If you make a statement of any kind, make sure you are prepared to back it up. So many times, for example, I see, "well no one would bury a treasure that deep".
Because I can't prove that a treasure is
not buried there (and no one else can either; even if we excavated the entire island right down to the bedrock, that doesn't prove that there isn't something under the bedrock), I'm forced to approach the problem logically.
Consider the central claim: there's a treasure buried far underground at this spot.
I can't disprove that; the hole can always be made deeper if we don't find anything there. So instead I ask, "Why would someone bury something that deep? Has anyone else buried a treasure that deep on an island? Did they want to make sure that it was never found? It conceivably came to that island via the ocean, so if they wanted it gone for good, the bottom of the ocean is a good choice. If they ever wanted to find it again, ten feet would make a lot more sense - it wouldn't be found on accident either way. And if they did want to hide it, it would make a lot of sense to dig that hole as quickly as possible to preclude someone observing their activity, and there's no way to dig a 90 foot hole quickly." I spend some time kicking this idea around in my head and I can't think of a logical reason for why somebody would do something like that.
This proves nothing of course, especially for someone that truly believes in a treasure at Oak Island. We do have some true believers here. Nothing I (or anyone else) says is going to dissuade them. That's fine. I do what I do for the randoms that swing by because they read a blog post or saw a TV show that wasn't entirely factual, and perhaps don't understand just how truly shaky the whole story is.
Some have said the same thing about me - that I'm stuck in my beliefs and those beliefs cannot be changed. That's incorrect. My beliefs are very easy to change. In this case, all that they have to do to convince me that a treasure exists is to recover a treasure. Not "find," not "prove," not "be absolutely sure of", but to actually
recover the treasure...as in, it can be touched and seen.
Until then, we're arguing about angels and pinheads. More on this later.
I say to that, where is your proof to back that statement up?
I can turn this around. Where is the proof that there's a treasure there in the first place?
Again, I can't prove that a treasure is not there. I can only prove that one is. The folks arguing for the existence of a treasure have the burden of proof on them. That's not a cop out. It's just normally impossible to disprove the existence of something. I can (and do) point out logical flaws in theories and debunk accepted facts, but I cannot disprove a buried treasure. On the other hand, it's quite easy to conclusively prove the existence of a treasure...but someone has to dig that treasure up in order to do so, and to date, no one has, but certainly not for lack of trying.
There are certain people on here that say the Templars buried treasure there. They then provide all kinds of documentation. Rather than debunk the documentation or provide counter-documentation, the debunker attacks the presenter. Why does that keep happening?
Since you mentioned it, I will as well: the Templar theory is an example of what happens when someone gets an idea and then attempts to find evidence to prove it, rather than evaluating the evidence and then forming a theory to explain it. Evaluating the evidence (such as it is, or is believed to be) supports the original pirate treasure theory, even though pirates seldom if ever buried their treasure. One must discard a lot of the existing "evidence" (including the original story, and thus the whole reason why anyone took any interest in Oak Island in the first place!) and engage in some serious speculation to make the Templar thing work. And even then, I still can't think of a good reason to bury something that deep, so we're still left with bad logic.
Why do people get attacked here? I don't think that this happens very much. The mods don't tolerate it. However, my own bias may be causing me to miss it when it happens, so I'll take it for granted that it's a thing. It may be because the debunker has debunked the same set of "facts" on a weekly basis for years, often presented by the same people. At that point, it's a people problem, not a documentation problem. The fact that people are forming theories about what's buried and who put it there, when nothing has been found and no strong evidence exists to suggest that something is there in the first place...well, it's all a bit silly when you think about it. The theories about what's there and how it got there are probably better saved for when that "what" is actually found. Otherwise, we're discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and what color their wings are. When I point out that we haven't found a pin and that angels probably don't exist, that's not me being a jerk; that's me thinking critically and asking questions that ought to be asked. Solid theories survive peer review.
I don't recall being unduly harsh on anyone, but I would not be surprised in the least if I have been. Point out a specific example and I'll explain why I said what I said.
