...not TRUE science, but "pop-science".
I've been researching the find and subsequent speculation of Gobekli Tepe. It's an amazing find, wonderful architecture that could date back to between 10,000 and 13,000 BC. By all appearances it is a temple and not much is known about it yet... as only 5% of it has been dug and some archeologists think it could take up to 50 years until to complete the dig.
This is good. Scientists are digging, studying, speculating... but all the non-technical communications of the find are NOT good. The communications directed at you and me. The most COMMON fallacy is that this is the world's first Temple, the worlds first example of organized religion. They aren't saying "this is the earliest example of ... that we have found", they are saying it IS the first. Period. This is the part about "pop-science" that irritates me. I love that finds are communicated, but I don't like that they are exaggerated or fantasized. Presenting non-factual data to people instills incorrect ideas, I get that they are romanticizing and attempting to make the find even more appealing to the public, but it's just not RIGHT.
For example, for all we know there could be ANOTHER temple, 5000 years OLDER than Gobekli just a few hundred yards away. There could have been similar temples constructed in other areas that were NOT preserved. To say it is THE FIRST TEMPLE EVER is simply leading and dishonest.
Finally, I want to be clear that this is not coming from the responsible scientists investigating the find, but from the media, from artists, and other people who simply shouldn't be saying what they are saying. Meanwhile anyone who happens to see one of the videos I saw on youtube or someplace else will be now telling all their friends that we've found the world's first temple... a legend is born.
O.K. I am done. Sorry for the rant.
