
A Sunken Bridge the Size of a Continent - jmadsen
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-long/sunken-bridge-size-continent
======
205guy
I can't believe there is only one (other) top-level comment in this thread,
and it's basically anti-science. It doesn't matter what you "subscribe" to,
what matters are theories backed by scientifically collected data.

~~~
MichaelBurge
Is history generally considered a science? It would be weird to me for someone
to use the scientific method to show that even Abraham Lincoln existed.

That's not to say that history isn't a form of knowledge. There's more to
knowledge than science.

~~~
jschwartzi
That's because there's a wealth of documentary evidence showing the Lincoln
existed within the past 200 years.

Imagine if you were 10,000 years in the future. The United States has ceased
to exist, and many of our monuments are buried in mud and rubble. The paper
artifacts have mostly rotted away, or they lie buried in some preserving
medium. No first-hand accounts remain from the period. One day, a team
uncovers a partial statue of a seated man with a great beard. Was he a god, or
an emperor of the land? How could they prove either stance without applying
scientific techniques, gathering evidence from the remains of the surrounding
buildings and analyzing it?

Archeology may not be a hard science, but it is an empirical science.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I love archaeology. I love evolutionary science. I love anthropology.

I'm not replying to you directly here. I have a concern about this thread. I
felt this was the best place to put it.

Your use of the word "empirical" here may be accurate yet misleading.

Some sciences work with hard data, falsifiable hypothesis, repoducibility, and
so forth. In these we can construct mathematical models which eventually we
trust explicitly. (Note that in most cases these are not _explanatory_ models,
simply sufficient ones.)

Some sciences work with simple observation and correlation, with lots of
imaginative community input in place to suppose causation. We can use
mathematical models here as well, but there's a huge degree of noise here.

I have no problem with a forum participant coming up with their own
speculation. If folks don't like it they can ignore it. Perhaps one day
evidence turns up which validates that speculation.

We don't shut down those folks by calling them anti-science. Hell, give these
people a book contract. The more imaginative narratives you can create from
existing data, the more the scientific community at large will expand what
they consider to be the world of alternatives to consider.

What I'm seeing a lot of lately is taking anything with the label "science" on
it and telling laymen that they have no business bullshitting in this area.
This is not in the best interest of either science or the academy.

ADD: I've seen the flip side of this as well, where really good scientists
come up with the most wondrous and dramatic narratives about things where the
evidence is thin. That's cool, but many of these folks will use the term
"science" as a way of pumping up their speculative fiction. Stringing together
a series of what most experts believe is likely while adding your own color
commentary is not science. It's entertaining as hell and I love reading it.
But it ain't science.

~~~
splawn
"We don't shut down those folks by calling them anti-science. Hell, give these
people a book contract."

Don't you think there are already enough books out there based on pseudo-
science that confuse and take advantage of the general public?

"What I'm seeing a lot of lately is taking anything with the label "science"
on it and telling laymen that they have no business bullshitting in this
area."

What if they don't even realize that they are bullshitting in the first place?
The other day I was debating AGW (as I do) and my opponent, in response to my
constant citing of work and my constant demand that he do the same, actually
asked me why I didn't have any "facts from my head".

I do see your point, but when I see people unable to tell the difference
between empirical data and an opinion, I think it might give "magical
thinkers" or the "anti-science crowd" or whatever label they should have too
much credit.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
That topic is especially tough because of the highly-politicized nature of the
topic.

 _Don 't you think there are already enough books out there based on pseudo-
science that confuse and take advantage of the general public?_

No, I do not. Although I completely understand and agree with you that it
creates a very bad environment for reasoned discussion. We've reached the
point where anybody with any opinion at all can google around a bit and come
up with pieces of data and nit-picks which lets them construct their own
narrative -- regardless of whether it holds water or is self-consistent or
not. There are a lot of "Google geniuses" out there, sadly.

AGW is not just one debate, but several. That's because it's not an argument
around a closed system where one variable changes and we see clear causation.
It's a series of arguments about many changes, the results of those changes,
and the economic/future impact of those results over several decades.

Dude. That's a ton of stuff to try to pin down no matter who is in the debate.
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of complex systems involved. It's far too
easy to pick and choose which of these you'd like to argue. It's probably the
most complex (and whacked) public debate we have. I don't see physicists and
the general public arguing about WIMPs, but everybody feels that they can take
part equally in this discussion because some part of it may touch on their
experiences, expertise, or political opinion.

The only good news I have is that there are only a few topics like that.

~~~
splawn
Valid points. IMO, pushing critical thinking is the best way to combat those
issues. It wouldn't end silly ideological debates of course, but at least the
discussions would perhaps be a little less "mindless".

As far as my AGW debate anecdote, all I did was ask for his sources (he
claimed the planet had not warmed since 98...a position I didn't know anyone
actually took) and he never did come up with anything. (besides telling me to
"do my own research" on youtube...if that counts as a source, lol) I know that
the AGW debate has a ton of facets, but this guy was just some low hanging
fruit I guess. :)

~~~
tracker1
Things have fallen off a bit since the late 90's... not that I'm AGW, I would
posit that man may not be a huge influence and that it's likely not as big of
an emergency in general as overall pollution and even population control
probably are. Alarmist, reactionary legislation rarely does what it is
intended to do, and to be honest, I think it detracts from the issue overall.

I happen to feel it's been globally warming since the last ice age, and that
it seems to be a cyclical event, are we speeding up the next ice age, and what
will seeing another 3-4 degree rise in temperatures in the next dozen or more
decades change. And how much of that is actually of human/unnatural cause.

~~~
splawn
The opposition you are expressing is already way more rational than the Billy
Bob redneck youtube conspiracy expert I was debating on facebook. Which is to
be expected, because HN. You of course are correct about the cyclical event
stuff... however, there is a ton of evidence that the current rate of co2
output[1] and heating[2] is unprecedented in human existence[3]. All that I
ask from anyone on either side of this debate is that you check your sources
and make sure your info isn't coming from some partisan think tank.

[1][http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/](http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/)

[2][https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/august-
extends...](https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/august-extends-an-
exceptional-string-of-recordwarm-global-months)

[3][http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page...](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php)

------
dzdt
The map is interesting. I never knew the Aleutian Islands marked a former
continental coastline.

------
sandworm101
>This new picture raises a key question: did the first migrants to the
Americas really race over Beringia just as the great ice sheets were melting?

I'm not sure that I subscribe to land bridges as gateways for early humans to
move between continents, especially in the north. The Inuit/Eskimo peoples are
and were perfectly capable of moving and living on water, frozen water but
water nevertheless. Humans need not have waited to walk across dry land
bridges. They were perfectly capable of migrating along ice sheets, or even
setting out into open oceans. It would not have been much fun, but the journey
would have been made either deliberately or by accident.

~~~
derefr
The constraint being assumed here, I think, is that it would take a very long
time for regular people travelling at a regular pace, and not really knowing
where they're going (rather than, say, soldiers on a forced march to a known
destination) to cross the Bering strait. It would be longer than preserves
would last; it would be longer than bodily essential-nutrient stores would
last.

Humans need to eat plants. Even the sub-arctic tundra supplies plants to eat,
in the summer. But arctic tundra doesn't, and ice sheets _certainly_ don't.
Migrating from the arctic tundra in Sibera, across an ice sheet, and then back
across the arctic tundra of the Yukon, before finally reaching sub-arctic
tundra, would likely take years. It would destroy a person.

The advantage of a land bridge isn't that it's not water; it's that it's not
_ice_. It is—for at least some part of the year—arable.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Believe it or not, Eskimos on the ice eat seals.

