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Ythan
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


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The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
#5061117 - 12/14/05 06:47 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
Even though I expect they have perfectly ordinary origins, the article still tickles my imagination. It's like the Weekly World News only based on fact.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Ythan]
#5061125 - 12/14/05 06:59 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting... though in some cases a bit misleading. When I read something like "perfectly spherical" in a description, I tend to doubt the accuracy of such a claim. I have read too many reports by pseudo-scientists that make unfounded claims... "Well, it looked perfectly spherical to me. We didn't actually measure it."
One thing that many people forget... Humans haven't gotten smarter over the years, we just have the experience of our past to build upon. The Inca's that built wood and hemp bridges were no less intelligent than the modern day engineers that built the Golden Gate Bridge.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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kotik
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Ythan]
#5061147 - 12/14/05 07:10 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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sweet post
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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ZippoZ
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: kotik]
#5061178 - 12/14/05 07:22 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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that was very intresting i think that the piese that holds the most water if you will, are the brass tube thingies found in the coal.
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Seuss]
#5069873 - 12/16/05 02:31 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said:One thing that many people forget... Humans haven't gotten smarter over the years, we just have the experience of our past to build upon. The Inca's that built wood and hemp bridges were no less intelligent than the modern day engineers that built the Golden Gate Bridge.
I wouldn't agree with this. Humans have evolved to be more intelligent (of course we could evolve to be less intelligent) . The Inca were alive relatively recently and were not much less evolved than us, but they were slightly. Also I would argue "what you know" plays a factor in intelligence just as much as what you could "potentially learn". An einstien who was condemned to pick turnips his whole life would not be as intelligent as an einstien who trained his intellect.
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Anno
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: DieCommie]
#5069996 - 12/16/05 03:17 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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>Humans have evolved to be more intelligent
In the last 2000 years? I think the contrary is the case, look at all the posts at the Shroomery for proof
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: DieCommie]
#5070026 - 12/16/05 03:34 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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> Humans have evolved to be more intelligent
This is a common misconception. We have obtained a large body of knowledge, but the people have not gotten more intelligent... more educated, yes.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Seuss]
#5089688 - 12/21/05 12:10 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > Humans have evolved to be more intelligent
This is a common misconception. We have obtained a large body of knowledge, but the people have not gotten more intelligent... more educated, yes.
Humans have evolved to be more intelligent. Long ago, humans had smaller brains, and couldnt learn from a large body of knowledge if they tried. Changes in evolution dont occur in large instantaneous jumps. Evolution happens in every generation. Each new generation is slightly different than the last. On a further side note, it seems that we are at a turning point where being more intelligent/educated doesn't make you any better at procreation, so I wouldn't be surprised if humans stopped evolving more intelligence in future generations.
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dblaney
Human Being

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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: DieCommie]
#5090783 - 12/21/05 05:29 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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I would say that the collective human knowledge has grown tremendously and exponentially over time. In all likelihood, the relative ability of humans to use this knowledge has increased in proportion with the collective knowledge.
But that's irrelevent of the potential conclusions drawn from the article
1. Intelligent humans date back much, much further than we realize. 2. Other intelligent beings and civilizations existed on earth far beyond our recorded history. 3. Our dating methods are completely inaccurate, and that stone, coal and fossils form much more rapidly than we now estimate.
In regards to number 1, I think it's an interesting possibility, however I would think that if intelligent humans existed much farther back than currently known, there would be more evidence than a few random metal objects.
2. This is very similar to number one, however it leaves open more possibilities. And it makes you think. We are a rather temporally-centric culture, so it would not be inconceivable that some great civilization arose many eons ago on earth. HOWEVER, this would go very strongly against current theories of evolution. Perhaps though, these civilizations were not started here on this planet, but as seeds from another planet. I find this option less likely, but not impossible.
3. This seems to be the more likely of the three conclusions, although again, I would have thought there would be more evidence of such an inaccuracy, and if such an inaccuracy existed, then more anomolies would have popped up.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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tak
geo's henchman



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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: dblaney]
#5091221 - 12/21/05 07:32 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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I personally believe that human beings go back forever. I am sure we were 99.999999999% wiped off the earth many times, but all the same elements existed, and through massive amounts of time, the same things have developped again. but who knows. its all guessing, and lots of people dont like to believe it (i dunno why?) but it doesnt seem to unrealistic.
-------------------- The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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dblaney
Human Being

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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: tak]
#5091232 - 12/21/05 07:36 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hmm, that's an interesting thought. If humans and past civilizations have existed many times before, and been faced with almost complete annhilation, there wouldn't be much left of their culture, except perhaps things that can survive explosions and such, like very dense metal objects and similar things.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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ThePredator
Your a eunich ifyou don't useunix!

