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Title: Breaking News: Science validates key Mayan Calendar premise
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URL Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/li ... 211_breaking_news_3a_scien.htm
Published: Dec 18, 2007
Author: by Irvthom
Post Date: 2007-12-18 13:07:31 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 141
Comments: 7
Breaking News: Science validates key Mayan Calendar premise by Irvthom Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com Tell A Friend Fresh this week, in the New York Times and hundreds of media outlets across the country, is the reported discovery that human evolution has accelerated far more swiftly over the last 40,000 years than had ever been realized. This not only contradicts earlier assumptions that our physical/mental evolution supposedly stabilized that long ago, but it validates the underlying basis of the Mayan Calendar, a radically different way of understanding time that has only recently come to be understood — and is still outside the mainstream framework of such considerations. According to the NY Times in a copyrighted article by Nicholas Wade, the discovery was made through a more intensive analysis of the human genetic structure, and is assumed to derive from the continuing effect of natural selection. The news is meaningful to all concerned with the course of human development; but it is a breakthrough validation for those who understand the significance of the Mayan Calendar, which holds that we are swiftly moving toward some wholly new epoch, just a short four years away. Some hold this time to be the year 2012, while others foresee it a year earlier. While our common calendar merely tracks the steady, repetitive course of Earth's annual circuit of the sun (resulting in our familiar seasons, due to the constant tilt of Earth's axis), the so-called Mayan Calendar had a completely different focus: it was purportedly tracking the course of human evolvement over time; and more specifically, human consciousness. How was this possible for what we today regard as a primitive culture? This remains a matter of conjecture; but the analysis of their calendar structure (it was actually one of several calendars they used, for different purposes) leaves little doubt about its intended function. Developed by the Mayans in central Mexico about a thousand years ago, and recently interpreted from stone carvings, along with remnant rituals still performed in the native culture, this calendar posits a tightly defined series of time-passages: nine levels that can be visualized as steps, for each beyond the first was only one-twentieth the length (in time) as the previous one. And within each such level, a division into thirteen equidistant stages. Each level was said to constellate a coherent span of human development, and the thirteen stages within that level could be seen as stages of evolvement somewhat similar to the stages of seasonal growth in the course of Nature's year. Much more detail on this can be found in the study, The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness by Dr. Carl Johan Calleman (2004). Such a schema naturally narrows down toward an 'end time', and it's this end-time which now swiftly approaches. No one can say what it will bring, but speculation is rife. The really interesting thing about it is that it tallied – time-wise – with other supposed 'end times' that derive from entirely different (and unrelated) sources of speculation. It is a broad area for consideration, but the important thing of the moment is the newly provable validation of this idea that development – not cultural or scientific, but actual human development – has been speeding up at a significant rate, for that idea resides at the very heart of the Mayan Calendar thesis. Here is an elaborating observation written for Scientific American by David Biello, who says quite directly, "comparing the amount of genetic differentiation between humans and our closest relatives, chimpanzees, suggests that the pace of change has accelerated to 10 to 100 times the average long-term rate, the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA." Or this by John Roach, from National Geographic: "The pace of change accelerated about 40,000 years ago and then picked up even more with the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago..." There is greater detail in the study being referenced, and speculation as to the proximate cause of such remarkably accelerated change, but basic to all of it is the fact of it, which is totally supportive of those who subscribe to the notion of hugely significant change that is shortly ahead of us. www.irvthomas.com Irv Thomas, ratrace escapee and cultural outsider for 35 years, editor of Black Bart Brigade during counter-culture days, hides out in Seattle.
Poster Comment: shift ahoy, me hearties.
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#1. To: christine, lodwick, robin, horse, itisa1mosttoolate (#0)
ping. think we may need a shift ping list, but don't know if anyone is up on this so much. its happening, so watch the old types wither and die. relatedly, see pic of hillary on drudge. the new energies are eating them up like catfish...they're going down like a fat girl on skis.
Many believe in either intelligent design or evolution...but I am opting for unintelligent design, where god is a retarded kid who likes setting army men on fire and leaving his toys out in the rain. Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius
anyone have any idea how a 'primitive' folk like the mayans discovered this millenia ago, yet we just today verified it. mayans will tell you they learned it from the 'gods' who came down from 'heaven' and taught them, as will the dogon, the sumerians, egyptians, etc. ungawa.
