But they abandoned it when better explanations came along. That’s the whole difference.
ETA: these theories at least made sense in a way at the time and had a basis which was not made out of whole cloth.
Some still have not abandoned the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis.
And thinking there may be a afterlife of some sort, or perhaps a supreme being of some sort? (ie Deism) that’s not so very crazy.
So they must further weigh the evidence and adjust their findings. I don’t know much about Pleistocene overkill, so I’m impartial, but I’m confident that biologists, geologists and other specialists will come up with better explanations in the future based on more data
How do you know?
Utter bullshit.
As has been pointed out to you by myself and Colibri in numerous other threads, there is a massive amount of evidence for the overkill hypothesis.
Why do you bother to repeat this nonsense when anybody who wants to do search on your name an “overkill” will see you getting your arse handed to you time and again?
That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read on this board. The search for truth based on evidence – and only on evidence – is the very definition of science.
Your examples are flawed, to put it mildly. Phlogiston dates back to an era of pseudo-science, where evidence-based science and the modern scientific method that we know today were non-existent and there was no practical distinction from mysticism. The aether was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis at the time, given the understanding of the time. As evidence-based science progressed, the hypothesis was shown to be wrong and was eventually replaced by principles from quantum physics. As for your Pleistocene overkill example, it’s one of at least half a dozen hypotheses for the Pleistocene extinction event – an event for which there is evidence, and for which we therefore develop explanatory hypotheses that are tested against the evidence.
You appear to be trying to make the case that science and religion are equivalently valid. This is absurd, and suggests that you don’t appear to understand what the word “evidence” means, or the difference between evidence and faith.
The word “crazy” is a loaded pejorative, yet if it’s taken to mean irrational belief in imaginary things for which there is no evidence, it fits. Religion demands faith, not evidence. Many people reconcile religion with science by adopting a more abstract kind of spiritualism. But to believe in a literal supreme being is a lot like having an imaginary friend or believing in the classical gods of sky, sea, hell, and thunder, and to believe that you constantly have to appease them or they would get really angry and maybe smite you.
I remember that one objection was that the Mega fauna of Africa did not disappear, but then one should remember what happened in many islands during the era of discovery, many animals never had encountered humans and had not learned about why they should avoid Humans, and so many animals in the Americas did go the way of the Dodo.
Many experts did find evidence that Humans did hunt the mega fauna and it is likely that with a combination of changes in the climate and overkill by the humans that the mega fauna was no more.
[QUOTE] Royal Tyrrell Museum Speaker Series 2012 Gary Haynes, University of Nevada, NV [/QUOTE]Nope. Oh yes, there’s still lost of argument whether it humans (but not necessarily by hunting) or climate change or something else, but Martins actual overkill hypothesis has been completely and totally discredited.
Abstract
The argument that human hunters were responsible for the extinction of a wide variety of large Pleistocene mammals emerged in western Europe during the 1860s, alongside the recognition that people had coexisted with those mammals. Today, the overkill position is rejected for western Europe but lives on in Australia and North America. The survival of this hypothesis is due almost entirely to Paul Martin, the architect of the first detailed version of it. In North America, archaeologists and paleontologists whose work focuses on the late Pleistocene routinely reject Martin’s position for two prime reasons: there is virtually no evidence that supports it, and there is a remarkably broad set of evidence that strongly suggests that it is wrong. In response, Martin asserts that the overkill model predicts a lack of supporting evidence, thus turning the absence of empirical support into support for his beliefs. We suggest that this feature of the overkill position removes the hypothesis from the realm of science and places it squarely in the realm of faith. One may or may not believe in the overkill position, but one should not confuse it with a scientific hypothesis about the nature of the North American past.
