So what is the population of the Iroquois at contact, then? How was that number calculated? Or do you prettend that I must take the word of an author just because he/she give a number?
I’m out of this mess. The OP is threadshitting all over the place, despite Mod warnings.
Because I am familiar with critical thinking and rational analysis. And I observe that these dreaded “pseudoscientists” actually put some effort, skill, training, and sincerity into their work; whereas, your behaviour hasn’t evinced any of these qualities.
To demonstrate, I juxtapose my hypotheses with the data:
Hypothesis:
Data:
Data:
Hypothesis:
Data:
That is a beautiful example of the ad hominem fallacy. You can read about him here, along with a link to his c.v. If this man is a pseudoscientist, then he’s a good one: he has hoodwinked his colleagues throughout the Americas, in both English- and Spanish-speaking universities and professional societies. I suppose they just keep him around because he’s a fun drunk?
In any case, you’re moving the goalposts again. We were talking about Linda Newson, whom you seemed to like and who happily cites Cook as an authoritative source.
I am not interested in Cook, not more than in Van Sertima “They came before Columbus”, the theories of Van Danniken or Solutreans comming from the North Pole to the Americas. Thanks.
Nailed it in one. pinguin has come back but also hasn’t “closed this case” or even brought up another reference.
I’d ask you to pick my stocks, but this wasn’t much of a prediction.
I’m also out. If the OP ever shows any shred of evidence about a serious intent to engage in reasoned debate, I may change my mind.
This is the logical fallacy known as “Guilt by Association.”
Above you accuse people of scholasticism, which is anachronistic and sort of odd, but let me assure you that using logic is not mere scholasticism. We are not just using logical tricks to demonstrate a priori conclusions. If we poke holes in your logic, it is because your logic is unsound. If we ask for sources, it is because we are curious if there is anything besides utter stubborn, tenacious, pig-headed ignorance behind your statements.
You don’t understand the scientific method.
You don’t understand logic (as demonstrated by your repeated use of elementary fallacies to prove your points).
You don’t understand archaeology.
You don’t understand epidemic disease.
You don’t understand history (as demonstrated by your willingness to take Cabeza de Vaca at face value).
What you have is not knowledge. It is not science, it is not theory, it is nothing but a belief, and you’ll never find anyone here to share it.
False. I do undestand the scientific method:
- Define the question
- Gather information and resources (observe)
- Form hypothesis
- Perform experiment and collect data
- Analyze data
- Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
- Publish results
- Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
The problem here is that the data is invented :rolleyes:
Fellow, I understand a lot more logic than you do. I bet you only grasp propositional logic. I have formal studies in boolean logica, mathematical logic, predicate calculus, fuzzy logic and probabilistic logic.
Give me a break. I bet I know a lot more about archeology of the Americas than you do.
I do. I also understand human nature and why some scientistsmake up numbers.
And your conclusion on a paragraph? :smack: I repeat three times to you guys the way to read it, and you didn’t pay attention.
If you were in my class I would put not a B or C but a Z!
Baloney.
I have been here an order of magnitude more rational than all you guys.
I imagine it goes something like 'Excavate a few remains of villages. See how many longhouses are in a typical village. See how many people typically live in each longhouse based on physical evidence. Multiply that out by the number of villages we can find traces of or records for" You know - actual physical archaeology and some simple mathematics. Something like that.
Bravo, bravo, the Maestro enters the 3rd movement…
Where is the data on long houses found? Is there any database on the long houses found? I am not kidding. If I am going to accept a figure, I need the evidence.
(By the way, I doubt there is any longhouse found, given they were made of wood. At least in Chile, no remains of wooden structures exist that lasted 5 centuries!)
Golly, I thought you would have found all this out before rejecting the conclusions as number-crunching pseudoscience.
No, again. The data in not invented.
The data is subject to interpretation. You have a hypothesis you are stubbornly bending your interpretation to match.
That being said, however, more reputable scientists than yourself are perfectly capable of letting their own predudices influence how they interpret the data. The data is still there.
The data regarding the indigenous population of the Americas comes from:
- Eye witness written accounts of the very earliest explorers.
- Eye witness written accounts of later arrivals, such as clergy. These are often accounts of epidemics among the native peoples.
- Archaeological findings. The methods used to estimate the population of a dig site, such as a city, are used all over the world. It comes from recording the amount of trash in the middens, bodies in the graveyards, number of dwellings found, and so on.
- Post-colonisation and epidemic population counts by colonial leaders combined with death rates, working backward.
