Chinese Knew North America More Than 4000 Years Ago!

Statements in the humanities—fields of concern such as history and literary studies—are often unlike statements in the sciences. They are mostly specific and concrete, that is, unique and from in the past: “Chinese surveyors explored a part of West Texas about thirty centuries ago” or “in 1985, Rafaela Gonzales became the first known person to climb Guadalpue Peak” or “a majority of people in Hidalgo County speak Spanish as a first language.” Until somehow proven or verified, those statements cannot be accepted as fact.

In the sciences, important statements are often general and apply to many places and conditions and times—they are not unique. “Force is equal to mass times acceleration.” This is general and reproducible on demand. Like the humanities, science also deals with specific statements which can or can not be verified and are much more specific: “Four species of mistletoe grow in the Big Bend area” or “some three thousand years ago, the creeks of West Texas carried much more water than they do today..”

Any one of these statements must be verified or confirmed before it can be used as a statement of truth or fact. In general, and in the logic of the western world, a statement is verifiable if a test can be agreed on by which the statement could be falsified (whether stated in the affirmative or negative). Some scientists use the word “confirmation” when a statement is thus proven true. (1)