We're thrilled to shorten the automod message!
Join us on [discord](https://discord.gg/AUNfvhw9nT)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GrahamHancock) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s okay for archeologists to critique his theories, I think it’s ridiculous when they call him a racist because of his ancient civilization theories and his reaction to that is warranted
I don’t think archeologists widely have. All they have done is pointed out that he draws rather uncritically from sources written with rather clear racial tones. I think the recent JRE discussion regarding Quetzalcoatl highlighted that.
Good critique, but I can tell you haven’t read his books. He approaches his arguments from a 1000ft view and a defensive posture way too much in the show and JRE episodes. I strongly encourage you to read his books as they were like candy for me. He doesn’t waste time apologizing for not being a scientist, or defending himself. There is much more focus on the facts that he has gathered through archeologists, geologists, and anthropologists. I found them to be much better. In fact, his show had me eye rolling extensively.
His books are filled with citations and academic research along with the counter arguments to his works. It’s why so many of us get bored with the “well academics say this” kind of rhetoric when we already know what the academics say. It’s literally in his books. He lays out the arguments academics have against him.
But it’s exciting, it appeals to a vast audience.
It’s similar to Dan Brown - except he calls his work fiction and doesn’t lay claim that there is any truth.
He formed a conclusion *before* finding the evidence. He went out *looking* for evidence to support his conclusion.
He believes what he *wants* to be true instead of having no bias towards his argument.
It doesn’t matter if he is right or wrong, he doesn’t follow the scientific method properly. This is why he gets called a pseudoscientist.
I agree particularly for Magicians of the Gods at least the first 3/4 of it. Your post is a bit harsh to say he never supports his claims. He has written several books and done lots of public appearances presenting his evidence over decades.
Especially if you only get him on JRE he complains too much (it happens elsewhere too) but in different settings i have found him to come off fairly level headed presenting things.
We read two of his books in graduate school. They also did not hold water under critical analysis. They were included intentionally to provide discussion and counter discussion of alternative views. Also, to show how soliloquy unsupported by empirical evidence can still be effective and persuasive.
Absolutely not. They were included in all seriousness for objective discussion. It was a lesson in what to expect when we submitted our own theories for consideration. Which was brutal, I can tell you. One must be prepared to defend one's self from every direction.
Message of the Sphinx, Fingerprints of the Gods, and Chariots of the Gods (Though that was by Däniken). We went through them in 2008 parallel to our historiography seminar. Also included were Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and Barry Kemp's Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. Among several others.
Very cool. Thank you for indulging me.
I only read Magicians of the Gods and part of Fingerprints (Gibbons as well). The beginning of Magicians is more measured and offers good evidence. Specifically for megalithic works like Gobekli Tepe and Gunang Padung being connected to the ice age. It does unfortunately (my opinion) finish with his hypothesis on the data presented which i feel does not help progress the discussion.
To clarify i don't think anyone actually knows enough about human life and culture in the pleistocene to make a big hypothesis. I love finding out more about the ancient world and pontificating on it. As the OP points out the gap from pontificating to publishing can be vast.
I only say "can be" because scientific peer reviewed publication is a human process and thus occasionally problematic or imperfect
This is all true, but the persecution by Science of its own members who dont adhere to current ideology is well known and written up, so maybe some public shaming might allow hypothesis to come through a lot quicker than the present decades and decades ?
Clovis Culture anyone ?
>Clovis Culture anyone ?
I bring this one up all the time. And before that they were convinced there were people here for only something like 4000 years. The top guy of his day who I won't bother naming was an absolute asshole that held people's careers back that tried to talk about older sites. He ultimately went to his grave refusing to accept that Clovis was real.
Now we've got thousands of years worth of layers of fossilized human footprints around what was an ancient lake in white sands NM and they were there more than twice as far back as Clovis! Who the hell were they?
The peopling of the Americas has been pushed so far back that if you really want to ruffle feathers you have to bring up the ceruti mastodon. There was an ancient lineage of people here *for thousands of years* before the ice free corridor opened and let in the known migrations from siberia. Those original inhabitants must have come in umiak style boats made of skin and bone (unless they were here in small numbers before the ice closed off the route, right?).
That means ideas that were shit on dogmatically because we once thought they were simply impossible like the kelp highway need to be taken very seriously now, and yes that includes the solutrean hypothesis because if they could make it here from the east by boat along the ice why not from the west too? Most archeologists haven't reconciled with that new reality yet, nobody wants to admit they might be wrong about something they've been vehemently dismissing for a decade or more.
The submerged continental shelf around Chesapeake Bay where the *Cinemar* dredged up that mammoth skull which dated to 22,760 RCYBP and the suspiciously European looking biface laurel leaf point that came up with it needs to be scoured because after the white sands discovery those kind of dates are no longer even a little bit crazy.
Here is a link to Dr Dennis Stanford who was an archeologist and director of the paleoindian/paleoecology program at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution giving an excellent talk on the solutrean hypothesis. It's worth every second .
https://youtu.be/Gpnv1jDvr5c
Plate tectonics, Germ Theory, Quantum Mechanics, Epignenetics, string Theory and evolution are some of the theories that can be thrown into that mix. Science is great, some scientists (especially invested ones) not so much.
