6 ms·

Graham Hancock talks about this on several of his Joe Rogan episodes.

by pieteradejong 6y ago

phreeza 6y ago
Graham Hancock always gave me a strong pseudoscience vibe, do you think he should be taken seriously?
- robbiep 6y ago
  He’s a great populariser of bullshit. Interesting theories but nothing over 30 years of building unsubstantiated theories out of thin threads of evidence that aren’t connected
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > He’s a great populariser of bullshit. Interesting theories but nothing over 30 years of building unsubstantiated theories out of thin threads of evidence that aren’t connected What about his work that led to the acceptance of the Younger Dryas period being a result of the asteroid impact, that was refuted in academia for so long that is now been proven with time? That revelation alone is worth more PhDs than most entire departments create in a decade!
    - robbiep 6y ago
      I’m not hugely familiar with his contributions to this, but if you throw 10,000 darts at a board, you get one bullseye. It doesn’t make you a genius. As another poster said, his theories are interesting (I spent several days as a teenager running through all sorts of measurements trying to work out the megalithic yard and see if door measurements/side measurements in other monuments could be related, and found it fascinating when in the sign and the seal/hiriam’s key the original of the megalithic yard was discovered), but the benal/fascinating realities of the unit of measurement are a long way from the phantasmagorical claims made in heaven’s mirror and fingerprints of the gods
      - Melting_Harps 6y ago
        > You throw 10,000 darts at a board, you get one bullseye. It doesn’t make you a genius That's not a very good dismissal of the man's work, like I said that revelation alone is as solid as an entire University's department of post doc and grad students combined. It's overturned so many people's dissertations and the narrative of how the Ice Age ended, specifically to the migration of People into the Americas from Eurasia that has so many implications in other departments like biology. Also, his observations of water erosion on Egyptian pyramids is very compelling, and places it way before the modern Egyptian narrative if its true as nothing provided by modern Egyptologists really explains how deep it is. Wind/sand erosion cannot carve that deeply, especially since so much of the pyramids was under sand until maybe only modern times when it became a large part of the Egyptian economy via tourism, thus preserving it from further erosion.
        robbiep 6y ago
        I had a reply here but on further thought I decided I would do some reading on Hancock’s contribution to the Younger Dryas hypothesis. Wiki not only suggests that he wasn’t the first but that his contributions to theories largely amount to other claims which are just as hard to substantiate (ie cyclical nature of impacts) [0]. So really it seems that he hasn’t contributed a huge amount to this field at all apart from being another voice amongst many, when the claim has still not been fully substantiated by the geological record. An area worthy of more study, but it’s hardly ‘his’ contribution To say that this guy has thrown 10,000 darts and come up with hardly anything is absolutely an accurate way to characterise Hancock’s work. I also think it’s quite disingenuous to claim that modern Egyptologists are unable to claim ‘how’ ‘water’ erosion exists there (or even if it is water erosion) - there’s not only a decent chunk of carbon dating from ie. The camps next to the pyramids used by the builders but on an Occam’s razor perspective the consensus is the one most substantiated by existing evidence. And don’t go into an argument about how groupthink dictates too much of consensus, as a doctor and scientist I understand the need for alternative hyptheses and I’ve found Hancock’s theories to be very interesting, but he makes a literal living out of pareidolia - he sees faces in every group of shadows, and vociferously denies they were just shadows when the lights are turned on. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothe...
    - pps 6y ago
      What work? Doesn't look like he did much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi... and it doesn't look like there is consensus about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#Causes
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        That page is "curated" by a retired historian with a grudge. Take a look at the revision history of the page, where you see him routinely reversing revisions that would improve the page -- particularly, reversing deletions of irrelevant but prejudicial content. There is no reason to mention Graham Hancock on the page at all, or any century-old stories. They are there just to muddy the water, and to give the ex-professor a soapbox for name-calling. The evidence is presented in a deliberately confused order, and very selectively. New evidence is not permitted. Wikipedia is ruled by people like that, now. We have to wait for them to die before we can have pages not somebody's hobby-horse.
    - simonh 6y ago
      Hancock didn't originate the theory an impact contributed to the Younger Dryas event, nor has he originated any evidence or research towards substantiating it. So other than mentioning it in some books and talk shows, what was his contribution that merits a PhD?
      - Melting_Harps 6y ago
        > Hancock didn't originate the theory an impact contributed to the Younger Dryas event, nor has he originated any evidence or research towards substantiating it. So other than mentioning it in some books and talk shows, what was his contribution that merits a PhD? I didn't say he was the only one to do so, but he put in the work to get observational data and brought to the mainstream archeaologists and historians who wrote countless works and based their dissertations on their 'irrefutable fact' of how the Ice Age ended which never included an asteroid impact and he staunchly challenged academia as a JOURNALIST and did the legwork with his colleagues who were actually trained archeologists and documented his observations. And just so it's clear: I'm not parroting academia's indoctrination it forced me to bend to, but Wikipedia is not a valid source for citation for a reason, and if I had submitted a paper referencing it was dismissed entirely. But here is an essay from the Man himself if you are so inclined to read it [0]. I think his work is notable and his contributions worthy and have merit, which is honestly much more than what many people based their PhDs on when they make arguments about things like the extinction of wooly mammoths and other mega fauna as result of Human over hunting. When NOTHING could explain these massive dead zones, but were none the less awarded degrees for their findings. 0: https://grahamhancock.com/hancockg17/ https://grahamhancock.com/hancockg17/
        simonh 6y ago
        No reputable scientist deals in 'irrefutable facts' like that, only evidence. If you're going to put quotes on something like that, I think it's reasonable to ask for a reference. I'm just wondering, can you give examples of the research papers for these PhDs or degrees where you evaluated them and found them insufficiently rigorous. It sounds like this has happened a lot, so are there any resources on this I can read? Hancock's pop sci summary of other people's work you linked to is entertaining, but are we really surprised that geologists 100 years ago had a limited understanding of the history of the earth? That controversy was 40 years before we even came up with plate tectonics. It's hardly cutting edge stuff.
- simonh 6y ago
  Absolutely not. He's not Von Daniken crazy, but potentially more insidious. He's extremely careful to caveat and disguise his crazy under a legitimate looking veneer. His books are extensively annotated and referenced, he talks like a legitimate archaeologist and makes sure that the more outlandish and conspiracy theory ideas are there by implication rather than overt claims. He works very hard to make it difficult to dismiss him out of hand and to keep a seat at the legitimate debate table. However he does make sure that the more out there crazy does get referenced and carefully avoids saying anything, or referencing any counter-evidence that would discredit them. So he avoids being categorised with the more extreme crazies, while assiduously making it clear he is their friend. After all, he needs to sell his books. Having said that, his stuff as with Von Daniken really is a lot of fun. I occasionally check it out just to keep current on state of the art crazy. Just bear in mind there's a lot of flim-flam in there and he will avoid referencing any evidence that debunks his claims, no matter how much of it there is. You will not get the whole story from him. For example he will write a book on a topic from the point of view of say 20 years before the book's development and publication, and ignore any inconvenient research later than that, and probably also ignore some relevant research and counter-arguments from before that as well.
  - balhbloo 6y ago
    Ignoring conflict evidence, ie, confirmation bias, sounds like just about every human I've ever seen. Especially scientists with their pet theories. I suppose it comes down to how people weight the evidence, they're definitely biased toward weightings that support their favorite theory. Just as I'm sure you are with your Hancock's BS theory. Is it really true that he's only been peddling unsubstantiated stuff tho? Didn't he propose that the younger dryas ice age was caused by an impact, a claim later supported by more evidence, including nanodiamonds? I know the cause remains unsettled, but even if you read Wikipedia, which starts out saying the evidence for that is misinterpreted, it goes on to detail a bunch of solid sounding evidence. That's there's contention and ambiguity is not unusual for science, particularly such a speculative science as archaeology. But his proposal, at least, sounds neither crazy, nor appears to be unsubstantiated, as you claim.
    - 6y ago
- rapsey 6y ago
  There are two episodes dedicated to him on the our fake history podcast. He thoroughly demolishes pretty much everything about his theories.
- pps 6y ago
  https://astronomy.com/news/2020/09/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-astronomical-observatory https://astronomy.com/news/2020/09/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-f... > Hancock's ideas have helped fuel the surge of interest in Gobekli Tepe as an ancient observatory. But he has an even more fantastical claim about the vulture and other carvings on Pillar 43. He believes, again without evidence, that it's an ancient constellation diagram that shows the winter solstice against a backdrop of today’s modern sky.
  - RikNieu 6y ago
    A team from the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering doesn't think it's too crazy. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322150872_Decoding_Gobekli_Tepe_with_archaeoastronomy_What_does_the_fox_say https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322150872_Decoding_...
    - pps 6y ago
      You might want to read the article from astronomy.com, part of it is based on this paper. ("In 2017, a pair of chemical engineers made global headlines [...]")

