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15-Year-Old Boy Discovers Long-Lost Ancient Mayan City Using Constellations And Google (nzherald.co.nz)
Master Moose quotes a report from NZ Herald: Deep within a dense Central American forest sit the ruins of an ancient city the world forgot. And it has just been discovered by a precocious 15-year-old boy. Quebec teenager William Gadoury claims he has discovered a long-lost ancient Mayan city using a clever combination of old-world astronomy and ultra-modern technology. [The inquisitive youngster, who has a deep fascination with ancient Maya, analyzed 22 Mayan constellations and realized that the Mayans aligned their 117 cities with the positions of the stars. Using satellite images from the Canadian Space Agency and Google Earth maps, William zeroed in on the precise location -- and a pyramid and about thirty ancient buildings were spotted, partially hidden, in the dense forest.] UPDATE: As the story continues to spread, so does the skepticism. David Stuart, anthropologist from The Mesoamerica Center-University of Texas at Austin, said via his Facebook page: "This current news story of an ancient Maya city being discovered is false..." Thomas Garrison, an anthropologist at USC Dornsife, told Gizmodo that the objects are relic corn fields.
Well, it is a theory, so now he his looking to go there in person.
No sig for now.
The news I heard was that he came up with a hypothesis, did a bit of work on his own and then asked for help to see if there were indications of a city at certain locations. There are some indications but they need to be researched further. He can't go exploring until summer break since he is 15 and has high school exams. With what is all too typical news reporting hyperbole, it is being blown way out of proportion. I don't even know if he can afford to go on that type of trip.
This story set off my bullshit detector within about 2 sentences.
Remember, it was a child who grasped plate tectonics when established science said no way never.
Remember, it was Alfred Wegener (born in 1880) who presented his theory about plate tectonics (in 1912) when established science said no way never.
where: 1912-1880 = child
You wouldn't believe how a teenager discovered a Mayan city using this one weird trick! Archaeologists hate him!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
And when he presented this theory and support, it had legitimate flaws that the science community rationally had concerns about. For some reason, that part of the narrative always seems to get dropped.
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Jo... I read his book by accident. Amazing book and a scientific theory that he worked years on
Has anyone checked to see if it's just some radio guts in a box or something?
On his mother's side, which makes him a MexiCan.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I feel live I've seen this somewhere before...
In 3010, the potatoes triumphed
FYI: here's one flaw: polflucht...
in this case test is actually checking the site. and that evident fails to confirm the theory. there is no city, just a fallow cornfield abandoned 10-15 years ago.
nor is there any other correlation between other mayan cities and visible stars, then or now, that is just modern pseudo science mystic nonsense.
a modern high resolution image of sky with lots of stars may fit a map of known mayan cities (or any random map of cities or parking lots/malls/anything) with stars but since there are lots of stars that is to be expected, and most stars in that image wont have corresponding cities and never will.
this is what so called modern "science' has become to sell tv shows and books.
and mass society at large takes it for real science and are ever ready to believe stories that fit fairy story patterns( this story fits right in; young boy, ancient legends and mysteries, confounded authority etc etc).
media is happy to oblige . (how many media outlets that ran this story today, will run a story that pointed out that "city" was a cornfield tomorrow? very few. and fewer people will choose to read it if it ran).
"science" now has become a popular mass belief with believers thinking it is the undeniable unchallengeable TRUTH (a concept that is alien to philosophy of science), with computer models and artists images taken for real instead of experiments and real world data, and consensus and voting has become proof of theories while scientific method is ignored
In general, since we know of several environmental facts that influenced the location of Maya settlements, the idea correlating them with stars is utterly unlikely.
I bet Ivan's original response was much more colorful.
Actually: they had no concerns.
They laughed at him!
It was Albert Einstein who stood up and said: "the theory is plausible, and unless disproven there is nothing to laugh about" ... my wording, don't have the original words at hand.
Most scientists are idiots, or "Fachidioten" ... which means "idiots of their special topic" and have hard problems to look over the fence.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Your perspective is way out of what to the point you seem to be presenting a comic book version of not based on reality. Wegener was in a long line of people proposing the idea of continental drift, but distinctively combined together several fossil and geological lines of evidence. He was the one that shifted the idea from, "Yeah, your crazy idea amounts to an interesting coincidence of continent shape" to a discussion of what unknown process could allow for it to work (a discussion that produced many not so great ideas at first). This was well timed considering it was a decade after radioactive decay raised a lot of problems for established theories that depending on things staying in place for a cooling earth over a couple million years. Large change from that point wasn't someone standing up with clout, but a massive amount of new lines of evidence in the 50s and 60s that established a mechanism. Nonetheless, within a couple years of Wegener's original publication, a flurry of work began on the idea of a solid crust over a liquid mantle.
You don't have big debates within a couple years and meetings to discuss something you laugh at without concern. Ego certainly was involved for many people, but attacking someone for not being a geologist also is not laughing without concern.