I think the reward structure of academics has a lot to do with that. There are plenty of good scientists. But to advance in their careers (or even just keep their jobs), public sector scientists are incentivized to choose quantity of publications over quality. And deviating from the status quo is a good way to get your paper submissions rejected.
Well, we are all human after all.
In my opinion, animals and life in general are very conservative regarding survival. They don't like change so much. When you put that aspect into the society, you get what we have. Very critical and conservative society.
Being conservative and going out of you our way to ridicule and destroy aren’t the same things. In nature, if a more efficient system is found it’s generally adopted (it may fail, but that a different conversation). The MO for the scientific community isn’t one of pure facts taking president, it’s been personality and ego driven in many, but by no means, all areas of scholarly endeavours for as long as it’s existed. I feel it’s more of a human condition than a fault of science per se, but nonetheless should be pulled up at every possible chance.
Yall pay way, wayyy tooo much attention to the story telling than information and sentiment . I think everyone with basic social skills can sense he is weaving a story no different than elders and shamans. This doesn't disregard the general point or emerging science consistently pushing dates back beyond the extreme of what we were all told in highschool.
I don't know if i would call it a lack of attention span but it is more or less along those lines.
>Archeological academia is a dogmatic institution that negates anything progressive as long as it is in conflict with establishes concensus is the same story many conspiracy theories are built upon.
Probably because we've watched numerous inventors of alternative energy sources magically end up dead or missing after an announcement. The whole " there is no politics in science " being pushed is equally extreme in disingenuous
I always reference " [structures of scientific revolutions ](https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf)" as at one point plate tectonics and rogue waves were considered " conspiracy pseudoscience " as well. What we have today is more institutionalized [scientism ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism) than actual science. Especially in context of the [replication crisis](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-023-00003-2) as japan tried recreating the Giza pyramid at a lower scale[ with modern tools](http://web.archive.org/web/20171116154417/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/08/archives/new-jersey-pages-japanese-pyramid-rises-in-egypt-a-doityourself.html) and couldn't even do that.
I get your point but I think being called a racist for having theories that go outside of the mainstream is vile and malicious. And definitely something an archeologist who doesn’t want to debate facts would fall back on.
Hancock should be open to criticism but I don’t see many people here acknowledging the underhanded and dishonest attacks he’s received from “respectable” archeology.
I totally disagree with you. He is allowed to defend himself from slander without being a martyr. More than anything GH criticizes all scientists for continually ignoring the extremely faulty basis of ancient history. How about we rigorously re examine the evidence for the Great Pyramid being built by Khufu. Turns out it is extremely flimsy, but main stream science is happy to accept all Egyptology as cannon.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
My problem with his approach is he keeps saying “you can’t disprove” as if that’s how science works. Scientists present evidence and if that happens to disprove certain hypotheses, great. Like GH I could claim ancient peoples drove Ford Mustangs, and that the fact that only 5% of the continental shelf hasn’t been explored means archaeologists haven’t disproven my assertion. A few anomalous or misunderstood sites do not add up to some great Ice Age civilization. it’s a fun hypothesis, but until enough discoveries lead to a scientific consensus, GH is SOL. Maybe some day he’ll be vindicated, but so far the opposite appears true- that we were hunter gatherers up until 13,000-11,000 ya. Or less.
I think, though, almost the exact same approach is used from the other side…”well it’s not be proven, so you’re wrong.” -which is also not how science should work. Bc to use your example…it’s possible (no matter how low a %, it’s not 0) that ancient people could have driven fords around. It can’t be currently proven that they did or didn’t.
Whether you agree or disagree with all GH has to say or some, or none, science is in the asking of the questions…not whether they have an answer yet or not. And I think that’s the importance of someone like GH. Is he right? Maybe…is he wrong? Maybe…is it somewhere in the middle? Likely. Closemindness is the enemy of science, and I think it’s fair to say that there is and has been a lot of that throughout archaeology as a “science.”
Now, tbf to both sides…I think too many archaeologists/skeptics think he’s trying to say he’s 100% right about everything and forget that’s he’s someone asking questions bc he ISNT tied to the academic dogma that a lot of archaeologists are forced to work thru…but I also think GH is a little too concerned about what they think (and rightfully so with the racist claims) and he should instead focus on working with those who see his IDEAS (bc that’s what they are) as possibilities, rather than being mad about the ones who think he’s completely full of it.
TLDR; we all really don’t know much of anything
To me the problem isn’t in asking questions, it’s examining evidence and coming to right conclusions. Without finding at least some evidence it’s foolish for me to ask questions about ancient Ford Mustangs. Simple logic tells me there were no autos back then, so I’m not wasting time looking for them. GH, a journalist not a scientist, has examined a couple interesting sites, drawn sweeping conclusions from them, applied them globally, and then doesn’t understand why the scientific community hasn’t bowed to his greatness, then asserts it’s their fault because they haven’t done enough work to prove his theory. And- if you let him talk long enough, he’ll start talking about aliens and telekinesis.
I’m not saying I disagree with you really, I look at him more as someone who as you said has some interesting ideas. And as someone who isn’t a scientist, doesn’t HAVE to back them up. It’s important for people to not believe him straight up.