Note that last line-one should not confuse it with a scientific hypothesis about the nature of the North American past. It was a shit piece of bad science.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/11/4105.short
*The protracted Holocene extinction of California’s flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) and its implications for the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis
T. L. Jones * , † , J. F. Porcasi ‡ , J. M. Erlandson § , H. Dallas, Jr. ¶ , T. A. Wake ‡ , and R. Schwaderer ‖
Author Affiliations
Abstract
Bones of the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) from 14 archaeological sites along the California coast indicate that humans hunted the species for at least 8,000 years before it was driven to extinction. Direct 14C dates on Chendytes bones show that the duck was exploited on the southern California islands as early as ≈11,150–10,280 calendar years B.P., and on the mainland by at least 8,500 calendar years B.P. The youngest direct date of 2,720–2,350 calendar years B.P., combined with the absence of Chendytes bones from hundreds of late Holocene sites, suggests that the species was extinct by ≈2,400 years ago. Although the extinction of Chendytes clearly resulted from human overhunting, its demise raises questions about the Pleistocene overkill model, which suggests that megafauna were driven to extinction in a blitzkrieg fashion by Native Americans ≈13,000 years ago. That the extermination of Chendytes was so protracted and archaeologically visible suggests that, if the terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were primarily the result of human exploitation, there should also be a long and readily detectable archaeological record of their demise. The brief window now attributed to the Clovis culture (≈13,300–12,900 B.P.) seems inconsistent with an overhunting event.*
Those guys may even know Colibri- or he may know them.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/195/4279/691.short
Pl*eistocene Avifaunas and the Overkill Hypothesis
DONALD K. GRAYSON1
- Author Affiliations
1Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle 98195
ABSTRACT
At the end of the North American Pleistocene, birds and mammals suffered comparable degrees of generic extinction. Both the magnitude and pattern of avian extinction are incompatible with the hypothesis that humans played a major role in causing the demise of numerous North American mammalian genera at this time.*
It’s dead. Gone. Kaput. Not even Colibri supports it- altho he does support that humans are the primary cause of the NA Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions (but not necessarily thru hunting). *Which may well be. * We simply dont know enough.
Here’s a article that outright rejects the North American overkill hypothesis but does agree with Colibri that humans are a primary cause.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7090/abs/nature04604.html
*New carbon dates link climatic change with human colonization and Pleistocene extinctions
R. Dale Guthrie1
Top of page
Drastic ecological restructuring, species redistribution and extinctions mark the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, but an insufficiency of numbers of well-dated large mammal fossils from this transition have impeded progress in understanding the various causative links1. Here I add many new radiocarbon dates to those already published on late Pleistocene fossils from Alaska and the Yukon Territory (AK–YT) and show previously unrecognized patterns. Species that survived the Pleistocene, for example, bison (Bison priscus, which evolved into Bison bison), wapiti (Cervus canadensis) and, to a smaller degree, moose (Alces alces), began to increase in numbers and continued to do so before and during human colonization and before the regional extinction of horse (Equus ferus) and mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). These patterns allow us to reject, at least in AK–YT, some hypotheses of late Pleistocene extinction: ‘Blitzkrieg’ version of simultaneous human overkill2, ‘keystone’ removal3, and 'palaeo-disease’4. Hypotheses of a subtler human impact and/or ecological replacement or displacement are more consistent with the data. The new patterns of dates indicate a radical ecological sorting during a uniquely forage-rich transitional period, affecting all large mammals, including humans.
*
Thus, Colibri may well be correct- Humans may be the major cause. But the *Blitzkrieg overkill hypothesis is now dead. * Well, except for a few that cling to it.
But the big thing that Martin hung his hat on was a coincidence= that humans arrived 13000 years ago- and whammo- megafaunal extinctions … well, that’s not true at all now. Humans arrived in NA at least 15000 years ago, maybe even as much as 40000 years ago. And, we have no precise date for those extinctions, many of which have been shown to be as late as only 10000 years ago and earlier. If Clovis man arrived 13k years ago and wiped out the megafauna " in less than 1,000 years" then he’s missing at least 4000 years. Likely more. Martin was simply wrong.
**Sir Isaac Newton 1642 - 1726. Father of the modern scientific method. ** He worked off Francis Bacon 1561 –1626, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
Phlogiston 1667 to 1780.
Your dates are off. Try to look things up first, eh?
[quote=“GIGObuster, post:126, topic:733595”]
Many experts did find evidence that Humans did hunt the mega fauna and it is likely that with a combination of changes in the climate and overkill by the humans that the mega fauna was no more.
[/QUOTE]Certainly possible. But that’s not the* North American Pleistocene overkill hypothesis,* which stated Clovis man did it all by himself, with his spears, in less than 1000 years. It’s bad science and has been disproven.
What you are doing is a mega straw man 
Indeed, what wolfpup pointed out is what the scientists are reporting, there is a controversy going on here but what I pointed out (and clearly you did not check the video) was that humans very likely had a part in the extinctions, the point stands in the sense that it is not really what you in this thread is talking about, what scientists (and at the museums and academia) are talking about is more of a synthesis of climate changes and human overkill of the remaining mega fauna as the likely reason for the extinctions.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2012.648427#abstract
What I see here is, well, the march of science.
In my experience the ones that want to claim that science is not working are the ones that do not understand that there is this thing called “the march of time” and the march of scientific progress, and one should not be stuck in research from 1977 and 2003. As a few of your linked papers are from.