And the coordinates to this "city" are?
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
As evidence, he produced a calendar signed with a Mayan private key.
-Dave
This is cool, but could we wait for something verified like:
1. An expert actually visiting the rumored site?
2. Higher resolution pictures of the site from the ground or an airplane? Preferably in a wavelength that screens out the foliage?
2. A published (or even submitted) paper to a peer-reviewed journal?
I applaud the kid for his efforts, but you have to close the loop scientifically before declaring victory... even if you are 15.
Also, right now, there is nothing stopping some asshole with more resources from beating this kid to publication (unless there is a missing link to a report).
evident fails to confirm the theory. there is no city, just a fallow cornfield abandoned 10-15 years ago.
The "evident" is some professor who THINKS that is a fallow cornfield. Just as the kid THINKS there is a city there.
The only satellite image for counter proof (see end of article) looks nothing like the satellite image of the area the kid found.
If you look at the image of the area in question why does the vegetation look exactly the same age as the surrounding vegetation, simply sunken? Vegetation from a fallow cornfield just fifteen years ago would not appear the same from above as much older vegetation surrounding it, it would not look so even across the whole space.
The actual proof would be obtained by going to the area and exploring the ground on foot. At the very least the shape and apparent age makes it worth taking a look.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the story comments, looks like:
17.9447247 , -90.1666302
Enter into your favorite mapping system.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cities grow based on trade routes, natural resources, areas of strategic importance, defensible land, population growth and so on. While there might be the odd city arbitrarily placed for an administrative or religious purpose, most aren't.
Oh, pipe down, dumb-dumb.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
How did this get into slashdot? This National Enquirer level crap "science".
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I found that interesting, and read through more of his work. He was only wrong in polflucht, as the mechanism wasn't strong enough. However, he was right on almost every other aspect, and the science community railed against their boat being rocked by the truth. This happened to Einstein and every other scientist that makes a truly groundbreaking discovery that upends a lot of lifework, as only a few can write off their life's work as a mistake and move on.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
In the scientific vernacular, a "theory" is defined as a proven hypothesis.
He didn't find a city he found a corn field. Hardly boat rocking.
Today, many real scientists are saying that's not a lost city, it's a milapa, i.e. an abandoned corn field from 10-15 years ago. Of course, we can't know for sure until somebody actually goes there and investigates on the ground. I admire this kid, but his conjecture is probably incorrect.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They laughed at me when I said I wanted to make funny comments on Slashdot.
Well, nobody's laughing now!
Dark Reflection
*I lost my pyramids and have no backups*
The dog ate Myan homework?
Dark Reflection
It is my understanding that a "theory" is an explanation of observed behavior. A good theory will predict certain behavior that can be tested - i.e., a "falsifiable" hypothesis. If an experiment is carried out to test the hypothesis, it may result in a positive result that supports the hypothesis, and thus the theory. (Note - A single positive outcomes doesn't mean the hypothesis is proven - the experiment needs to be repeatable and each repetition needs to yield the same positive results. Also note that a successful experimental outcome doesn't "prove" the theory, it just shows that the theory has some explanatory power, which is the main function of a theory. The theory may have other consequences [falsifiable hypotheses] that may be found to be not true, showing that although the theory has some explanatory power, it is not the complete explanation.) The experiment may result in a negative outcome that disproves the hypothesis, and hence the theory as it is currently described. Sometimes the theory can be salvaged by adding the results of the experiment to the observed data used to develop the theory, then "refactoring" the theory to incorporate the new observations. If the new version of the theory can successfully explain the new data in a fundamental way (i.e., not just as an exception to a rule), then the new theory is probably a better explanation than the original theory.
Theories that have stood up to a lot of experimental testing are judged to be more likely and more complete explanations, while those that are relatively new and untested are considered suspect. Heuristics such as Occam's razor play a role in judging the quality of a theory as well; simple explanations are preferred over more complex explanations, all else being equal (ability to explain observed data, ability to generate falsifiable hypotheses).
A good theory will probably have generated many falsifiable hypotheses, all of which will have been experimentally validated (with repeatable experiments carried out by a number of people, not just one experiment by one person). At least, that is how I understand the interrelationship between theories and hypotheses.
He didn't find a city he found a corn field. Hardly boat rocking.
Alfred Wegener found a corn field? I'm interested, that wasn't in the stuff I read!
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yeah, Galileo is another one that people always get wrong. The pope was genuinely interested in Galileo's theories and entreated him to do a proper writeup that explains what his theory has over the earth-centric model, and what his proof was. Galileo then took this permission and used it to be an ass. That was what really got him in trouble. He had the character simplicio, the straw-man idiot speaking with the pope's words; effectively saying "lol pope didn't believe me the first time I presented my theory, not because my theories were incomplete, but because he's a friggin' dumbass."
To be fair, I am often told I am young despite being a bit older than he was.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?