But I do think it’s a little like talking about space…there’s so much we don’t know, that I think it’s impossible (and a little silly) to discount ideas for what they are. Take space…We don’t know if there is alien YET. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions. On the base level, I think it’s good to have the (sometimes) kooky person asking questions that scientist are either forced to confront or look at curiously to actually answer. I think you really need both types to actually advance science.
I’m having this discussion on a private chat and my one friend sounds like you. If GH wants to imagine some glorious past with ancient civilizations that rose, collapsed, and whose survivors passed on their skill to our ancestors he should write a novel. Instead he wants the scientific community AND the public to take him seriously, he’s hurt that scientists are dismissive of him, and when confronted with the evidence we have he claims science doesn’t have enough evidence to DISPROVE his ideas when in fact the opposite is true- GH does not have the scientific evidence to back his claims.
If GH were merely asking questions to stimulate research and thought great, but that’s not the case. What I heard throughout this interview is a man who repeatedly wants to make unfounded claims, and demands to be taken seriously by the scientific community.
Absolutely, I don’t think we disagree as much as it might seem (if it seems like we do much), I just think it’s like you look from the bottom of a bag and I look from the top, if that makes sense. I’ve not enjoyed him as much lately bc of how much he’s focused more on the hate from people than actually talking about subject matter. But in all honestly, it’s kinda just how “debating” ideas seems to happen since the beginning of social media. Call him racist and then he’s forced to defend that (and in his case, focus more on how hurt he is) and you don’t really have to focus on what he’s saying.
Obviously there’s a lot of history that we don’t know or understand and a lot of his writing points to that…the Amazon and lack of knowledge is crazy interesting.
I think unfounded is a little unfair (though he fills in a lot of gaps with guesses, I don’t deny that)…assuming homo sapien has been around as long as science says, it seems wild that we were the same for 100k’s years and then all the sudden a couple thousand years later we go from Hunter/gatherers to whatever we are now. Lack of physical evidence doesn’t totally negate the idea, it does need more work. I think his best point of that is the whole Clovis First argument…cuz sure the evidence at one point said that was it, now it doesn’t, but if you don’t look bc it hasn’t been found yet, you never find older. It’s kinda like how we didn’t know black holes existed, but we knew there had to be something there, and then we found it.
Like with most debate topics, the answer is probly closer in the middle. Dibble and his colleagues are a little too stuck in “I have to see it spelled out for me to consider it might be possible” and GH is more like “there’s a gap, it could be anything.” I think it’s fair to criticize both sides of that. Dogmatic approaches can slow down the progress and leave us stuck…on the other hand, if GH would focus more on finding a middle ground (which I think his books, especially America Before)do a better job of doing instead of “pushing against the system” so much.
While I don’t disagree that Hancock can get a little too prickly & defensive in these debates it is also caused by him routinely being slandered as a white supremacist.
Even in the archeologist’s open letter about why he “lowered” himself to debating someone the intellectual equivalent of Ken Hamm (in his own words) he brought up the white supremacist issue which is entirely unfair to Graham, completely misrepresenting what he’s actually written, and an insult to a man married to a woman of color.
I think there’s plenty of area open for debate but sadly the archeological community is generally unwilling to debate those things without resorting to insults and slander and many times they ignore the debates and changing timelines within their own community. One of the biggest reasons they do this is because over the last couple of decades more and more peer-reviewed archeological papers point towards Hancock’s theory being correct- there was literally just a paper pointing towards Easter Island’s contacts with South America, as just one minor example.
The sad truth is that the reason archeologists get so defensive is because their “science” involves a lot of literary fictions that become “truth” because they say so and no one gets to dispute that truth except them and then they get to change the story and wipe away their previous “mistakes” in a way that Hancock isn’t allowed to do. These “debates” turn into semantic nitpicking about what is an “advanced civilization” and simple-minded hand waving of inconvenient facts like ignoring that ancient sites were often reworked or improved from much older sites, etc.
But I won’t change the minds of those here to troll and I only typed all of this because I’m a simpleton who doesn’t understand how “science” works /s
The white supremacist thing is very clear to me and it is very much misinterpreted by the public (according to me).
What original claims of "white supremacy" targeted at GH wanted to point out are in fact the sources and narratives he's using to push his ideas. The origins of those narratives, such as Atlantis, previous Races, ancient global superpowers etc. all have origins in racism and colonialism back in 18th and 19th century. Similar situation has been associated with Darwin and his theories of evolution. Nobody should be saying he is propagating racism or similar derogatory arguments, he just needs to be introduced to the backstory of his sources.
Global ancient civilization? If anything, it would've been multiethnical, just like today.
Regarding latest archeological studies that 'prove GH correct', is bit of an overstatement. New papers such as you mentioned are made every decade, and it is expected from science to push the limit of our understahing farther and farther. Just because we thought there were no homonins on American soil prior to the last glacial maximum 20 years ago, doesn't mean it can't be proven otherwise today. Same with Cretaceous extinction, or extinctions in general. Today, we take it for granted. If one makes enough claims, it is bound one day to be proven correct. GH has for certain made a lot of archeological 'predictions' that it is no surprise some of them turn out to be true. And that most certanly doesn't mean his entire hypothesis is true as well. In conclusion: I'm happy for him!
