More Evidence For a Clovis-Killer Comet

fortapocalypse sends word that a new paper was published today in the journal Science on the hypothesis that a comet impact wiped out the Clovis people 12,900 years ago. (We discussed this hypothesis last year when it was put forth.) The new evidence is a layer of nanodiamonds at locations all across North America, at a depth corresponding to 12,900 years ago, none earlier or later. The researchers hypothesize that the comet that initiated the Younger Dryas, reversing the warming from the previous ice age, fragmented and exploded in a continent-wide conflagration that produced a layer of diamond from carbon on the surface. While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."

Comments

Re:12,900 years ago?

[ultranova]

Similarly, not tolerating bad ideas will eventually lead to a fight

You mean, like slavery? One group decides to continue to tolerate it, and another group decides not to. A big bloody fight ensues. One side wins. The intolerable idea becomes insignificantly present in the resulting, altered culture. Or are you suggesting that we should tolerate it, because it's gosh darn socially awkward to tell someone that they're wrong?

I mean exactly what I said: not tolerating bad ideas will eventually lead to a fight. Thank you for showing a good example of that.

Yeah, except for the part where there are some people who consider the very act of you living the way you want to, peacefully, with things like daughters who are allowed to read and write, and marry who they choose... to be sufficient grounds to kill you. And your family.

The issue under consideration was about whether we should tolerate bad ideas. I don't think anyone's argued that you should tolerate people trying to kill you. And I don't think that Young Earth Creationists in particular have threatened to kill anyone.

Can you really find moral comfort in that scenario by just physically removing yourself far enough away from the person who considers the nature of your day to day life to be an abomination requiring your death?

Dunno about moral comfort, but getting the hell away from people trying to kill me has worked just fine for me this far.

Does your eager embrace of tolerance for every point of view include tolerating someone who doesn't tolerate you, and feels a religious duty to erase you from the planet?

If you're in a position to bring social pressure against someone, the chances are that you are not fighting for your life.

Or simply demonstrating in very plain, obvious ways that it's wrong.

Go right ahead and do so. However, the grandparent talked about bringing "Cultural pressure" against such ideas to suppress them. That kinda implies more than merely demonstrating that the idea is wrong.

Or that embracing and pushing an incorrect world view or bad piece of information has consequences.

Actually, believing that the world is 6000 years old is unlikely to have any consequences. It's just weird, that's all. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that any believe that's actually likely to matter is also likely to be in line with reality, due to natural selection.

Are you really equating a solid science curriculum that actively looks to shut down absurd superstitions in its students with Stalinism?

No, I'm saying that "using social pressure to suppress memes" sounds suspiciously like Stalinism. I'm also saying that such a program will fail unless it's implementers are willing to go to the extent Stalin went. People are not going to let go of something they consider holy truth unless faced with death, and many not even then. Consequently, any such program short of Stalinism will fail to do anything except make a lot of people miserable, while any program that reaches the depths of Stalinism is undesirable for obvious reasons.

Go right along and show evidence that the world is older than 6000 years; simply understand that you won't convince everyone, and accept that. You won't gain anything with "social pressure", and there's always the temptation to go just a bit further, and that's a slippery slope which will indeed end up with Stalinism. That's human nature for you.

Man, it must be exhausting to work so hard at moral relativism.

Actually, I'm a moral absolutist. For example, I believe that it is always wrong to try to force - no matter how subtly, for example with "social pressure" -

Re:12,900 years ago?

[E 99]

3) Your comment implies that there is no merit to demonstrating intolerance to bad ideas. That's a very popular conception, and I think that, as a liberal policy, it's been utterly disastrous. Now, clearly, it can be effective in a discussion or argument to assume that the other person is capable of meaningfully participating in that discussion or argument, but that's not the same as tolerating bad ideas. Cultural pressure is one of the great factors in meme progression and suppression, and it needs to be used.

When you don't believe in apodictic truth, it's easy to have reservations about sharing your ideas, because they aren't so much correct as "merely" good. Secularists need to sack up and realize that good is good enough to be loud. Timidity is not a good policy.

Intolerance of ideas is intolerance of reason. It foments the very thing you are trying to oppose. Truth has a power that transcends volume. Loudness is the tool of the thoughtless. I never have, and never will, listen to the ideas of those trying to shout down and silence others. Unless the idea can stand on its own against all opposition, it is useless.