Grading Skeptic World

"9,000 years before Plato's own time—approximately 9400 BC."

Error in Fact: Plato's dialogue, Timaeus, specifies that the event took place 9,000 years before Solon's conversation with an elder priest of Saïs, Egypt, or approximately 9,600 BCE. Certainly "9,000" is an approximation and there is no way to know how close this is to the real date (if the Atlantis tale is a real one), but 9,600 BCE ±500 years is more accurate than 9,400 BCE ±500 years.

"Atlantis is generally seen as a myth created by Plato to illustrate his political theories."

Unsupported Claim: While it may be true that many scholars view Plato's story of Atlantis this way, the view itself has not been proven, and the author here offers no support of this claim ("is generally seen as a myth").

"The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was actively discussed throughout the classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied."

Unsupported Claim: The phrase "usually rejected" is unsupported by the author. "Usually" implies that a majority of authors in classical antiquity rejected Atlantis as a possible past reality. If the author implies that this is somehow proof that Atlantis was indeed only a myth, then this would also be qualify as a logical fallacy (non sequitur and possibly argument to ignorance).

"In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek."

Unsupported Claim: In Timaeus, the priest does not mention translating papyri into Greek.

"According to Plutarch the priest was named Sonchis, but because of the temporal distance between Plutarch and the alleged event, this identification is unverified."

Logical Fallacy (non sequitur): The temporal distance does not cause the lack of verification. The lack of supporting documents may cause the lack of verification, but this would have nothing to do with the temporal distance.

"The Egyptians used a lunar calendar based on months, and the Greeks a solar one based on years. It is therefore possible that the measure of time interpreted as 9,000 years may actually have been 9,000 months. This would place the destrucion of Atlantis within approximately 700 years beforehand, as there are 13 lunar months in a year."

Groundless Speculation: While this is an interesting theory, it ignores another date given by the elder priest of Saïs. That priest indicated that then current Egyptian history started 1,000 years after the great battle between Atlantis and prehistoric Athens, or 8,000 years earlier than their conversation. Translating this into lunar cycles, we get something like 8,000 lunar cycles = 615 years. That would make the then current start of Egyptian history the year 1,215 BCE. Was the priest ignorant of 2,000 years of Egyptian history — history that we currently know about? Such ignorance may have been possible, but such an assertion has not been shown to be true. Would the source of this theory be willing to make this assertion and back it up with facts?

"Edgar Cayce first mentioned Atlantis in a life reading given in 1923, and later gave its geographical location as the Caribbean,..."

Error of omission: The author leaves out important information. Cayce also said that the main island was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Plato said that Atlantis also ruled many other islands and parts of the continent (America?) which surrounds the "true ocean" (the Atlantic). So, the Caribbean may well have been part of the Atlantean empire according to Plato.

"The Bimini Road, found by Dr.J Manson Valentine, was a submarine geological formation..."

Unsupported Claim: Geologist Eugene Shinn is the person tasked with investigating the "road" after its discovery, but apparently his scientific acumen on the project was far less than stellar. Perhaps it could be classified as shamefully shoddy. If one is interested in an alternate, detailed look at Mr. Shinn's work plus evidence that casts strong doubt on Mr. Shinn's assertions, they might want to check out www.atlantisquest.com/Bahama.html, www.mysterious-america.net/biminibeachrock.html and www.mysterious-america.net/bimini2007.html.

"Before the time of Eratosthenes about 250 BC, Greek writers located the Pillars of Hercules on the Strait of Sicily. This changed with Alexander the Great’s eastward expansion and the Pillars were moved by Eratosthenes to Gibraltar. This evidence has been cited in some Atlantis theories, notably in Sergio Frau's work. His theory, supported by scholars and archaeologists, is still studied by the UNESCO."

Error in Fact or Unsupported Claim: According to the Underwater Times article of October 13, 2006, this idea of "moving Pillars of Hercules" was a brainstorm of Italian journalist Sergio Frau. The author here states this as fact based on something other than Sergio Frau's creativity, yet does not name a source.

"A. G. Galanopoulos argued that the time scale has been distorted by an error in translation,... 900 years before Solon would be the 15th century BCE."

Omitted Fact: And 800 years before Solon would be the beginning of the 14th century BCE, but Egyptian history goes back much further than this. This was missed by Mr. Galanopoulos in the development of his theory. Either the Egyptian priest was ignorant of 2,000 years of his own history, or Mr. Galanopoulos was wrong about the supposed "factor of ten" error.

A great deal of effort was placed in commenting on the various theories of others that diverge from the details in Plato's story. Some of that is good. Almost nothing is said in opposition to the story itself. What little is said in this regard is crippled by logical fallacy, unsupported assertions and erroneous facts. I hope the author will contribute more by focusing on the Atlantis story itself and arguing against specific details of that story.

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