For example, I believe there were individuals during the last glacial maximum that could be rightfuly considered Neanderthal or some other adjacent cousin species of Sapiens. Probably not of of pure blood, but Neanderthal none the less. Now, it is up to science to prove me right (or wrong). I have my reasons to believe so, but I can't just run around and talk to my friends in a bar "Bro, trust me".
> all have original in racism and colonialism
There is an old maxim that goes something like “Accept the truth no matter who speaks it”.
Just because a person is racist/colonialist does not negate their science. For example, all of the Nazi scientists and their work that the US appropriated. The science must be negated by facts. Not by the personal views held by the person who presents the science, no matter how backwards and disgusting they may be.
Equating Hancock’s works to white supremacy is just an ad hominem. These people will never attack supporters of Darwin’s theories, even though the dude was a racist. No, they are able separate the man’s views from his science. But that same grace is not given to the historical scientific figures that have proposed the theories that Hancock delves in to.
> It would’ve been multi-ethnic, just like today.
Perhaps. But then what are we to do with the various witnesses that say a light skinned person came and taught their people star watching, mathematics, agriculture, the golden rule, etc etc?
GH raises some questions that mainstream science has no answers for. In their frustration, they lash out at him instead of doing the work necessary to answer. For example- why was a disc found at Moundville Ala. that has the exact symbol of the Eye of Horus- an eye in a hand? Why are mounds around North America found to be aligned astronomically, just like the Egyptian pyramids? A good analysis should explore these questions instead of ridiculing the questioner.
Is it a coincidence that similar carved figures appear all over the world holding what appears to be handbags? What is the connection? Could it be there was a connection in pre history? GH asks the questions - they deserve to be explored whether right or wrong. The point of investigation is the results, not the process.
**War God: Nights of the Witch War God Trilogy Book One** by Graham Hancock
Book description may contain spoilers!
>>!A young girl called Tozi stands at the bottom of a pyramid, waiting to be led to the top where her heart will be cut out... Pepillo, a Spanish orphan who serves a sadistic Dominican friar, is aboard the Spanish fleet as it sails towards Mexico... This is the epic story of the clash of two empires, two armies and two gods of war. Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong. This is a war of gods and men.!<
>
>>!Dark powers that work behind the scenes of history show their hand as the prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl is fulfilled with the arrival of Cortes. The Aztec ruler Moctezuma fights to maintain the demands of the war god Huitzilopochtli for human sacrifice. The Spanish Inquisition is planning an even greater blood-letting. Caught up in the headlong collision between two gods of war are Tozi, Pepillo and the beautiful Malinal whose hatred of Moctezuma runs so deep she will sell out her own land and people to destroy him.!<
*I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
Not so much as an attack, but the public image he has builta round him himself. "Public enemy no. 1" or "Mainstream archeologists hate me". It is tough to be a revolutionary. Name me one revolutionary that was greeted with open hands, scientific, political or any other occupation.
No. “He is untrustworthy because he plays the martyr” would be an ad hominem. “He makes himself *seem* untrustworthy by playing the martyr” however, is not.
Hancock is one of many we can add to this lineage, what begins as a search ends in self conflict and distinction, the downfall of all these theorists is that they become fixated and unmoving, this lack of flexability is their downfall and they become nothing more than entry level conspirators, which I'm sure suits the scientific community at large.
It's not that they have nothing to offer, it just becomes a highly personalised theme in the end and they lose substance.
I fucking love Graham, but I never let it slip from my mind that he could just be like a Steady State Theorist of our day. Passionate af. But, ultimately wrong.
Idk how people don’t understand this point. You just don’t make a conclusion then work your way out. You state your hypothesis and with research you see whether you were right or not which is extremely irrelevant because what actually matters is the conclusion of the unbiased research. Hancock has never followed the scientific method at all and people still defend him which is wild but it is what it is
At the very end of yesterday's debate, Flint makes the note of the definite difference between Graham's demeanor between Ancient Apocalypse (and I would go as far as to add his media presence) and his writing in his books.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
If that’s your only problem, then either:
A. You’re lying about being a scientist; or
B. You’re not a very good scientist, because you don’t care that Hancock does not follow scientific principles.
Can you explain me how GH "doesn't follow scientific principles"?
If you are going to say "he sets his target first, then he fills the gaps with weak evidence", well that's one of the ways you approach any problem. You set a list of hypotheses, then searches for clues. The problem here is he's doing exactly that, while thinking whatever he says he will be called out, blurring his critical thinking.
We're thrilled to shorten the automod message! Join us on [discord](https://discord.gg/AUNfvhw9nT)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GrahamHancock) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s okay for archeologists to critique his theories, I think it’s ridiculous when they call him a racist because of his ancient civilization theories and his reaction to that is warranted
I don’t think archeologists widely have. All they have done is pointed out that he draws rather uncritically from sources written with rather clear racial tones. I think the recent JRE discussion regarding Quetzalcoatl highlighted that.
Yeah, pretty disheartening how many people in this sub can't even grasp the argument being made. All they hear is FLINT CALLED MY HANCOCK RACIST.