Many believe in either intelligent design or evolution...but I am opting for unintelligent design, where god is a retarded kid who likes setting army men on fire and leaving his toys out in the rain. Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius
all signs of incoming energy. http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/evoluti..._ends_2007.html June 7, 2006 Among working astronomers, Aden and Marjorie Meinel are synonymous with the science. For almost three-quarters of a century, the married couple have helped not only to better see the universe – Aden has designed, built and operated telescopes and observatories around the world – but also to explain it: Certain bands of light seen in auroras are called Meinel bands. NASA Marjorie and Aden Meinel A new theory suggests cosmic radiation from the Cat's Eye nebula forced the hand of human evolution. But after decades of focusing their attentions skyward, the Meinels – now in their 80s – are grappling with a question that seems, at first light, to be far, far away from astronomy. Namely: Why did modern humans and other species emerge some 40,000 years ago? Their answer: Cosmic radiation, which the Meinels will elaborate on June 20 in a noon public lecture at the University of San Diego, part of the annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Paleoanthropologists kind of gasp at the idea,” said Aden. “The idea of cosmic rays significantly affecting early hominids and other species is pretty dramatic, but there's some really compelling evidence to support the idea. It's a totally new factor to be considered.” Distinguished careers Coming from almost anyone else, the suggestion that a burst of cosmic radiation profoundly mutated life on Earth and altered the course of human evolution would probably be dismissed as outrageous science fiction. But Aden and Marjorie Meinel have been both serious and significant players in astronomy for a good chunk of the last century. Natives of Pasadena, they met in a special 11th grade class for gifted students at Pasadena Junior College. Both were interested in space science. Marjorie's interest was inherited: Her father, Edison Pettit, was one of the founding astronomers of the 102-year-old Mount Wilson Observatory, east of Los Angeles. Aden's interest evolved over time. It began as an apprentice in Mount Wilson's optics shop, through a stint in the Navy as a rocket engineer and at the California Institute of Technology, where his doctoral dissertation eventually resulted in the world's first solid Schmidt spectrograph – a device for measuring and charting wavelengths of light in space. DATEBOOK Astronomers Aden and Marjorie Meinel lecture on how cosmic radiation may have aided in the emergence of modern humans. Noon June 20. Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice theater, University of San Diego. For more information, visit pacific.aaas.org. With Marjorie serving as adviser, editor and muse (and mother to their seven children), Aden launched a career designing, developing and directing observatories around the world. He helped establish the first national observatory at Kitt Peak, southwest of Tucson, Ariz., in the 1960s, then moved to Steward Observatory and taught at the University of Arizona. At various times, he helped build telescopes in India and China. In the 1980s, he and Marjorie moved to the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena where they helped launch space-based telescopes like the Hubble. Aden retired in 1993, Marjorie in 2000. So how does a distinguished astronomer become interested in human evolution? “Frankly, when you retire, you finally have time to read and think a lot, said Aden. “When that happens, questions pop up, sometimes right out of the blue.” As a high school student, Aden had participated in some balloon experiments at Cal Tech to study cosmic radiation, which were utterly mysterious at the time but are now known to consist of high energy particles (including protons) emanating from sources in outer space and bombarding the planet from every direction. While reading a story about ice-core research, Aden wondered whether the core samples also contained information about cosmic radiation levels over the Earth's history. To his and Marjorie's surprise, an examination of existing ice core data showed a significant surge in radiation roughly 40,000 years ago – about the same time, they noted, that modern humans emerged in Eurasia, and numerous other species in the northern hemisphere were either undergoing significant change or disappearing altogether. “That's when we first became tempted to put two and two together,” said Aden. “If there was a large surge of cosmic rays, and there's good evidence that these rays can (cause mutations), the question becomes, did they help create new species of life? “Our findings indicate that two very rare occurrences happened at roughly the same time, which suggests that how we've evolved might not be just slow, random mutation and natural selection. Maybe we are partly the product of cosmic radiation.” The Meinels even have a likely source for the radiation: the gaseous remains of a dying star called the Cat's Eye nebula discovered by William Herschel in 1786. According to their hypothesis, the nebula began emitting a burst of radiation roughly 200,000 years ago. “Around the time that Neanderthals began to appear,” said Aden. Approximately 40,000 years ago, the frequency and intensity of the radiation surged, spawning in the Meinels' view, a host of evolutionary changes. “Then, about 10,000 years ago, the Earth passed out of the nebula's jet of cosmic rays, ending the accelerated mutations,” said Aden. Insufficient data But is the nebula's radiation truly the cause or simply an intriguing correlation? Aden and Marjorie don't know. They expect their ideas to be questioned and scrutinized. Indeed, they demand it. “During World War II, I edited articles on rocketry,” said Marjorie. “I had to be absolutely accurate in my descriptions and details or things could blow up. I've always believed that you have to get the science exactly right, with nothing misunderstood.” Both say that much more research needs to be done, that the ice cores are just a clue. But Aden is optimistic that he and his wife have noticed something overlooked by others, something significant. He recalls attending a conference at UC Berkeley in 1980 when Luis Alvarez, the Nobel physicist, and his geologist son, Walter, first proposed the theory that a massive asteroid impact 65 million years ago spurred the extinction of dinosaurs. Though widely accepted now, the Alvarez' asteroid-impact theory was initially dismissed by many scientists as folly. Aden thinks his cosmic ray idea will also require time (and more proof) to become accepted. “We're describing a creation event, the impetus behind new species emerging,” said Aden. “People who are well-established don't like to change their minds, and this requires a big change in thinking. That's why Marjorie and I like giving public lectures, especially to young people who are more likely to have open minds. “I doubt either of us will be around to see how all of this works out. We just hope others will find what we've discovered exciting enough to pursue.” http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science...1c07meinel.html
Many believe in either intelligent design or evolution...but I am opting for unintelligent design, where god is a retarded kid who likes setting army men on fire and leaving his toys out in the rain. Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius
cool stuff
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! This is the dawning of the Age of the Calendar.
i think we are at the end of the fifth night in the calendar.
Many believe in either intelligent design or evolution...but I am opting for unintelligent design, where god is a retarded kid who likes setting army men on fire and leaving his toys out in the rain. Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius
I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about looking like this, then.
Fortune favors the prepared mind. A zombie, however, prefers it raw.
#2. To: All (#0)
Developed by the Mayans in central Mexico about a thousand years ago, and recently interpreted from stone carvings, along with remnant rituals still performed in the native culture, this calendar posits a tightly defined series of time-passages: nine levels that can be visualized as steps, for each beyond the first was only one-twentieth the length (in time) as the previous one. And within each such level, a division into thirteen equidistant stages
#3. To: All (#0)
as well, we have 'global warming' and an increase in light from all the planets, venus being brighter, etc, noctilucent clouds, etc.
#4. To: gengis gandhi (#1)
The Revolution will not be televised!
#5. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
I've already said too much.
#6. To: MUDDOG (#5)
#7. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
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