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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: tak]
#5091236 - 12/21/05 07:38 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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So we managed to evolve into what we are now in a mere couple billion years while the evolution rates show that it take drasticly longer?
Not only that but how were we able to withstand the ravages of an earth wihtout a magnetic feild? The lack of atmosphere would mean we would be constantly be bombardid by radiation form the sun. Not only that but how could life exist in the precambrian period when the earth was constantly being hit by astroids and their was no O2 in the air?
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HagbardCeline
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: ThePredator]
#5092336 - 12/22/05 12:44 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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The theory that Earth lost it's atmosphere from a pole shift has been disproven. The Earth retains enough residual field to protect us from radiation and having out atmosphere blown away.
It's just going to fry all of our satellites while we wait for it finally flip.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: DieCommie]
#5092811 - 12/22/05 06:05 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Humans have evolved to be more intelligent. Long ago, humans had smaller brain...
I was speaking of the time from the beginning of recorded history to present. Evolution is a theory, not fact. It is also impossible to know if humans that existed before recorded history were less intelligent or not.
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Madtowntripper
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Seuss]
#5093073 - 12/22/05 08:56 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Seuss! Evolution is a theory, but to say it like that makes it sound like a crackpot one.
Evolution, as a theory, is supported by nearly every biological and chemical observation we have made. There is virtually no argument among reputable scientists as to whether or not evolution is the mechanism by which life became spread throughout our planet.
Our understanding of electricity is theoretical well, but that doesnt stop the lights from going on every time you flip the switch.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5093152 - 12/22/05 09:25 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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> Seuss! Evolution is a theory, but to say it like that makes it sound like a crackpot one.
I didn't mean for it to sound crackpot... it is a theory that I suspect is true... but, a theory is not a fact. The original statement was using evolution as a fact to support a position. I was trying to point out the fallacy, not trying to challenge the validity of the theory itself. The joys of typing instead of speaking...
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kotik
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: Seuss]
#5099335 - 12/23/05 07:53 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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there hasn't been any study, anywhere that has proven a strong link between brain size and i.q. (to clarify, the only studies have shown a weak correlation between the size and i.q.)
and on the subject, i.q. is for the most part, bullshit anyways.
http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/DASL/Stories/BrainSizeandIntelligence.html http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct2000/970880334.Ns.r.html
Quote:
scientists decided that brain size was related to head size, but not to IQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence
Quote:
The brain is a metabolically expensive organ, and consumes about 25% of the body's metabolic energy. Because of this fact, although larger brains are associated with higher intelligence, smaller brains might be advantageous from an evolutionary point of view if they are equal in intelligence to larger brains.
http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/IQ_Brain_Size
Quote:
Brain measures are highly correlated with one another and with head circumference, but none is correlated with IQ.
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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HagbardCeline
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: kotik]
#5100503 - 12/24/05 01:24 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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There has been at least one.
Bigger brains pack more intellect
Washington: Well, whoever said, size did not matter, may now as well think twice before making such utterances, for a new study has revealed that it does matter, when it comes to the intellectual capacity of the human brain.
Researchers from McMaster University who conducted studies on human brains said that though people with bigger brains had better intellect, there were differences between men and women.
The study, led by neuroscientist Sandra Witelson, a professor in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and published in the current issues of the journal Brain, said that in women, verbal intelligence was clearly co-related with brain size, accounting for 36 percent of the verbal IQ score.
However, in men, this was true for right handers only, indicating that brain asymmetry was a factor in men.
The study involved testing of intelligence in 100 neurologically normal, terminally ill volunteers, who agreed that their brains be measured after death.
The findings revealed that spatial intelligence was also correlated with brain size in women, but less strongly. It said that in men, spatial ability was not related to overall brain size. These results, they said, suggested that women may use verbal strategies in spatial thinking, but in men, verbal and spatial thinking were more distinct.
Studies further revealed that brain size decreased with age in men over the age span of 25 to 80 years, but age hardly affected brain size in women. It was not known what protective factors, which could be genetic, hormonal or environmental, operated in women, they said.
They however said, it was still to be determined what nature's contribution was to this cerebral size relationship with intelligence.
?We're going to need to be careful if, in the future, we use MRI brain scans as a measure of ability in any selection process,? said Prof. Witelson.
http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=73127
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.ph...s-brainsize.xml
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kotik
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: HagbardCeline]
#5100852 - 12/24/05 05:41 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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cool articles... however, neither of them contain any other facts. it just mentions a test was done, and correlation was found. it doesnt say how much of a correlation, and it doesnt state the iq results or anything. The links i posted do have this information.
so far, I have never seen a convincing experiment documented either way... to prove or disprove.
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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Shroomism
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Re: The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts [Re: kotik]
#5101849 - 12/24/05 12:45 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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There have been many previous civilizations on Earth prior to this one in recorded history.
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