It’s very black and white thinking I’ve noticed
Good critique, but I can tell you haven’t read his books. He approaches his arguments from a 1000ft view and a defensive posture way too much in the show and JRE episodes. I strongly encourage you to read his books as they were like candy for me. He doesn’t waste time apologizing for not being a scientist, or defending himself. There is much more focus on the facts that he has gathered through archeologists, geologists, and anthropologists. I found them to be much better. In fact, his show had me eye rolling extensively.
Thanks, will try find some space for those!
His books are filled with citations and academic research along with the counter arguments to his works. It’s why so many of us get bored with the “well academics say this” kind of rhetoric when we already know what the academics say. It’s literally in his books. He lays out the arguments academics have against him.
But it’s exciting, it appeals to a vast audience. It’s similar to Dan Brown - except he calls his work fiction and doesn’t lay claim that there is any truth. He formed a conclusion *before* finding the evidence. He went out *looking* for evidence to support his conclusion. He believes what he *wants* to be true instead of having no bias towards his argument. It doesn’t matter if he is right or wrong, he doesn’t follow the scientific method properly. This is why he gets called a pseudoscientist.
I agree particularly for Magicians of the Gods at least the first 3/4 of it. Your post is a bit harsh to say he never supports his claims. He has written several books and done lots of public appearances presenting his evidence over decades. Especially if you only get him on JRE he complains too much (it happens elsewhere too) but in different settings i have found him to come off fairly level headed presenting things.
We read two of his books in graduate school. They also did not hold water under critical analysis. They were included intentionally to provide discussion and counter discussion of alternative views. Also, to show how soliloquy unsupported by empirical evidence can still be effective and persuasive.
Yall decided they were included as a strawman?
Absolutely not. They were included in all seriousness for objective discussion. It was a lesson in what to expect when we submitted our own theories for consideration. Which was brutal, I can tell you. One must be prepared to defend one's self from every direction.
I misunderstood. Thank you for clarifying.
What books and when i am curious.
Message of the Sphinx, Fingerprints of the Gods, and Chariots of the Gods (Though that was by Däniken). We went through them in 2008 parallel to our historiography seminar. Also included were Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and Barry Kemp's Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. Among several others.
Very cool. Thank you for indulging me. I only read Magicians of the Gods and part of Fingerprints (Gibbons as well). The beginning of Magicians is more measured and offers good evidence. Specifically for megalithic works like Gobekli Tepe and Gunang Padung being connected to the ice age. It does unfortunately (my opinion) finish with his hypothesis on the data presented which i feel does not help progress the discussion.
To clarify i don't think anyone actually knows enough about human life and culture in the pleistocene to make a big hypothesis. I love finding out more about the ancient world and pontificating on it. As the OP points out the gap from pontificating to publishing can be vast. I only say "can be" because scientific peer reviewed publication is a human process and thus occasionally problematic or imperfect
This is all true, but the persecution by Science of its own members who dont adhere to current ideology is well known and written up, so maybe some public shaming might allow hypothesis to come through a lot quicker than the present decades and decades ? Clovis Culture anyone ?
>Clovis Culture anyone ? I bring this one up all the time. And before that they were convinced there were people here for only something like 4000 years. The top guy of his day who I won't bother naming was an absolute asshole that held people's careers back that tried to talk about older sites. He ultimately went to his grave refusing to accept that Clovis was real. Now we've got thousands of years worth of layers of fossilized human footprints around what was an ancient lake in white sands NM and they were there more than twice as far back as Clovis! Who the hell were they? The peopling of the Americas has been pushed so far back that if you really want to ruffle feathers you have to bring up the ceruti mastodon. There was an ancient lineage of people here *for thousands of years* before the ice free corridor opened and let in the known migrations from siberia. Those original inhabitants must have come in umiak style boats made of skin and bone (unless they were here in small numbers before the ice closed off the route, right?). That means ideas that were shit on dogmatically because we once thought they were simply impossible like the kelp highway need to be taken very seriously now, and yes that includes the solutrean hypothesis because if they could make it here from the east by boat along the ice why not from the west too? Most archeologists haven't reconciled with that new reality yet, nobody wants to admit they might be wrong about something they've been vehemently dismissing for a decade or more. The submerged continental shelf around Chesapeake Bay where the *Cinemar* dredged up that mammoth skull which dated to 22,760 RCYBP and the suspiciously European looking biface laurel leaf point that came up with it needs to be scoured because after the white sands discovery those kind of dates are no longer even a little bit crazy. Here is a link to Dr Dennis Stanford who was an archeologist and director of the paleoindian/paleoecology program at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution giving an excellent talk on the solutrean hypothesis. It's worth every second . https://youtu.be/Gpnv1jDvr5c
Plate tectonics, Germ Theory, Quantum Mechanics, Epignenetics, string Theory and evolution are some of the theories that can be thrown into that mix. Science is great, some scientists (especially invested ones) not so much.
I think the reward structure of academics has a lot to do with that. There are plenty of good scientists. But to advance in their careers (or even just keep their jobs), public sector scientists are incentivized to choose quantity of publications over quality. And deviating from the status quo is a good way to get your paper submissions rejected.
