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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.
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.
On his mother's side, which makes him a MexiCan.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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
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
I can just imagine the Mayan authorities talking with a group of peasants:
Authorities: Hey! You! Why are have you been building this town here? ... why exactly are we doing this, again?
Peasants: Our population grew, we needed to. Many people were working too far away from the old town.
Authorities: No no no, this is all wrong. There's no major stars in our constellation at this location.
Peasants: But our fields are here. It's good soil, there's water...
Authorities: Look, there's a bright star that maps to a position eight kilometers to the east. Go build there.
Peasants: You mean, on that barren lava plane on a 45 degree slope?
Authorities: Yes, that's the place!
Peasants:
Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
They laughed at me when I said I wanted to make funny comments on Slashdot.
Well, nobody's laughing now!
Dark Reflection
And they said no true Scotsman would come up with a theory like that.
Dark Reflection