The power of closed minds is illustrated in a post at www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/12/2013/archaeologists-return-… … The consensus theory for a long time was that Clovis culture people were the first group of humans to enter the Americas, colonising the continent by using the Bering Land Bridge at the end of the Ice Age. This consensus was so strong that even when evidence to the contrary was dug out of the ground the archaeological establishment and history academics of the mainstream simply disbelieved it. It was considered to be impossible – even where the evidence was staring them flat in the face. Most often, they cast aspersions on the quality of the work of the excavators. On this occasion they claimed a grave had been cut down into an Ice Age deposit and simply dug in their heels, sat on their haunches, and bayed. For a hundred years the reputation of the excavator has been sullied by the resistance to the evidence he presented to other people in the same discipline he worked, people that just did not want to accept truth when it was laid out on a slab for all to see. Subsequently, the discovery was brushed aside, ignored for years, and then forgotten by fellow generations of archaeologists – until now. The excavator of another controversial American site, the Meadowcroft rock shelter, where evidence of humans living much earlier than Clovis has been found, has decided to re-excavate the new site, at Vero in Florida, in order to verify the original findings (now that Clovis has been dented by a succession of challenges).
People don't like evidence that disproves their deeply held convictions – and in science this revolves around various theories that become the truth because they are repeated ad hoc on too many occasions, the so called consensus view. We see this happening right now, in front of our eyes, played out with shrill voices that just cannot accept reality – even when it is staring them in the face. I am referring of course to the CAGW consensus hypothesis where it is well known amongst climate scientists that temperatures have not continued to climb, contrary to the models, since 1998. Temperatures flat lined as we came towards the end of a 30 period and have started going down as we have entered the opposite 30 year period (where La Nina PDOs are destined to dominate until around 2035). This is the reality. People have tried to hide the warming in the deep oceans – where nobody can actually look for it, or blame a number of other things, but 15 years is a very long time as we were all led to believe the warming was alarming and disastrous. It has not proven to be disastrous at all. The rise was less than one degree, even at the height of the previous 30 year cycle, and now it is falling. Yet, CAGW believers just do not want to accept 'reality' – and the comparison with the Clovis First oddballs sticks out like a sore thumb.
At Vero in Florida workers digging a main drainage canal uncovered the bones of mastodons, sabre tooth cats, giant ground sloths, mammoths and other Pleistocene animals and within them, human bones. Archaeologists were called in and a skull and 44 bones of a single skeleton were unearthed. They were clearly part of the same Ice Age deposit, a cache that would have thrilled the excavators, we might imagine. If so it was short lived, euphoria wore off as the reality was openly denied, completely without a shred of embarrassment.
Meanwhile, another example of closed minds has surfaced – just as excruciatingly unfathomable. At www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/12/16/defining-reality.html … On this occasion there are people in the watchtower, looking at what is going on and making fun of the perpetrators. People know what the temperature data is saying – anyone can read it if they wish. However, in this instance it is claimed it is still warming – as this is what the models say. Science writer Jon Turney is alleged to have said that climate models are unlikely to be wrong because they (all) give similar results to each other.
In other words, the models say it is warming so it must be warming as this is what the doomsaying is all about. The fact the models are showing a warming when no actual warming is happening doesn't appear to be part of the equation. That can be ignored – just like the human skeleton that was left broken and mangled amongst the broken and mangled bones of Ice Age fauna was all those years ago. Humans don't change it would seem – no matter how well they may be educated.