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drrayeye Wrote:
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> I haven't read Sitchin nor many of the other New
> Age claims describing contacts with aliens from
> other parts of our Cosmos, but I have followed
> links from GHMB to various debunkers, and have
> read their analyses. For the most part, I haven't
> found most of them helpful--leaving me questioning
> the debunkers more than the ideas or authors they
> are trying to debunk. Almost all of the New Age
> claims are highly speculative and wish fulfilling.
> Do they need to be debunked?
> I don't think so. They need to be examined as
> "blue sky thinking" toward more interesting
> approaches to more accepted thinking in scholarly
> or professional publications.
If they contain, or consist of, false or hollow ideas, or are based on false or unreliable evidence, then the sooner they're debunked, the better, IMO.
> Instead, debunkers
> do their best to discredit both the ideas and the
> writers-which leads many of us to turn the tables
> and question them--debunking the debunkers.
> For me, the most unsatisfying professional
> debunker is Jason Colavito, who seems to be almost
> totally lacking in academic credentials yet poses
> as if he were nearly an authority in many areas.
> Reading him always makes me consider the target of
> his debunking to be more credible than I thought
> before.
Colavito doesn't necessarily get everything right all the time, and I don't necessarily agree with everything he states. But he has written some excellent analyses. Take, for example, this piece on Father Crespi and the caves in Ecuador - supposedly built by a lost race of giants - that were supposedly full of precious artefacts, including gold tablets written in an extraterrestrial language, supposedly from Egypt and/or Babylon, supposedly evidence that Egyptians and Babylonians were the first inhabitants of Ecuador. Von Daniken pretended he had visited the caves - but then confessed in 1974 that he hadn't.
How does Colavito's analysis make the Ecuadorian caves affair more, rather than less, credible? Why would it have been preferable to leave von Daniken's false representation unchallenged? Does EvD's fictional account of his viewing of Crespi's collection of artefacts - including the copper toilet bowl float - really constitute a "more interesting approach ... to more accepted thinking in scholarly or professional publications"?
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> I haven't read Sitchin nor many of the other New
> Age claims describing contacts with aliens from
> other parts of our Cosmos, but I have followed
> links from GHMB to various debunkers, and have
> read their analyses. For the most part, I haven't
> found most of them helpful--leaving me questioning
> the debunkers more than the ideas or authors they
> are trying to debunk. Almost all of the New Age
> claims are highly speculative and wish fulfilling.
> Do they need to be debunked?
> I don't think so. They need to be examined as
> "blue sky thinking" toward more interesting
> approaches to more accepted thinking in scholarly
> or professional publications.
If they contain, or consist of, false or hollow ideas, or are based on false or unreliable evidence, then the sooner they're debunked, the better, IMO.
> Instead, debunkers
> do their best to discredit both the ideas and the
> writers-which leads many of us to turn the tables
> and question them--debunking the debunkers.
> For me, the most unsatisfying professional
> debunker is Jason Colavito, who seems to be almost
> totally lacking in academic credentials yet poses
> as if he were nearly an authority in many areas.
> Reading him always makes me consider the target of
> his debunking to be more credible than I thought
> before.
Colavito doesn't necessarily get everything right all the time, and I don't necessarily agree with everything he states. But he has written some excellent analyses. Take, for example, this piece on Father Crespi and the caves in Ecuador - supposedly built by a lost race of giants - that were supposedly full of precious artefacts, including gold tablets written in an extraterrestrial language, supposedly from Egypt and/or Babylon, supposedly evidence that Egyptians and Babylonians were the first inhabitants of Ecuador. Von Daniken pretended he had visited the caves - but then confessed in 1974 that he hadn't.
How does Colavito's analysis make the Ecuadorian caves affair more, rather than less, credible? Why would it have been preferable to leave von Daniken's false representation unchallenged? Does EvD's fictional account of his viewing of Crespi's collection of artefacts - including the copper toilet bowl float - really constitute a "more interesting approach ... to more accepted thinking in scholarly or professional publications"?
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