Atlantis
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This topic is a pseudoscience, and is not accepted by the scientific community as a valid discipline.
Although it may use scientific terminology, it does not use scientific methodology.
Remember: just because it sounds right doesn't mean it's actually right.
Atlantis is the name given to a mythical island first mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias.
According to Plato it lay beyond the "pillars of Heracles" (genearlly assumed to be the Rock of Gibraltar), which would presumably place it in the Atlantic Ocean. He claimed that it was an important naval power around 10,000 years ago and that it had attempted to invade Greece.
Sadly the island suffered some sort of catastrophe and was swallowed by the sea in a single day. Over the years it went from a fictional cautionary tale about hubris to a legendary land of ancient high technology and whizzy powers, and ultimately came to be a beloved meme of the Spiritualism, Theosophy, and eventually the New Age movements. Helena Blavatsky considered Atlantis to be the ancestral homeland of all modern human races. Paleontologists have found that humans evolved in Africa. Quite a bit of modern woo is said to date from Atlantis. Atlantis would eventually become a common trope in science fiction and fantasy writing, for example as the lost continent of Númenor in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.[1]
It is not known if Atlantis was a fanciful invention on Plato's part, or if it was based on real events that may have happened in the Mediterranean Sea. Attempts to place it within mainstream history have mostly centered on the Minoan and Mycenean civilizations. One of the main contenders for the title of Atlantis is the island of Thera, which was partially destroyed when the volcano it was on exploded (modern Thera, aka Santorini, is a crescent-shaped assembly of three islands surrounding two central, constantly steaming volcanic islands). However, this island is firmly in the Mediterranean, not outside of it.
It is now known due to extensive mapping of the seafloor that there is actually very little continental crust under the oceans, and virtually none of it is in the Atlantic Ocean apart from continental sheves. Notwithstanding the complete lack of evidence for any large island existing in the Atlantic, there are still those prepared to imagine it is part of a lost prehistoric civilization.
Atlantis is only one of several proposed "lost continents" popular in pseudohistory. Other major ones include the island of Mu (in the Pacific) and Lemuria (in the Indian Ocean).
[edit] See also
Timaeus and Critias at The Internet Classics Archive.
[edit] Footnotes
- Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Dover Publications, 1957.
- Garner, James Finn. Apocalypse Wow!, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997, ISBN 0684836491.
- ↑ J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Akallabêth.