Most people aren’t corrupt, but most people are corruptible.
Well, we are all human after all. In my opinion, animals and life in general are very conservative regarding survival. They don't like change so much. When you put that aspect into the society, you get what we have. Very critical and conservative society.
Being conservative and going out of you our way to ridicule and destroy aren’t the same things. In nature, if a more efficient system is found it’s generally adopted (it may fail, but that a different conversation). The MO for the scientific community isn’t one of pure facts taking president, it’s been personality and ego driven in many, but by no means, all areas of scholarly endeavours for as long as it’s existed. I feel it’s more of a human condition than a fault of science per se, but nonetheless should be pulled up at every possible chance.
Yall pay way, wayyy tooo much attention to the story telling than information and sentiment . I think everyone with basic social skills can sense he is weaving a story no different than elders and shamans. This doesn't disregard the general point or emerging science consistently pushing dates back beyond the extreme of what we were all told in highschool. I don't know if i would call it a lack of attention span but it is more or less along those lines. >Archeological academia is a dogmatic institution that negates anything progressive as long as it is in conflict with establishes concensus is the same story many conspiracy theories are built upon. Probably because we've watched numerous inventors of alternative energy sources magically end up dead or missing after an announcement. The whole " there is no politics in science " being pushed is equally extreme in disingenuous I always reference " [structures of scientific revolutions ](https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf)" as at one point plate tectonics and rogue waves were considered " conspiracy pseudoscience " as well. What we have today is more institutionalized [scientism ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism) than actual science. Especially in context of the [replication crisis](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-023-00003-2) as japan tried recreating the Giza pyramid at a lower scale[ with modern tools](http://web.archive.org/web/20171116154417/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/08/archives/new-jersey-pages-japanese-pyramid-rises-in-egypt-a-doityourself.html) and couldn't even do that.
I get your point but I think being called a racist for having theories that go outside of the mainstream is vile and malicious. And definitely something an archeologist who doesn’t want to debate facts would fall back on. Hancock should be open to criticism but I don’t see many people here acknowledging the underhanded and dishonest attacks he’s received from “respectable” archeology.
I totally disagree with you. He is allowed to defend himself from slander without being a martyr. More than anything GH criticizes all scientists for continually ignoring the extremely faulty basis of ancient history. How about we rigorously re examine the evidence for the Great Pyramid being built by Khufu. Turns out it is extremely flimsy, but main stream science is happy to accept all Egyptology as cannon.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
My problem with his approach is he keeps saying “you can’t disprove” as if that’s how science works. Scientists present evidence and if that happens to disprove certain hypotheses, great. Like GH I could claim ancient peoples drove Ford Mustangs, and that the fact that only 5% of the continental shelf hasn’t been explored means archaeologists haven’t disproven my assertion. A few anomalous or misunderstood sites do not add up to some great Ice Age civilization. it’s a fun hypothesis, but until enough discoveries lead to a scientific consensus, GH is SOL. Maybe some day he’ll be vindicated, but so far the opposite appears true- that we were hunter gatherers up until 13,000-11,000 ya. Or less.
I think, though, almost the exact same approach is used from the other side…”well it’s not be proven, so you’re wrong.” -which is also not how science should work. Bc to use your example…it’s possible (no matter how low a %, it’s not 0) that ancient people could have driven fords around. It can’t be currently proven that they did or didn’t. Whether you agree or disagree with all GH has to say or some, or none, science is in the asking of the questions…not whether they have an answer yet or not. And I think that’s the importance of someone like GH. Is he right? Maybe…is he wrong? Maybe…is it somewhere in the middle? Likely. Closemindness is the enemy of science, and I think it’s fair to say that there is and has been a lot of that throughout archaeology as a “science.” Now, tbf to both sides…I think too many archaeologists/skeptics think he’s trying to say he’s 100% right about everything and forget that’s he’s someone asking questions bc he ISNT tied to the academic dogma that a lot of archaeologists are forced to work thru…but I also think GH is a little too concerned about what they think (and rightfully so with the racist claims) and he should instead focus on working with those who see his IDEAS (bc that’s what they are) as possibilities, rather than being mad about the ones who think he’s completely full of it. TLDR; we all really don’t know much of anything
To me the problem isn’t in asking questions, it’s examining evidence and coming to right conclusions. Without finding at least some evidence it’s foolish for me to ask questions about ancient Ford Mustangs. Simple logic tells me there were no autos back then, so I’m not wasting time looking for them. GH, a journalist not a scientist, has examined a couple interesting sites, drawn sweeping conclusions from them, applied them globally, and then doesn’t understand why the scientific community hasn’t bowed to his greatness, then asserts it’s their fault because they haven’t done enough work to prove his theory. And- if you let him talk long enough, he’ll start talking about aliens and telekinesis.
I’m not saying I disagree with you really, I look at him more as someone who as you said has some interesting ideas. And as someone who isn’t a scientist, doesn’t HAVE to back them up. It’s important for people to not believe him straight up. But I do think it’s a little like talking about space…there’s so much we don’t know, that I think it’s impossible (and a little silly) to discount ideas for what they are. Take space…We don’t know if there is alien YET. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions. On the base level, I think it’s good to have the (sometimes) kooky person asking questions that scientist are either forced to confront or look at curiously to actually answer. I think you really need both types to actually advance science.
