7 ms·

Criticism engulfs paper claiming an asteroid destroyed Biblical Sodom Gomorrah

40 points by shusaku 5y ago

shusaku 5y ago
See the discussion of the actual paper here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603118
INTPenis 5y ago
Ok but this paper was a work of many different researchers, on site and off site, over many years. And now someone on Twitter is claiming it's wrong and someone else is claiming some image in the paper has been doctored. Sorry but this reeks of attention seeking. I can't say what's what since I'm just a layman but until I see an argument that makes sense to me I'm on the side of the original authors.
- hef19898 5y ago
  I saw a documentary once covering a similar incident in Europe affecting the Celts. There was a period were high quality iron ore showed up for a while in weapons, settlements vanished and the term "heaven falls on our heads" came up first. Also some geological analysis done. The conclusion was a Tonguske style event.
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    It would be interesting to find out how many times over the millennia the Gods (aka random astronomical rocks) have bestowed superior weaponry to their chosen (also random) people. Even King Tut's dagger was likely from a meteorite.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_...
- native_samples 5y ago
  The link by KuiN seems conclusive. The image is indeed a Photoshopped version of an older image from 2014. The question is why, but the stated explanation in the thread seems probable - they found the photo and wished to present it as their own, but it had a label in that lower right corner that would give it away. So they photoshopped in some sand to cover up that they hadn't taken it on-site. All very disappointing but not really surprising. The quantity of Photoshops in scientific papers is baffling, and Nature has been publishing a long string of nonsensical papers in the past years.
mannykannot 5y ago
The attack on this paper is remarkably ad-hominem: in the PubPeer discussion [1], there are 21 tweets from Broslough, over a period of an hour and a half, before he admits that, at that point, he had not even read the paper! At this point, just two substantive issues have been raised (neither by Broslough): there seems to have been a mistake in the C14 date analysis, and some of the photographs appear to contain repetitive features. The former issue is plausibly a simple mistake, and I wonder if it would have any bearing on the question of whether there is evidence of an airburst here. The latter seems more serious, if it indicates that pictures have been doctored, but, as the person raising the issue says, this may be cleared up by examining the originals. While a religious agenda may well distort scholarship, it certainly does not have to. As the only (so far) comment on the Retraction Watch article says, "most of the challenges here are ad hominem against the authors – the same criticism we make about pseudo-science defenders." [1] https://pubpeer.com/publications/37B87CAC48DE4BC98AD40E00330143 https://pubpeer.com/publications/37B87CAC48DE4BC98AD40E00330...
- nemo 5y ago
  Broslough has many criticisms in his threads that go well beyond mere ad-hominems and I don't think there's a real ad hominem in anything he wrote. Pointing out that a researcher has no scientific training and is working out of a strip-mall university is not an ad hominem. Science is driven by expertise, and non-expert opinion is correctly regarded as less reliable than expert opinion - that isn't an ad hominem, it's the correct method for dealing with any domain requiring expertise. He didn't merely criticize their lack of credentials esp. the lack of geologists, but criticized how they practiced stratigraphy for collecting samples for the supposed shocked quartz, as well as going into a details thread showing why their claims of quartz shock were unrealistic, and pointing out that the presented evidence of the supposedly shocked quartz did not actually appear to show that at all. There's a whole lot of problems with that paper, the science isn't there, the people who wrote it largely had no relevant scientific training and made many blunders, the evidence presented is unreliable, the analysis is deeply flawed. A number of trained scientists have weighed in now with substantial critiques of virtually every part of the evidence presented: https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/petrabonegirl/status/1440833392006688768 https://twitter.com/petrabonegirl/status/1440833392006688768 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440416847841546247 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440416847841546247 https://twitter.com/MTB_Archaeology/status/1440473335687630865 https://twitter.com/MTB_Archaeology/status/14404733356876308... https://twitter.com/elleryfrahm/status/1440510054369677314 https://twitter.com/elleryfrahm/status/1440510054369677314 https://twitter.com/NErbSatullo/status/1440615036691501059 https://twitter.com/NErbSatullo/status/1440615036691501059 https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1440654636705140747 https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1440654636705140747
yread 5y ago
This article has mostly ad-hominems but this twitter thread has links to twitter threads (gotta love twitter) that actually have some factual criticisms, obvious photoshopped images (perhaps crops, but it still should be declared) https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440383400443977728 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440383400443977728 for example https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646
- KuiN 5y ago
  Best visualisation of the Photoshopping of some of the images used in the article: https://twitter.com/AsteroidDave/status/1443774300532600832 https://twitter.com/AsteroidDave/status/1443774300532600832 They appear to have taken images that had previously been published and for whatever reason, modified the sand around the remains.
aaron695 5y ago
People don't seem to even get Tall el-Hammam did not exist. Sure there might have been a goat camp back then. But not the majestic pictures and 8000+ person city. I guess when you are at the devil sent an asteroid (because they where different back in Noahs time) it's a pointless discussion. Believe in god and Jesus, or move on. Stop wasting both sides time by mixing the two. And learn from this story why science is broken. Even if you go to crazy land this stuff gets clicks. Not another everything is as we thought about history story. These authors will land out on top not the ones finding evidence of poor farmers farming.
pmdulaney 5y ago
For conservative Christians (at least for me -- I am one) the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah is for all intents and purposes non-falsifiable. Science already says that Jesus couldn't have raised Himself from the dead. If science keeps you from believing that Jesus rose from the dead, the rest of the Bible is just minor details.
mbfg 5y ago
This isn't all that remarkable. Let's assume a giant asteroid did destroy a city that could be corrolated with Sodom and Gomorrah. (I'm not saying we have reason to believe this, just let's assume it did). What would people do? Claim that that's how a god smote the evil in the city. Just another example in a long line of disasters/attestations to a god.

