(meteorobs) "Ancient record of asteroid impact"

Wed Apr 2 13:24:26 EDT 2008

Hello Steven,

Thanks for the interesting post.  I see you may be skeptical.  IMO this 
is one of those things that would make a good movie like the Nicholas 
Cage, US Declaration of Independence, Treasures of Ancient Egypt, and 
of course his role's relationship with the Knights Templar.

If we pull out our Baloney Detection Kit (received from the 
self-professed non-authority elders), this theory seems deficient in 
the following areas.

1. There is confusion of correlation with causation.
2. It is post hoc.
3. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
4. How much is an argument from "authority"?
5. Can there be independent confirmation of the "facts."?
6. If there's a chain of argument, every individual link in the chain 
must work (especially the premise).
7. Occam's Razor - Have they accounted for alternate hypotheses?
8. Can their hypothesis be disproven (the part about the intentions of 
the scribe)?

Still - it is interesting baloney,

Best wishes
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Kolins <smkolins at mac.com>
To: Global Meteor Observing Forum <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 5:16 am
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) "Ancient record of asteroid impact"

On Apr 2, 2008, at 6:40 AM, Marco Langbroek wrote:

> I think this was an early April Fools joke to expose how gullible
> people have
> become when it comes to "evidence" for a (pre-) historic impact.

Except it wasn't released April 1st despite my email.

Most of the news stories play up other angles on the story (the ref I
posted speaks of the fiery path being hot enough to anything
underneath it to be set on fire, the others wonder if this is what
brought down Sodom and Gomorra)

This seems to be the origin of the news stories - a book's been
published.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/aerospace/research/dynamicsandsystems/kofels/kofelsimpactbook.html

Also mentioned and reviewed here - http://skippytheskeptic.blogspot.com/

Here's a August 2003 article about the Köfels slide 
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V93-4846K9T-2
&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_ver
sion=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3e21b2ca0346059315bb421eedb8cf32

 >

Finding fused rock at the Köfels slide 
<http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1964MinPe...9...86M

 >

I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying it's interesting. It's not an
April fools joke. I can understand why that was said but it's not.

Interestingly the same clay tablet was earlier referenced in another
book with more extreme, even mythological, claims....

<http://books.google.com/books?id=ioXXW15VWGgC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=Brit
ish+Museum+collection+No.+K8538&source=web&ots=EOIA-TpH5_&sig=8cetRRnh-oR
DcguZFvRovST1FOs&hl=en

 >

Apparently the object is hard to decipher and it's got to be explained
away one way or the other.

=    -   -  - - -  -   -    =
Steven Kolins
mailto:smkolins at mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/smkolins/
http://smk99.blogspot.com/
Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart!
They that believe in vain thoughts forsake their own mercy.

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