
“Ancient Mayan city” discovered by teen may in fact be cannabis crop - markhellewell
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-36276864
======
nathancahill
You could literally throw a dart at a map of the Yucatan/Northern Central
America and it would land on an "Ancient Mayan city". I grew up there, and our
house was built on top of Maya ruins, we'd find hundreds of ruins in the
surrounding mountains. We used to dig up full ceramic bowls and a ton of
obsidian in the garden.

The hype around this kid is amazing.

~~~
Kukulkan
I'm Mexican and i can confirm this. The south is full of "undiscovered"
pyramids. There are in certain regions tons of fake mountains. And even in
mexico city you just need to digg a little bit in certain places to find
artifacts and art. There is just not enough funding in archeology, and once
"discovered" its expensive to take care of them. Which is a shame really
because there are tons of things we dont know about this civilizations.
Precolombian history is full of speculations.

~~~
abandonliberty
I thought the main expense was maintenance after unearthing, as deterioration
accelerates?

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readams
The claim that it's a cannabis field is at least as unsupportable as any other
claims. It's a throwaway comment in the article, and frankly considering the
remoteness of the location seems very unlikely.

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jonnathanson
Usually you find the cannabis _before_ you find the lost Mayan city. Kid's got
it all wrong.

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St-Clock
So we've been in Le Monde[1], now BBC and Hacker News. All of this because a
tabloid newspaper from Montreal thought it was better to gain exposure than to
protect and correct a young aspiring scientist. A local "mythbuster" [2]
already debunked the whole story, but alas, the trashy newspaper is still
pushing this fiasco from new angles every day.

I fear this whole story will be extremely bad for the kid and most news
outlets should blame the newspaper instead of focusing on the kid or the bad
science part.

[1] [http://mobile.lemonde.fr/big-
browser/article/2016/05/11/l-hi...](http://mobile.lemonde.fr/big-
browser/article/2016/05/11/l-histoire-aberrante-d-un-jeune-quebecois-qui-
avait-decouvert-une-cite-maya_4917667_4832693.html) [2]
[http://journalmetro.com/opinions/inspecteur-
viral/962214/ce-...](http://journalmetro.com/opinions/inspecteur-
viral/962214/ce-jeune-quebecois-a-decouvert-une-cite-maya-non-disent-les-
experts/)

------
spraak
> "The whole thing is a mess - a terrible example of junk science hitting the
> internet in free-fall," wrote Dr David Stuart

Wouldn't it actually be an _excellent_ example of 'junk science hitting the
internet in free-fall' ?

~~~
themartorana
"I'm in terrible pain."

~~~
cyphar
"This is an excellent example of excruciating pain". The "terrible" in
"terrible example of X" means that it's a bad example of X, not that it's a
good example of how X is bad.

~~~
Dylan16807
When we're talking about something a person did (promoting junk science, in
this case), it's easy to use the meaning of _setting_ a bad example. It's
usually clear from context whether the example is 'terrible to follow' or
'terrible at explicating'.

You might prefer a nonambiguous wording, but the current wording is valid, and
not a grammatical error.

For the pain example, think of "a terrible example of how to excruciatingly
injure yourself" as a phrase that's easier to use in either context.

~~~
spraak
Thanks for explaining. I hadn't meant to point it out in a sense of
grammatical correctness but it makes sense that way.

------
danso
Maybe the link should be changed to Gizmodo instead of "BBC Trending" (which
seems to be the linkbait division of BBC)...Gizmodo has much more detail and
original reporting, e.g. contacting the Canadian Space Agency for comment:

[http://gizmodo.com/experts-doubt-that-a-teen-found-a-lost-
ma...](http://gizmodo.com/experts-doubt-that-a-teen-found-a-lost-maya-
city-1775985640)

FWIW, the CSA doesn't seem to have much of an explanation...

