Saturday, June 23, 2007

Nile v/s Amazon Duel
the aftermath

Do you people remember when the BigPharaoh was whining about some pesky Brazilians claiming their Amazon is longer than BigPharaoh’s nile? Well just so you wouldn’t be so bothered about it, and just to help you sleep at night, don’t worry, that Brazilian-Peruvian team is almost wrong. You see there are two flaws in his analysis:
  1. their study was performed during the rain season, it is not even certain if this river’s water flows all over the year, it might just be a seasonal river! They must wait till the September expedition confirms the continuous flow of this river before hailing victory.

  2. And even if waters flow all over the year, that proves nothing! You see scientists choose the starting point of a river in a rather subjective way We take the longest, straightest tributary, explains Jennifer Runyon, a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS)… Oh yes! The Americans ran to salvage the Nile’s honor when Arab scientists, yet again, failed to do so. So what do we conclude? NOTHING! In fact both the Nile and the Amazon could be considered as THE longest river of the world depending on the subjective choice of the starting point.


Hey don’t look at me people, it’s not the objective scientists’ fault if nature doesn’t care. After all, nature couldn’t care less if the Amazon or the Nile is the longest river, what difference can that possibly make?! Both Egyptians and Brazilian/Peruvians are still dying of hunger and poverty, it’s just a damn title, that will just amuse the people who can afford to buy the Guinness book of records and annoys the children who are blessed enough to go to school.
Source: Olé! Amazon Longer Than the Nile—Or Is It? By David Biello , on June 22, 2007, in the Online edition of the Scientific American

6 comments:

NOMAD said...

on those both rivers 2 old civilisations took place though

not sure for the real dates of the amazonian one

I leave it to an "investigator" to find out

NOMAD said...

derniere découverte en Amazonie

désolée in french, tant pis pour ceux qui n'apprécient pas

Terra preta

this technique could be useful for poor countries

programmer craig said...

I guarantee the Amazonians will not get away with this! Billions of text books would have to be re-written! Who is going to pay for all that!?

Unknown said...

I must admit I am unfamiliar with an ancient Amazon civilization. Perhaps the Incas in the mountains are being referred to?

NOMAD said...

interessant blog about archeology

Pazuzu HSP said...

nomad: I read in french all the time, it's not a forbidden language and it certainly won't be forbidden in this blog that's for sure!

Craig:
In the article the american scientist was clear, this changes little, if not to say changes nothing, now peruvians or brazilians might change their books, but the world, on the academic and fuinctional level if I may say, are not concerned. This is just a pride thing, it's not even a discovery, it's a subjective change of perspective

severian:
The inca culture is a very loose term, especially on the vulgarized level, it's different cultures that are united under one term for many reasons that aren't so scientific.