40 points by shusaku 5y ago

See the discussion of the actual paper here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28603118

INTPenis 5y ago

Ok but this paper was a work of many different researchers, on site and off site, over many years. And now someone on Twitter is claiming it's wrong and someone else is claiming some image in the paper has been doctored. Sorry but this reeks of attention seeking. I can't say what's what since I'm just a layman but until I see an argument that makes sense to me I'm on the side of the original authors.

hef19898 5y ago
I saw a documentary once covering a similar incident in Europe affecting the Celts. There was a period were high quality iron ore showed up for a while in weapons, settlements vanished and the term "heaven falls on our heads" came up first. Also some geological analysis done. The conclusion was a Tonguske style event.
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  It would be interesting to find out how many times over the millennia the Gods (aka random astronomical rocks) have bestowed superior weaponry to their chosen (also random) people. Even King Tut's dagger was likely from a meteorite.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_...
native_samples 5y ago
The link by KuiN seems conclusive. The image is indeed a Photoshopped version of an older image from 2014. The question is why, but the stated explanation in the thread seems probable - they found the photo and wished to present it as their own, but it had a label in that lower right corner that would give it away. So they photoshopped in some sand to cover up that they hadn't taken it on-site. All very disappointing but not really surprising. The quantity of Photoshops in scientific papers is baffling, and Nature has been publishing a long string of nonsensical papers in the past years.

mannykannot 5y ago

The attack on this paper is remarkably ad-hominem: in the PubPeer discussion [1], there are 21 tweets from Broslough, over a period of an hour and a half, before he admits that, at that point, he had not even read the paper! At this point, just two substantive issues have been raised (neither by Broslough): there seems to have been a mistake in the C14 date analysis, and some of the photographs appear to contain repetitive features. The former issue is plausibly a simple mistake, and I wonder if it would have any bearing on the question of whether there is evidence of an airburst here. The latter seems more serious, if it indicates that pictures have been doctored, but, as the person raising the issue says, this may be cleared up by examining the originals. While a religious agenda may well distort scholarship, it certainly does not have to. As the only (so far) comment on the Retraction Watch article says, "most of the challenges here are ad hominem against the authors – the same criticism we make about pseudo-science defenders." [1] https://pubpeer.com/publications/37B87CAC48DE4BC98AD40E00330143 https://pubpeer.com/publications/37B87CAC48DE4BC98AD40E00330...

nemo 5y ago
Broslough has many criticisms in his threads that go well beyond mere ad-hominems and I don't think there's a real ad hominem in anything he wrote. Pointing out that a researcher has no scientific training and is working out of a strip-mall university is not an ad hominem. Science is driven by expertise, and non-expert opinion is correctly regarded as less reliable than expert opinion - that isn't an ad hominem, it's the correct method for dealing with any domain requiring expertise. He didn't merely criticize their lack of credentials esp. the lack of geologists, but criticized how they practiced stratigraphy for collecting samples for the supposed shocked quartz, as well as going into a details thread showing why their claims of quartz shock were unrealistic, and pointing out that the presented evidence of the supposedly shocked quartz did not actually appear to show that at all. There's a whole lot of problems with that paper, the science isn't there, the people who wrote it largely had no relevant scientific training and made many blunders, the evidence presented is unreliable, the analysis is deeply flawed. A number of trained scientists have weighed in now with substantial critiques of virtually every part of the evidence presented: https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/petrabonegirl/status/1440833392006688768 https://twitter.com/petrabonegirl/status/1440833392006688768 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440416847841546247 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440416847841546247 https://twitter.com/MTB_Archaeology/status/1440473335687630865 https://twitter.com/MTB_Archaeology/status/14404733356876308... https://twitter.com/elleryfrahm/status/1440510054369677314 https://twitter.com/elleryfrahm/status/1440510054369677314 https://twitter.com/NErbSatullo/status/1440615036691501059 https://twitter.com/NErbSatullo/status/1440615036691501059 https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1440654636705140747 https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1440654636705140747

yread 5y ago

This article has mostly ad-hominems but this twitter thread has links to twitter threads (gotta love twitter) that actually have some factual criticisms, obvious photoshopped images (perhaps crops, but it still should be declared) https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440383400443977728 https://twitter.com/FlintDibble/status/1440383400443977728 for example https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646 https://twitter.com/ChrisStantis/status/1440404380386160646

KuiN 5y ago
Best visualisation of the Photoshopping of some of the images used in the article: https://twitter.com/AsteroidDave/status/1443774300532600832 https://twitter.com/AsteroidDave/status/1443774300532600832 They appear to have taken images that had previously been published and for whatever reason, modified the sand around the remains.

aaron695 5y ago

People don't seem to even get Tall el-Hammam did not exist. Sure there might have been a goat camp back then. But not the majestic pictures and 8000+ person city. I guess when you are at the devil sent an asteroid (because they where different back in Noahs time) it's a pointless discussion. Believe in god and Jesus, or move on. Stop wasting both sides time by mixing the two. And learn from this story why science is broken. Even if you go to crazy land this stuff gets clicks. Not another everything is as we thought about history story. These authors will land out on top not the ones finding evidence of poor farmers farming.

pmdulaney 5y ago

For conservative Christians (at least for me -- I am one) the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah is for all intents and purposes non-falsifiable. Science already says that Jesus couldn't have raised Himself from the dead. If science keeps you from believing that Jesus rose from the dead, the rest of the Bible is just minor details.

mbfg 5y ago

This isn't all that remarkable. Let's assume a giant asteroid did destroy a city that could be corrolated with Sodom and Gomorrah. (I'm not saying we have reason to believe this, just let's assume it did). What would people do? Claim that that's how a god smote the evil in the city. Just another example in a long line of disasters/attestations to a god.