> _We asked De Lisle to respond to the claims made by experts that this is
> “junk science,” and that the objects in the satellite photos are probably
> abandoned milpas. To which he responded: “The area of interest covers more
> than 78 square kilometers, and many linear features that appear manmade are
> visible from space.” Which is not much of an answer._

If the Maya ruins end up being nothing, I think this story is a great example
of how silly it is to think of science as one monolithic entity, where every
scientist automatically has a clue about fields far outside of their
expertise. The CSA were likely impressed with the kid's tracking of the
stars...there's no reason to think the CSA has any expertise in what an actual
Maya city looks like.

~~~
fleitz
Science is a method, I don't understand why 'science' is all lumped together
anymore than mechanics and carpenters being 'hammer users'

------
smegel
Before they get into a big flame-fest, maybe someone should go and, you know,
check it out.

~~~
Cthulhu_
One does not simply walk into the Mexican jungle.

~~~
TillE
It looks pretty remote even for sending in a light aircraft with a camera, so
I guess it's not too surprising that some possibly interesting feature hasn't
been quickly investigated.

------
partycoder
Clickbait 2, the revenge of the clickbait

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Overtonwindow
Whoops, well give the kid high marks for trying

~~~
spraak
__cough __high marks __cough __? :P

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hudell
I'm actually surprised that I saw the "it was false" news pretty much
everywhere, without even seeing the original news anywhere.

------
kangar00
It may be _anything_ , but I think it's a little strange how they shot this
down so fast without any evidence. Makes me wonder if this is a desperate
attempt to deter looters.

~~~
ceejayoz
Probably not.

[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32829/has-a-
fift...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32829/has-a-fifteen-year-
old-from-canada-discovered-a-hidden-mayan-city)

> Very few Maya constellations have been identified, and even in these cases
> we do not know how many and which stars exactly composed each constellation.
> It is thus impossible to check whether there is any correspondence between
> the stars and the location of Maya cities. In general, since we know of
> several environmental facts that influenced the location of Maya
> settlements, the idea correlating them with stars is utterly unlikely.

> In this case, the rectilinear nature of the feature and the secondary
> vegetation growing back within it are clear signs of a relic milpa. I’d
> guess its been fallow for 10-15 years. This is obvious to anyone that has
> spent any time at all in the Maya lowlands.

~~~
kangar00
I didn't know about the relic milpa idea. I guess if there were a lot of thick
solid fertilizer just in that rectangular area that wouldn't run off easily,
it could possibly do that.

I think someone should check it out to be sure.

------
iopuy
Off topic but what is the purpose of the photo of the young lady at the bottom
of the article? At first I thought it was the teen that made the discovery,
then I thought it might be the author (on mobile this information is not
easily visible), finally I concluded it has something to do with another
article and is spliced into the original in a very confusing manner.

~~~
danso
BBC Trending is a site for clickbait/hot-takes...a common feature of these
sites is to include the header of another story to entice you to make another
click. It's like the news sites that infinitely scroll from one article to the
next, except without the infinite scroll's auto load.

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jackgavigan
Cripes, people are such killjoys! The counter-claims pooh-poohing the lad's
"discovery" smack of schadenfreudensuchen. So what if there's a bit of media
hype? It's a nice feelgood story and the kid hasn't done anything wrong. In
fact, that's the sort of curiosity and inquisitiveness we should be fostering
in schoolkids.

~~~
ceejayoz
The kid should be applauded and encouraged in his interest in
science/discovery. The media outlets that apparently didn't do even a tiny bit
of checking with experts before running with it, though, have been
irresponsible, and that's what the experts are upset about.

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Pica_soO
Lets give this a little twist. Teen arrested for 'accidentally' finding
marijuana with google maps. Claims the stars guided him there.

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yolesaber
Obviously these so-called "scientists" are lizard-spawn who are covering their
cloacas that this youth was able to deduce the location of their eldritch
portals.

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mpitt
I'll just throw this in. John Oliver on science and bullshit.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw)

