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> I'm always struck by how there's nothing new under the sun The fact that the 19th century featured provably wrong theories about where the native peoples cam

> I'm always struck by how there's nothing new under the sun The fact that the 19th century featured provably wrong theories about where the native peoples came from is not suggestive of anything. They thought there was an ether that light traveled through, too. Native peoples' myths are often "we were always here; we sprang from the earth." Well, we all came from Africa, ultimately.

maxbond 4y ago
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not making an argument (ie I'm not claiming this to prove anything), I'm remarking on a pattern that I see recur, and an example in this article that sparked my interest. Not every comment is an argument, and not every discussion needs to be a debate. I think it's interesting that conspiracy theory tropes seem to recur very reliably over time. I have an interest in this topic and when I'm reading about it, I find there's a lot of rhyming. Conspiracism and exploded scientific hypothesis are quite different in nature. They're "wrong" in quite different ways. I recently made a comment addressing this and it might interest you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 To your last point, origin myths are a claim about religious truth, not scientific truth. You can't meaningfully compare statements from different epistemologies like that.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  I take your point about origin myths and epistemology, but the original article makes repeated points about the First Peoples being left out of the debate. So how would they be left IN? Would the archeological community say to them, respectfully, "Our evidence is that First Peoples arrived from Siberia somewhere between 20,000 - 10,000 BCE. What do you think?" So what would their reaction be? Would it be: 1) We don't know; our myths don't go back that far; you tell US, or 2) You are a colonialist to even talk about this. ??
  - maxbond 4y ago
    I don't have all the answers, and I certainly can't react on behalf behalf of First Peoples (and even if that were my ethnicity, I could of course still only respond on my own behalf, as they are not a monolith), but I think the answer lies somewhere in the tension between archeologists & anthropologists taking native people seriously, native people becoming archaeologists & anthropologists & being respected as colleagues, and having the humility to accept that some peoples feel like we've lost their trust & aren't entitled to the pieces of the puzzle they may have (a legitimate and frankly understandable position).
    - Cupertino95014 4y ago
      > native people becoming archaeologists & anthropologists & being respected as colleagues Has that in fact happened? > we've lost their trust & aren't entitled to the pieces of the puzzle they may have That would be unfortunate, but if you're an anthropologist who'd like to solve the puzzle, what should you do?
      - maxbond 4y ago
        > Has that in fact happened? Certainly. I've heard of some native archaeologists, but I'll confess I'm not super up on the topic. > If you're an anthropologist who'd like to solve the puzzle, what should you do? Well, if you're an anthropologist, and some group of people makes it very clear they aren't a puzzle & won't be studied (say, the people of Sentinel Island) - go do something else maybe? Curiosity doesn't entitle you to answers, there's plenty of other stuff for an anthropologist to do. I feel like the first rule of anthropology is, "respect the culture you're studying and take it seriously," and if what they're telling you is "mind your business" - well, listen. Returning to Sentinel Island, we might not know why they don't want to talk to us, but they've made it abundantly clear that the lines of communication are closed. Surely we could spy on them from satellites, drop surveillance devices from helicopters, et cetera, and start to understand their culture that way. For that matter, we could create some sort of arrow-proof vehicle and overpower their efforts to repel us. But why should be? Just because we're curious about them? Why should we privilege our curiosity over their clear desire to be left alone?
ummonk 4y ago
I mean in many ways the aether theory was correct - it just turned out that the aether was a relativistic EM field.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  They thought it was a "substance" as I recall. I guess that term is broad enough to encompass a relativistic EM field.
  - ummonk 4y ago
    The conception of the aether was not some kind of substance of the kind that we get with physical solids, gases, and liquids, but more of a medium through which EM waves propagate. That's really what the EM field is. The big difference is that the EM field is Minkowskian whereas the aether was originally conceived of as Galilean (and the Galilean aether was decisively falsified by experiments).
    - Cupertino95014 4y ago
      I don't know what that means, but that's on me, not on you. If you want to explain it, feel free, but no obligation.
      - ummonk 4y ago
        Well so basically the original thinking was that if electromagnetic waves travelled through a medium, then they would have a constant speed relative to this medium. As such, an object moving relative to this medium would measure different speeds for waves in different directions. No such effect was found, despite doing such things as measuring when the Earth was going in a different direction around the Sun. These results decreased belief in an aether (though more complex experiments were needed to falsify the possibility that the Earth was dragging aether with it). Additionally, a series of length / time dilations were proposed for moving objects to explain the bizarre fact that the speed of the any light was measured the same regardless of the relative movement of the measuring observer. At this point Einstein stepped in and explained the theory of Special Relativity and how speeds don't add linearly and distances and times don't transform as one would naively expect under Galilean relativity. It was a really a generalization of the previously proposed Lorentz transformations that returned to the idea that all movement was relative. The spacetime that transforms in this way is called "Minkowskian". Eventually after this, Quantum Mechanics developed into Quantum Field Theory, which is inherently relativistic and embedded in Minkowskian spacetime. In this view, electromagnetic photons are just excitations of the quantum field. Things basically came full circle and the quantum field is essentially an aether as envisioned all along. The difference is that it is relativistic / Minkowskian, and as such doesn't have a particular reference frame in which it is "not moving". Note that even before the development fo QFT, this is what Einstein was saying: "More careful reflection teaches us however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether. We may assume the existence of an ether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i.e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. We shall see later that this point of view, the conceivability of which I shall at once endeavour to make more intelligible by a somewhat halting comparison, is justified by the results of the general theory of relativity." Einstein's whole letter is a great read: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether/ https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether/

