Originally posted by Devestation:
Originally posted by Fooglmog:
Not that I subscribe to the end of the world crap, but that's a horribly written article with a few glaring omissions.
For example, if you were to try to calculate a date based upon their explanation you'd never get it right. This article leaves the reader thinking that all 5 slots on the Long Count Calandar are base 20... but that's not the case. The central numeral is actually base 18.
There's also good reason to believe that the furthest left numeral only goes up to 13. Essentially, all Mayan calandars consistantly end at the same spot before rolling over. One wouldn't end at 4.0.0 one time and 5.0.0 the next. The current Long Count cycle began the day after the date upon which Mayan's believe the world was finished being made. The time it took for that to occur was 13.0.0.0.0. In otherwords, this calandar last cycled at 13.0.0.0.0... and there's no reason to suspect it would be expected by the Mayans to cycle at a different point now.
There's strong reason to believe that the date in question is, in fact, the end of the Mayan Long Count. However, I'm a skeptic that this has any significance to the world as a whole.
-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.
It's still fairly unlikely that the calender actually ends then if all the slots being 20 only gets us to 13.0.0.0.0
That's my point. There's no reason to suspect that it ends at straight 20s. In fact, it's impossible for it to. If the final numeral is base 20, than this calandar could still only go up to 19.19.17.19.19. (In a base system, you go to the next digit when you hit your base number, hence in base 10, 10 doesn't have a numerical representation, it's the first 2 digit number)
Be he conveniently doesn't tell us that one of the numerals already isn't base 20. Instead, he made this statement: "But the Mayans had a counting system based on 20, so most of the 'slots' in their calendar had 20 potential numbers (0 to 19)". This was his only nod to the fact that one of the numerals isn't base 20. But, since he was just talking about how the Mayan's have multiple Calandars, it's easy to gloss over and assume that on this calandar, all the numerals are base 20.
Why is it important that he doesn't bother to tell us this?
Simple. The only reason for thinking the final numeral is base 20 is because the other numerals are. That was his arguement. This becomes a much weaker arguement if he lets us know that the other numerals aren't all base 20. He's trying to hide this.
So, why do we think that this calander is meant to end at 13.0.0.0.0? Because that's when it last ended and there is no known example of a Mayan calander changing its end date.
From all appearances, he's a skeptic who's looking for a way to disprove the 2012 theories. I have no problem with that. My problem is with the fact the he's manipulating the evidence to suit his notions. He's decided that since he *knows* 2012 isn't the end of the world, he's justified in presenting evidence in a way which misleads people as long as it also leads them to the same conclusion as him. Frankly, that's the most damaging thing a scientist can do.
Fortunately, he isn't very good at this game and his arguement falls to pieces as soon as someone who has a basic understanding of the Mayan Calander looks at it. Unfortunately, very few people have bothered to do even a basic level of research on the Mayan Calander... and so get suckered when they read this because people are inclined to trust the first person to tell them about something they don't understand.
-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.
