I used to enjoy learning new things by watching “educational” programs on the TV. Channel 13 was my all time favorite. With the advent of cable “pay TV” a lot more of this type of educational material became accessible. Many production companies became dedicated to producing real science and engineering learning programs. I was in intellectual heaven.
However, I have become quite peeved. The entertainment factor has overcome good science. The History Channel is the biggest sell out. Huge amounts of cable time are now filled with the bad science “proof” of monsters, ghosts, UFO’s, Outer Space Aliens, crop circles, paranormal activity, government secrets and cover ups, ad nauseam. Mostly because the sponsors/producers believe a portion of a clueless public wants to be entertained by believing they are being shut out from some “truth” concealed by high authority.
My current source of entertainment is mentally debunking every one of their so-called evidence and proofs. Especially eye witness reports, because humans are one of the very worse evidence sources. People will flat out lie while a truthful witness can only report on their version or vision of reality. For some humans dreams can seem to be reality. The human mind is a wondrous machine that will try to assign previous experience to a new experience in order to create understanding. The conclusion of this brain work can be totally erroneous to actual fact. It’s how magicians fool their human audience. Everything from completely natural phenomena to carefully planned hoaxes can do the same tricks to the human brain, and the victim will swear it was real because to them it was. That doesn’t make mere human experience an irrefutable fact of good science.
UFO by definition doesn’t mean outer space alien. It means unidentified flying object, period. So the popular TV story line is biased on identifying the unidentifiable from the premise that if it is unidentifiable, it must originate from beyond earth. The programs try to prove conclusions from lack of fact or an incomplete set of facts, the stock and trade of every good magician.
My second pet peeve for the ancient history bad science is that humans have only become intelligent and capable in the last few hundred years or so. No way 5,000 years ago could humans travel the entire earth; No way 5000 years ago could humans build the pyramids; No way 5,000 years ago had humans known about sailing kites, or how birds fly.
I believe the humans of 10,000 years ago were actually more intelligent than humans of today. I can’t prove it but can anyone disprove it. The question is defining intelligence. My premise is humans had to be more intelligent to survive in a time of survival of the fittest. It’s that natural intelligence that made us dominate on earth. Skills and methods of doing were developed then lost in a sea of time. We know from the scraps of surviving recorded history that as humans became civilized and complaisant about defense, they were overcome and destroyed by roving barbarians who would destroy any advanced knowledge they did not understand or feared.
Forget the supernatural bunk. The surviving evidence (facts) show that ancient humans have been able to do things (long lasting perfect masonry construction, worldwide navigation) we don’t even consider doing today. The tools and methods (knowledge) sprang from the minds of earthlings, not men from Mars.
Well, maybe not…
very interesting comment , one i wish i had thought of , and used …
“The programs try to prove conclusions from lack of fact or an incomplete set of facts”
it had to be a ghost because ….well what else could it be 😀
like “this color is blue …because its not red?? ” 🙂 🙂