsupported hypothesis as fact because there is no "evidence" of the contrary.

As to your argument, I cannot prove it does not exist. But the burden is on you to prove, not for me to disprove. The reasons against fire breathing dragons are the lack of evidence. We have a very well preserved record of the middle ages, and surely something as spectacular as a fire breathing dragon would be preserved somewhere. Artifacts from trophy hunters, lairs, bones, remains, etc are all lacking. All we have are stories to go on. Stories often embellish the facts to make for a more interesting story. Eg. "Who cares about the guy who killed a 7 foot monitor lizard, _My Friend_ killed a 20 foot lizard who breathed fire and shot lightning from his eyes!". So while the story may be based on a real creature, one needs to be able to separate fact from fiction. The easiest, most consistent way to do this is to demand evidence for any claims.

Re:More than one story that fits?

[the_2nd_coming]

little political baggage? I guess you did not know that Christians were persecuted since the days of Nero because Nero blamed them for burning down part of Rome.

hardly what you claim little political baggage.

secondly, the Nicene council was not put together by Constantine and Rabbis weren't invited because by this time, the delineation between Christians and Jews had been set. there were bishops already, and it was the bishops that were at the meeting, no one else.

thirdly. the 4 gospels were in fact written down by their authors as the original manuscripts have been dated to the first century AD. their truth value is of course limited because they contradict each other, but they were written to set Jesus up as a descendant of David so as to legitimize him.

you do not have to make up a bunch of crap about why the bible is a bunch of crap, because for the most part, the new testament is made of original scripts dated from the time the acts were made. most of the stories are embellished to either make a political statement, or to set up the hero as someone special. the only thing we can take from the bible is that these people probably did exist, and that the apostles did a good job of selling the philosophy and legacy of Jesus.

its about the benjamins

[theMerovingian]

Perhaps there could be more then one story that fits? But, no, that wouldn't be a simplistic enough answer to be sound-bitten into oblivion.

If you're an archaeologist, it's alot easier to get funding for your excavation if you make it sound like your project has major ramifications to the history of humanity.

It's just good business to call it Atlantis.

Sonar isn't enough...

[Gadgetfreak]

I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but making claims about finding Atlantis based on preliminary sonar imagery might be jumping the gun a little bit. In a sea that's been heavily travelled since human kind first built boats, it could be a lot of different things. Even if it's a civilization, it could be one of many Mediterrannean settlements that nobody knew was missing.

My point is that until they come up with some underwater photos, artifacts, or both, it's a bit early to claim that they found something that might not have even existed in the first place.

Re:Plato made it up this parable.

[Ralph Wiggam]

Plato goes out of his way to say that the story NOT a parable and that Atlantis really existed.

The information he's relaying is third or fourth hand and has been translated at least once (possibly multiplying all the numbers by 10).

I keep an open mind about Atlantis because Troy was ficticious right up until someone found it.

-B