• BlowMe@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    42
    ·
    4 months ago

    I’m pretty sure without the fossilised bones we would think dinosaurs weren’t a thing

    • Eczpurt@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      89
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Its easy to put bones together and say that it existed but there’s no way to guarantee “these are certified bones of Jim the stegosaurus, religious figure”

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      That’s because there weren’t multiple people around to write down what they saw. You’re confusing paleontology and history. They have very different standards for proof.

      There are tons of historical figures for whom we have no physical evidence. But we have tons of written evidence from people who all experienced those people.

    • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      History is known by:

      • Archæological evidence

      • Oral interviews with eyewitnesses

      • Texts

      • Archæogenetics

      • Historical linguistics

      • Myth (euhemerism)

      • Maybe some others I’m forgetting

      Dino-history isn’t comparable to tthe literate Roman period.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      That’s prehistory. Everything we know about history comes from written accounts. Historians study written documents and argue whether or not the available evidence makes it more likely that something (or someone) was real or fiction.

      Most historians agree that there was a Jewish man named Jesus (yehoshua), who preached in Judea and the Galilee in the early first century, who gained followers and was crucified by Rome. There are also historians who examine the same evidence and conclude it is more likely that no such person existed, because that’s how academia works.

      See also for comparison: Genghis Khan

    • Rekorse@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      The point is that you are asking the wrong question sort of. If we only accepted physical remnants of someone or their life to prove they exist, Jesus wouldn’t be the only one we would have to throw out.

      Not to say I know how to prove stuff historically, it does sort of seem like magic sometimes. If we found out today that carbon dating was off by a magnitude I would not be shocked, so that’s all the faith I have in it due to my bad understanding of it.

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      Archaeology in good at giving us clues about the living thing. References to people existing is almost purely based on text people wrote. The proof would be someone writing down “Chrestos, popular among the poor was crucified for his crimes for spreading heresy” as a contemporary. But since the earliest reference we have is a century after his death it’s not necessarily accurate or true.

    • Kokesh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      4 months ago

      You won’t find fossilized Jesus, he apparently got resurrected and became wine & cookies, so some people started eating him on Sundays. And he doesn’t want us to say fuck, or shit, or do it in the butt. But that’s not really related to the question.