
NASA Debunks 2012 Apocalypse With New FAQ - werencole
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nasa_debunks_2012_apocalypse_with_new_faq.php#.TwIkaAb1Rbk.hackernews
======
dinde
The people who believe in these types of predictions don't put much stock in
science anyway. Someone who doesn't believe in carbon dating isn't going to
listen to an argument regarding the Earth's age based on carbon dating.

If you really want to provide a counter in these types of discussions it is
more helpful to speak in their language. My favorite example of this was when
last year astronomers announced that the zodiac signs were incorrect due to a
shift in the planet's position relative to the sun since the time that the
zodiac was created. This produced more reverberations in the astrological
community than any number of studies showing the falsehood of their
predictions.

In this case, it may be helpful to point out that the December 21 is simply
the date at which the next cycle in the Mayan calendar begins, as occurs every
400 years or so, and that the Mayans themselves made no predictions about
cataclysmic events occurring on these dates.

------
tlb
_A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia,
anyway._

Not well supported. Magnetic reversals happen every few hundred thousand
years, so by that measure there's a 1% chance it will happen in the next few
thousand years. The mechanism is not well understood, it has been unusually
long since the last flip, and the poles have shown significant activity in the
last hundred years. It's hard to assign a probability less than 1%, and there
are plausible arguments for higher.

------
chmielewski
I'm not scared at all about the world ending 21DEC. What I am scared about is
what people will do that week, how crowded (or empty?) the stores and streets
will be that week and where I should (or should NOT) be parking my vehicle.

------
greenyoda
Why should the U.S. taxpayers be funding NASA to debunk silly myths? How does
this relate to NASA's mission of running the space program and doing aerospace
research?

~~~
wkdown
It's an FAQ page that took maybe an hour for one person to write. Want me to
write you a check for $0.000000001?

------
wkdown
Link to the source

<http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html>

------
ypcx
Well, I'm no doom believer myself, but for the sake of completeness, here is
something interesting:

<http://farsight.org/demo/Demo2008/RV_Demo_2008_Page1.html>

Mind you, these _remote viewers_ are said to be used by military, so probably
not a complete hoax.

Anyway, if time travel is possible then the future is changeable. Let's be
optimists.

