OCaptain Wrote:
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> You do realize that the explanations offered by
> Egyptologists regarding who built the GPs, and for
> what purposes they were built, are satisfactory
> for many people like myself who consider ourselves
> to be free thinkers?

This doesn't change the fact that these explanations only create mysteries. Why isn't the word "ramp" attested from the great pyramid building age if there is a mountain of evidence that these people spoke only gobbledty gook and lived and died on ramps?

The status quo is ALWAYS widely accepted. This is what makes it the status quo.

ANY crazy and inane idea can become status quo; even the idea that the king lived forever inside his pyramid was once the status quo according to Egyptologists. Now the status quo is that people once believed that the king lived forever in his pyramid.

> The evidence has been offered and deemed
> compelling for many (dare I say most) people.

Again, most people accept the status quo across the board just as surgeons in the 1860's all believed washing their hands before an operation was a waste of precious time.

If the status quo were ever right even once we'd still be living in caves.

> Are
> there unanswered questions? Yes. Are there holes
> in the explanations offered? Yes. But that doesn't
> mean we should throw out the baby with the
> bathwater. In the study of history, there will
> always be unanswered questions. You and I will
> likely agree on that statement.
>
> Now, here's the thing where you and I part ways: I
> see prudence in not deviating much from the
> evidence that exists.

It's not "evidence" that exists; it's interpretation. Of course this is always the case even where evidence, logic, and theory are closely entwined but in the case of the interpretation which holds that superstitious and changeless people of the 4th dynasty dragged tombs up ramps the evidence and logic are not consistent with the hypotheses. You can say it's good enough for you and that you are a free thinker and I won't dispute it but until you can show even basic evidence and logic for ramps and tombs and that superstition makes men, women, and children strong then all you have is an ephemeral interpretation and escheresque ramping systems. The interpretation is so ephemeral that when it's pointed out the workers village was too tiny to house the stone draggers they simply pronounced the village was actually a port and the workers lived on ramps. This isn't the nature of proper scientific theory. This is the nature of guesses. You can't change the past through interpretation. A proper theory answers questions and raises new ones rather than simply creating mysteries.

> If we let that inform us, we
> will make few mistakes. You seem to want to take
> those holes and unanswered questions as an excuse
> to just throw out what we've learned whole cloth.
> Your approach is more along the lines of story
> telling and myth-making, which is fine if that's
> your goal, but don't fool yourself into thinking
> that it's science, much less us (your readers and
> those with whom you share this message board.

Frankenstein's baby needs to be tossed out before the bathwater.