Is there a way to avoid automatically updating Rails timestamp fields?

Do this in a migration or in a rake task (or in the new database seeds if you're on edge rails):

ActiveRecord::Base.record_timestamps = false
begin
  run_the_code_that_imports_the_data
ensure
  ActiveRecord::Base.record_timestamps = true  # don't forget to enable it again!
end

You can safely set created_at and updated_at manually, Rails won't complain.

Note: This also works on individual models, e.g. User.record_timestamps = false

use update_column method instead:

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Persistence.html#method-i-update_column

update_column(name, value)
# Updates a single attribute of an object, without calling save.

Validation is skipped.

Callbacks are skipped.

updated_at/updated_on column is not updated if that column is available.

Raises an ActiveRecordError when called on new objects, or when the name attribute is marked as readonly.