The resulting figures you rail against are admitted estimates. But to say we can’t know for sure, and then insist on your own figure is hypocritical.
I reject the figures based on Henige’s Numbers from Nowhere, and also in the calculations of Rosemblat, a famous Venezuelan schollar. You can find his figures here:
[[EDITED]]
POBLACION DE AMÉRICA HACIA 1492
Norteamérica, al Norte del Río Grande .................................. 1.000.000
Méjico, América Central y Antillas ......................................... 5.600.000
Méjico ............................................................................... 4.500.000
Haití y Santo Domingo (La Española) ....................................... 100.000
Cuba ..................................................................................... 80.000
Puerto Rico ............................................................................ 50.000
Jamaica ................................................................................. 40.000
Antillas Menores y Bahamas ............. ........................................30.000
América Central.................................. ....................................800.000
América del Sur ................................. ..................................6.785.000
Colombia .............................................................................. 850.000
Venezuela ............................................................................. 350.000
Guayanas .............................................................................. 100.000
Ecuador ................................................................................. 500.000
Perú ................................................................................... 2.000.000
Bolivia ................................................................................... 800.000
Paraguay ............................................................................... 280.000
Argentina .............................................................................. 300.000
Uruguay.....................................................................................5.000
Brasil. ................................................................................ 1.000.000
Chile .................................................................................... 600.000
Población total de América en 1492 ...................................... 13.385.000
[[EDITED]]
Two points here, pinguin: if you are going to quote from a work under copyright, keep your quote short and provide a link to the rest. And please post in English. We don’t have that many Spanish speakers here, so there’s not much point in posting in another language.
Rosemblat wrote in Spanish, he was Venezuelan. He is the guy that made the statistics for 1992 which I mentioned earlier in this thread. His work is public.
In archaeological journals and books.
Which academic journal sites do you belong to? JSTOR? Some other one?
Are you able to actually process the evidence? What, exactly, is your academic background in pre-Columbian Woodlands archaeology? Can you tell what the significance of a post-hole count is? Do you know why it matters if a sherd has horizontal markings only? Can you tell if a given site is Neutral or 5 Nations just by the layout?
Sweet holy fuck, you know absolutely nothing about archaeology at all, do you?:rolleyes:
Um, okay. I saw the whole thing before it got shortened. My Spanish isn’t that great, but I got that he (Rosemblat? Whoever had those numbers) rejected them as too high becaue he felt that all the reports by the Spanish were inflated to look good, as in they didn’t baptise or kill or see as many sacrificed as they claim because it looked better wth the adjusted numbers to their supporters back home.
Okay, I can accept that. Was there a part in his paper that mentioned why he felt that the exagerations were often 1000x or more the actual number? The parts you quoted all basically say, “I think they were lying to look good.”
Is there a part where he says why he feels the Spanish inflated the number by so much? Not just doubling it or tripling it but literally tacking on multiple zeros to the real count?
And this part? Is he really saying he thinks there were only about a million people living north of the Rio Grande?
That’s a population density of about 1 person for every 7.6 square miles. If you grouped them in villages of 100 people you’d get a grand total of four of them to fit along the Mississippi River.
You could literally conquer and occupy the entire state of Illinois and nobody would even notice.
I think pinguin’s ideas and his reasons for coming to them have been exposed as so inherently unsound that further debate serves no purpose. Unless he can substantially change his approach I see no reason to personally continue participating in this thread.
Debates aren’t settled by who has the most stamina, but by who has presented the best argument, I’ll leave it to all of the participants and observers of this thread to conclude which side had the best argument here.
I will also say that while I can’t know pinguin on a personal level I do not believe his approach is out of maliciousness or a desire to annoy us, but out of ignorance. I think he’s someone who knows just enough information about this subject to be dangerous, and has found a few scholars that whose works can be construed to agree with some personal opinions he has. He has latched on to that and is interested in soap boxing about it, but is not interested in even coming to a rudimentary Anthro 101 understanding of how scientists come to such conclusions so he remains wholly incapable of legitimately criticizing anything in this field.
You really think “they couldn’t find any longhouses - because they’re made of wood” is *just simple “ignorance”, in an archaeology-centric debate? That would indicate a complete inability to read up, say, any of the tens of thousands of wooden artifacts archaeologists have turned up over the years. A *complete *ignorance of the preservation of wood in e.g. soil or water. And a complete inability to look these things up before spouting off about them.
*Hell, tens of millions of artifacts, I bet, but then I am a High Counter.