maxbond 4y ago

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not making an argument (ie I'm not claiming this to prove anything), I'm remarking on a pattern that I see recur, and an example in this article that sparked my interest. Not every comment is an argument, and not every discussion needs to be a debate. I think it's interesting that conspiracy theory tropes seem to recur very reliably over time. I have an interest in this topic and when I'm reading about it, I find there's a lot of rhyming. Conspiracism and exploded scientific hypothesis are quite different in nature. They're "wrong" in quite different ways. I recently made a comment addressing this and it might interest you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34186172 To your last point, origin myths are a claim about religious truth, not scientific truth. You can't meaningfully compare statements from different epistemologies like that.

Cupertino95014 4y ago
I take your point about origin myths and epistemology, but the original article makes repeated points about the First Peoples being left out of the debate. So how would they be left IN? Would the archeological community say to them, respectfully, "Our evidence is that First Peoples arrived from Siberia somewhere between 20,000 - 10,000 BCE. What do you think?" So what would their reaction be? Would it be: 1) We don't know; our myths don't go back that far; you tell US, or 2) You are a colonialist to even talk about this. ??
- maxbond 4y ago
  I don't have all the answers, and I certainly can't react on behalf behalf of First Peoples (and even if that were my ethnicity, I could of course still only respond on my own behalf, as they are not a monolith), but I think the answer lies somewhere in the tension between archeologists & anthropologists taking native people seriously, native people becoming archaeologists & anthropologists & being respected as colleagues, and having the humility to accept that some peoples feel like we've lost their trust & aren't entitled to the pieces of the puzzle they may have (a legitimate and frankly understandable position).
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    > native people becoming archaeologists & anthropologists & being respected as colleagues Has that in fact happened? > we've lost their trust & aren't entitled to the pieces of the puzzle they may have That would be unfortunate, but if you're an anthropologist who'd like to solve the puzzle, what should you do?
    - maxbond 4y ago
      > Has that in fact happened? Certainly. I've heard of some native archaeologists, but I'll confess I'm not super up on the topic. > If you're an anthropologist who'd like to solve the puzzle, what should you do? Well, if you're an anthropologist, and some group of people makes it very clear they aren't a puzzle & won't be studied (say, the people of Sentinel Island) - go do something else maybe? Curiosity doesn't entitle you to answers, there's plenty of other stuff for an anthropologist to do. I feel like the first rule of anthropology is, "respect the culture you're studying and take it seriously," and if what they're telling you is "mind your business" - well, listen. Returning to Sentinel Island, we might not know why they don't want to talk to us, but they've made it abundantly clear that the lines of communication are closed. Surely we could spy on them from satellites, drop surveillance devices from helicopters, et cetera, and start to understand their culture that way. For that matter, we could create some sort of arrow-proof vehicle and overpower their efforts to repel us. But why should be? Just because we're curious about them? Why should we privilege our curiosity over their clear desire to be left alone?

ummonk 4y ago

I mean in many ways the aether theory was correct - it just turned out that the aether was a relativistic EM field.

Cupertino95014 4y ago
They thought it was a "substance" as I recall. I guess that term is broad enough to encompass a relativistic EM field.
- ummonk 4y ago
  The conception of the aether was not some kind of substance of the kind that we get with physical solids, gases, and liquids, but more of a medium through which EM waves propagate. That's really what the EM field is. The big difference is that the EM field is Minkowskian whereas the aether was originally conceived of as Galilean (and the Galilean aether was decisively falsified by experiments).
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    I don't know what that means, but that's on me, not on you. If you want to explain it, feel free, but no obligation.
    - ummonk 4y ago
      Well so basically the original thinking was that if electromagnetic waves travelled through a medium, then they would have a constant speed relative to this medium. As such, an object moving relative to this medium would measure different speeds for waves in different directions. No such effect was found, despite doing such things as measuring when the Earth was going in a different direction around the Sun. These results decreased belief in an aether (though more complex experiments were needed to falsify the possibility that the Earth was dragging aether with it). Additionally, a series of length / time dilations were proposed for moving objects to explain the bizarre fact that the speed of the any light was measured the same regardless of the relative movement of the measuring observer. At this point Einstein stepped in and explained the theory of Special Relativity and how speeds don't add linearly and distances and times don't transform as one would naively expect under Galilean relativity. It was a really a generalization of the previously proposed Lorentz transformations that returned to the idea that all movement was relative. The spacetime that transforms in this way is called "Minkowskian". Eventually after this, Quantum Mechanics developed into Quantum Field Theory, which is inherently relativistic and embedded in Minkowskian spacetime. In this view, electromagnetic photons are just excitations of the quantum field. Things basically came full circle and the quantum field is essentially an aether as envisioned all along. The difference is that it is relativistic / Minkowskian, and as such doesn't have a particular reference frame in which it is "not moving". Note that even before the development fo QFT, this is what Einstein was saying: "More careful reflection teaches us however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether. We may assume the existence of an ether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i.e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. We shall see later that this point of view, the conceivability of which I shall at once endeavour to make more intelligible by a somewhat halting comparison, is justified by the results of the general theory of relativity." Einstein's whole letter is a great read: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether/ https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Einstein_ether/