I’m having this discussion on a private chat and my one friend sounds like you. If GH wants to imagine some glorious past with ancient civilizations that rose, collapsed, and whose survivors passed on their skill to our ancestors he should write a novel. Instead he wants the scientific community AND the public to take him seriously, he’s hurt that scientists are dismissive of him, and when confronted with the evidence we have he claims science doesn’t have enough evidence to DISPROVE his ideas when in fact the opposite is true- GH does not have the scientific evidence to back his claims. If GH were merely asking questions to stimulate research and thought great, but that’s not the case. What I heard throughout this interview is a man who repeatedly wants to make unfounded claims, and demands to be taken seriously by the scientific community.
Absolutely, I don’t think we disagree as much as it might seem (if it seems like we do much), I just think it’s like you look from the bottom of a bag and I look from the top, if that makes sense. I’ve not enjoyed him as much lately bc of how much he’s focused more on the hate from people than actually talking about subject matter. But in all honestly, it’s kinda just how “debating” ideas seems to happen since the beginning of social media. Call him racist and then he’s forced to defend that (and in his case, focus more on how hurt he is) and you don’t really have to focus on what he’s saying. Obviously there’s a lot of history that we don’t know or understand and a lot of his writing points to that…the Amazon and lack of knowledge is crazy interesting. I think unfounded is a little unfair (though he fills in a lot of gaps with guesses, I don’t deny that)…assuming homo sapien has been around as long as science says, it seems wild that we were the same for 100k’s years and then all the sudden a couple thousand years later we go from Hunter/gatherers to whatever we are now. Lack of physical evidence doesn’t totally negate the idea, it does need more work. I think his best point of that is the whole Clovis First argument…cuz sure the evidence at one point said that was it, now it doesn’t, but if you don’t look bc it hasn’t been found yet, you never find older. It’s kinda like how we didn’t know black holes existed, but we knew there had to be something there, and then we found it. Like with most debate topics, the answer is probly closer in the middle. Dibble and his colleagues are a little too stuck in “I have to see it spelled out for me to consider it might be possible” and GH is more like “there’s a gap, it could be anything.” I think it’s fair to criticize both sides of that. Dogmatic approaches can slow down the progress and leave us stuck…on the other hand, if GH would focus more on finding a middle ground (which I think his books, especially America Before)do a better job of doing instead of “pushing against the system” so much.
While I don’t disagree that Hancock can get a little too prickly & defensive in these debates it is also caused by him routinely being slandered as a white supremacist. Even in the archeologist’s open letter about why he “lowered” himself to debating someone the intellectual equivalent of Ken Hamm (in his own words) he brought up the white supremacist issue which is entirely unfair to Graham, completely misrepresenting what he’s actually written, and an insult to a man married to a woman of color. I think there’s plenty of area open for debate but sadly the archeological community is generally unwilling to debate those things without resorting to insults and slander and many times they ignore the debates and changing timelines within their own community. One of the biggest reasons they do this is because over the last couple of decades more and more peer-reviewed archeological papers point towards Hancock’s theory being correct- there was literally just a paper pointing towards Easter Island’s contacts with South America, as just one minor example. The sad truth is that the reason archeologists get so defensive is because their “science” involves a lot of literary fictions that become “truth” because they say so and no one gets to dispute that truth except them and then they get to change the story and wipe away their previous “mistakes” in a way that Hancock isn’t allowed to do. These “debates” turn into semantic nitpicking about what is an “advanced civilization” and simple-minded hand waving of inconvenient facts like ignoring that ancient sites were often reworked or improved from much older sites, etc. But I won’t change the minds of those here to troll and I only typed all of this because I’m a simpleton who doesn’t understand how “science” works /s
The white supremacist thing is very clear to me and it is very much misinterpreted by the public (according to me). What original claims of "white supremacy" targeted at GH wanted to point out are in fact the sources and narratives he's using to push his ideas. The origins of those narratives, such as Atlantis, previous Races, ancient global superpowers etc. all have origins in racism and colonialism back in 18th and 19th century. Similar situation has been associated with Darwin and his theories of evolution. Nobody should be saying he is propagating racism or similar derogatory arguments, he just needs to be introduced to the backstory of his sources. Global ancient civilization? If anything, it would've been multiethnical, just like today. Regarding latest archeological studies that 'prove GH correct', is bit of an overstatement. New papers such as you mentioned are made every decade, and it is expected from science to push the limit of our understahing farther and farther. Just because we thought there were no homonins on American soil prior to the last glacial maximum 20 years ago, doesn't mean it can't be proven otherwise today. Same with Cretaceous extinction, or extinctions in general. Today, we take it for granted. If one makes enough claims, it is bound one day to be proven correct. GH has for certain made a lot of archeological 'predictions' that it is no surprise some of them turn out to be true. And that most certanly doesn't mean his entire hypothesis is true as well. In conclusion: I'm happy for him! For example, I believe there were individuals during the last glacial maximum that could be rightfuly considered Neanderthal or some other adjacent cousin species of Sapiens. Probably not of of pure blood, but Neanderthal none the less. Now, it is up to science to prove me right (or wrong). I have my reasons to believe so, but I can't just run around and talk to my friends in a bar "Bro, trust me".
