fromderinside

Jahwah: These people are bad. Evil.

Odin: I learned something from Nepture on this matter.

Jahweh: Yeah. What did He say?

Odin: He said thunder bolts. I tried them and now they're all I carry in my quiver.

Jahweh: Really? What makes them so good.

Odin: well they are easy to target and they come with lots of clouds and thunder. They scare the mortals to losing it.

Jahweh: Wow. Would they be enough to wipe out a city?

Odin: Sure no plroblem.

....and so it was came to pass when God said: "Dirt be gone!"

Now its history. It's written up in the article posted by ThePainefulTruth in this thread's OP.

Oh, yeah, sure this is a science thread....sure it is....not.

Rational Mind

While some historical cities mentioned in the Bible do exist--there is no evidence at all to support the fact that Sodom was a real city. It is only mentioned in the Bible as far as I know, and it is conveniently destroyed in the story.

ThePainefulTruth

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight,
Nor could an Apple most polite,
E'er recite its tiniest byte.


So it's decided by majority the loudest vote, archaeology is not a science.

skepticalbip

It doesn't really matter what caused the intense heat. If the claim is that there was enough heat (fire?) to destroy the city, the people, and fuse the surface of pottery, then it would have left some evidence of it happening other than on "pottery shards" or it should be assumed that the heat only effected the "pottery" and not the rest of the town. If that is the only evidence then it would point to something specific to the "pottery shards". My first guess would be that the shards are from crucibles or the clay molds that molten bronze was poured into to make bronze tools, bronze weapons, etc. A second guess would be that the potter fired his pottery at quite unusually high temperatures.

ThePainefulTruth

As the article says, there is a layer of ash several feet thick in places, and scorched stone--all associated with the same flash event.

fromderinside

there is no judgement in my post about archeology. Its all about whither and how much evidence is applied to an issue. In this case my judgement, and yours too, should be decided by the impoverished evidence ThePainfulTruth presents to this thread.

skepticalbip

The point was the intensity (how fucking hot it got) of the fire. Lots of ruins show destruction by fire. Evidence of a fire means diddly-squat. The claim was it had to be Sodom because the intensity was enough to "fuse the surface of pottery". A fire with that intensity would leave a fused layers on rocks, sand, the building blocks, etc. not just on pottery unless that intense fire happened to be limited to something like only in a kiln or forge.

A tuft of hair found on a fence does not mean it was bigfoot.

ThePainefulTruth

I've read the whole article but can only extract a small portion of it. The evidence is not impoverished.


No it doesn't. And neither does pointing that out invalidate the evidence in a totally unrelated article. See above.

skepticalbip

It is, as you say, totally unrelated "research". However, the methodology is the same. I was comparing methodologies not the specific "findings" of each "research team".

ETA:
Perhaps you can point out the difference in their "research methodology" remembering that interpretating the meaning of findings is a major part of the methodology.

fromderinside

Well you almost got it right. Developing and presenting the hypothesis, defining, operationalizing, and executing the method, detailing the results with respect to the hypotheses are all part of the SM.

You run into trouble with your remembering statement. Interpreting the study with respect to precedent generated, hopefully, as the hypothesis and method is related to science. But, interpreting the meaning and significance of the study aren't necessarily controlled except by opinion which isn't science.

Interpreting the results, drawing conclusion, is nice fictional payoff. The nut is in what was done. We can all interpret good results most any way we want as long as we stay within the bounds of the method and results.

Sorry, no cigar.