Sweet Potato DNA Challenges Theory That Polynesians Beat Columbus to America

gizmodo.com

18 points·curtis··4 comments

We mostly merged this thread into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16839388, which has the more substantive article.

> but some experts say Polynesian explorers beat him to it. There’s little evidence to support this fringe theory...

Aaaaaaaargh. There's evidence to support many theories besides the orthodox one ... like that >100Ka site in SoCal ....

J Harlen Bretz's Missoula-floods theory was a 'fringe-theory', until decades later. Alfred-Wegener's plate-tectonics theory was 'fringe' for decades. The Antikythera Mechanism was an out-of-place-object until history found a place for it. Gobekli Tepe pre-dates the pyramids by thousands of years.

Science is not religion, and defending against heresy is a job for dogmatism.

ite, I don't find the message objectionable, but the tone and writing. Don't know why others have downvoted you.

Use of the term 'fringe' is a kind of name-calling used to casually dismiss. It's much easier to do than to articulate an idea's shortcomings (as is downvoting). It's intellectual racism.

And too often, the phrase "There’s little evidence..." means "I refuse to look at it". One more example: Too bad Milutin Milanković had already died before he was vindicated.

Rinse and repeat for the dogmatists, haters, jealous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com