Try comprehending what I wrote. My “dates” aren’t off as I never mentioned any dates. I was talking about the eras that characterize the evolution of science, and scientific progress was slow and gradual in its infancy with a great deal of overlap between concepts of scientific rigor and old entrenched beliefs in superstition and mysticism. Phlogiston, specifically, has no basis at all in real science, but was widely embraced by the pseudo-science of alchemy which continued long after Newton:
The decline of European alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for “ancient wisdom”. Although the seeds of these events were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its apogee in the 18th century. As late as 1781 James Price claimed to have produced a powder that could transmute mercury into silver or gold.
If Martin was wrong and has been “totally discredited”, then your example just proves that the scientific method works. Though as far as I can tell, this remains an unresolved area with competing hypotheses. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make, if any.
As far as I can tell you claim that science is full of falsehoods but there’s every reason to believe in a supreme being and an afterlife, just because. If this is your point, and your objective here is to discredit science, may I suggest that you just give it up now as a lost cause. If your point is something else, it’s a complete mystery what it is. You might want to try to address that.
Dr Deth does not understand the difference between “A hypothesis has been refuted” and “A hypothesis has no evidence”.
One, specific, overkill hypothesis *might *be discredited. That does not change the fact there was a massive amount of evidence for that hypothesis.
Unfortunately Dr. Deth doesn’t understand the distinction. He seems to think that if the evidence for a hypothesis was interpreted incorrectly, that means the evidence never existed.
That is, of course, a load of tommyrot.
Not only was there no evidence- the man who wrote the hypothesis even said so “In response, *Martin asserts that the overkill model predicts a lack of supporting evidence, *thus turning the absence of empirical support into support for his beliefs.”
Can you understand that Blake? The hypothesis stated there was no supporting evidence.
Interesting that the “scientist” debates with terms like "nonsense " and “tommyrot” whilst the layman (even tho I have a degree) responds with multiple cites from peer reviewer scientific papers.
Sure, this remains an unresolved area with competing hypotheses- but none of them are the North American Pleistocene overkill hypothesis . In fact, your paper makes that pretty clear.
Despite the fact that that hypothesis has long been discredited by* experts in the field- *many scientists (who are not experts in that field) still cling to it.
Here’s what you said “Phlogiston dates back to an era of pseudo-science, where evidence-based science and the modern scientific method that we know today were non-existent …” “non-existent”
The modern scientific method was clearly *in existence. * You were incorrect. Just admit it. Your timeline was off.
Note that Joseph Black* FRSE FRCPE FPSG and Daniel Rutherford FRSE FRCPE FLS FSA(Scot), famous* scientists* (not alchemist) used the Phlogiston hypothesis to explain the discovery of nitrogen. So did Joseph Priestley FRS, the discover of Oxygen. All eminent scientists.
*Discoverer of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide.
The alchemist?
Who, fortunately for us, also dabbled in other fields such as mathematics and physics. 
You are the one not understanding the context, what Martin did talk was about not finding lots of evidence for similar reasons as many anthropologists have for not finding many early tools used by early man. They will never appear as they were very likely made of things like straw, wood and biodegradable stuff.
The maddening thing for you is that even if that is the case new technologies and tools for research are finding other ways to get evidence.
On my own I have found that even early the ones that are claiming that “there was no evidence whatsoever” are themselves begging to be debunked. What I found is that there was/is evidence but it was not conclusive. But I also found that new techniques and tools are allowing more recent researchers to tell us that while one theory can be dismissed many other variants of it can not be dismissed in toto as some want to.
Yes, that’s what I said – “non-existent” – referring (look closely) to the non-existence of the modern scientific method at the time. Now this term has sometimes been used to distinguish the science of the second half of the last millennium from ancient practices, but it’s also used to distinguish the scientific methodologies of the 20th century from all that came before, and I use it in that sense. That would be roughly the era of Karl Popper and his proposals around hypothesis falsification, and the era of modern peer review processes and widespread journal publication. It took hundreds of years after Newton for the scientific method to come into the modern era. And there’s no such thing as phlogiston. Get over it.
Now back to the topic. It remains unclear what your various digressions have to do with a discussion about Dawkins and the negative impact of religion on science, which, as some may still be able to recall, is actually the subject of this thread. What are you trying to say that is relevant to this conversation?
You stated in #120 that “some scientists believe things for which there is no evidence” implying that this is some systemic defect that pervades science. If you believe that science is systemically defective, but OTOH it’s perfectly sensible to believe in a “supreme being” and an afterlife (as you implied in #122), then I see no point in continuing this conversation. If you believe something more logically coherent than the merits of an unscientific theocracy contemptuous of science, then I ask you for the second time to please articulate what it is.
American science holds back science.
“The word ‘ether’ has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. […] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with ‘stuff’ that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.” - Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University