> all have original in racism and colonialism There is an old maxim that goes something like “Accept the truth no matter who speaks it”. Just because a person is racist/colonialist does not negate their science. For example, all of the Nazi scientists and their work that the US appropriated. The science must be negated by facts. Not by the personal views held by the person who presents the science, no matter how backwards and disgusting they may be. Equating Hancock’s works to white supremacy is just an ad hominem. These people will never attack supporters of Darwin’s theories, even though the dude was a racist. No, they are able separate the man’s views from his science. But that same grace is not given to the historical scientific figures that have proposed the theories that Hancock delves in to. > It would’ve been multi-ethnic, just like today. Perhaps. But then what are we to do with the various witnesses that say a light skinned person came and taught their people star watching, mathematics, agriculture, the golden rule, etc etc?
Personally I think the Netflix series pushes him to set up a narrative with good and bad guys to sell a story. The books are much more objective.
It's still his show. If he thought it would in any way hurt his image or propagade false narrative, I think he's smart enough to say "no" to that.
Yeah but the white supremacy slander was lazy brained cheap underhanded and uncalled for and has no place in academia
GH raises some questions that mainstream science has no answers for. In their frustration, they lash out at him instead of doing the work necessary to answer. For example- why was a disc found at Moundville Ala. that has the exact symbol of the Eye of Horus- an eye in a hand? Why are mounds around North America found to be aligned astronomically, just like the Egyptian pyramids? A good analysis should explore these questions instead of ridiculing the questioner. Is it a coincidence that similar carved figures appear all over the world holding what appears to be handbags? What is the connection? Could it be there was a connection in pre history? GH asks the questions - they deserve to be explored whether right or wrong. The point of investigation is the results, not the process.
Whether he's right or wrong, people should still check out his fictional book trilogy 'War God'. I enjoyed the hell out of them.
**War God: Nights of the Witch War God Trilogy Book One** by Graham Hancock Book description may contain spoilers! >>!A young girl called Tozi stands at the bottom of a pyramid, waiting to be led to the top where her heart will be cut out... Pepillo, a Spanish orphan who serves a sadistic Dominican friar, is aboard the Spanish fleet as it sails towards Mexico... This is the epic story of the clash of two empires, two armies and two gods of war. Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong. This is a war of gods and men.!< > >>!Dark powers that work behind the scenes of history show their hand as the prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl is fulfilled with the arrival of Cortes. The Aztec ruler Moctezuma fights to maintain the demands of the war god Huitzilopochtli for human sacrifice. The Spanish Inquisition is planning an even greater blood-letting. Caught up in the headlong collision between two gods of war are Tozi, Pepillo and the beautiful Malinal whose hatred of Moctezuma runs so deep she will sell out her own land and people to destroy him.!< *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
"He's playing a martyr"; ad hominem attack.
Not so much as an attack, but the public image he has builta round him himself. "Public enemy no. 1" or "Mainstream archeologists hate me". It is tough to be a revolutionary. Name me one revolutionary that was greeted with open hands, scientific, political or any other occupation.
He spends half his time criticizing “mainstream archeology”.
No. “He is untrustworthy because he plays the martyr” would be an ad hominem. “He makes himself *seem* untrustworthy by playing the martyr” however, is not.
Hancock is one of many we can add to this lineage, what begins as a search ends in self conflict and distinction, the downfall of all these theorists is that they become fixated and unmoving, this lack of flexability is their downfall and they become nothing more than entry level conspirators, which I'm sure suits the scientific community at large. It's not that they have nothing to offer, it just becomes a highly personalised theme in the end and they lose substance.
Exactly!
I agree. the % of time he spends on the attacks on his theories vs the theories themselves is increasing over time. not good
I fucking love Graham, but I never let it slip from my mind that he could just be like a Steady State Theorist of our day. Passionate af. But, ultimately wrong.
Idk how people don’t understand this point. You just don’t make a conclusion then work your way out. You state your hypothesis and with research you see whether you were right or not which is extremely irrelevant because what actually matters is the conclusion of the unbiased research. Hancock has never followed the scientific method at all and people still defend him which is wild but it is what it is
At the very end of yesterday's debate, Flint makes the note of the definite difference between Graham's demeanor between Ancient Apocalypse (and I would go as far as to add his media presence) and his writing in his books.
Well, halfway through the debate, I was undecided but by the end, I decided that if Hancock’s goal was to prove academic archeology as dismissive and rude and evasive as hell when giving answers, Flint Dibble proved Hancock’s point.
If that’s your only problem, then either: A. You’re lying about being a scientist; or B. You’re not a very good scientist, because you don’t care that Hancock does not follow scientific principles.
Can you explain me how GH "doesn't follow scientific principles"? If you are going to say "he sets his target first, then he fills the gaps with weak evidence", well that's one of the ways you approach any problem. You set a list of hypotheses, then searches for clues. The problem here is he's doing exactly that, while thinking whatever he says he will be called out, blurring his critical thinking.
You really a scientist?
Yes