Graham Hancock talks about this on several of his Joe Rogan episodes.

phreeza 6y ago

Graham Hancock always gave me a strong pseudoscience vibe, do you think he should be taken seriously?

robbiep 6y ago
He’s a great populariser of bullshit. Interesting theories but nothing over 30 years of building unsubstantiated theories out of thin threads of evidence that aren’t connected
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > He’s a great populariser of bullshit. Interesting theories but nothing over 30 years of building unsubstantiated theories out of thin threads of evidence that aren’t connected What about his work that led to the acceptance of the Younger Dryas period being a result of the asteroid impact, that was refuted in academia for so long that is now been proven with time? That revelation alone is worth more PhDs than most entire departments create in a decade!
  - robbiep 6y ago
    I’m not hugely familiar with his contributions to this, but if you throw 10,000 darts at a board, you get one bullseye. It doesn’t make you a genius. As another poster said, his theories are interesting (I spent several days as a teenager running through all sorts of measurements trying to work out the megalithic yard and see if door measurements/side measurements in other monuments could be related, and found it fascinating when in the sign and the seal/hiriam’s key the original of the megalithic yard was discovered), but the benal/fascinating realities of the unit of measurement are a long way from the phantasmagorical claims made in heaven’s mirror and fingerprints of the gods
    - Melting_Harps 6y ago
      > You throw 10,000 darts at a board, you get one bullseye. It doesn’t make you a genius That's not a very good dismissal of the man's work, like I said that revelation alone is as solid as an entire University's department of post doc and grad students combined. It's overturned so many people's dissertations and the narrative of how the Ice Age ended, specifically to the migration of People into the Americas from Eurasia that has so many implications in other departments like biology. Also, his observations of water erosion on Egyptian pyramids is very compelling, and places it way before the modern Egyptian narrative if its true as nothing provided by modern Egyptologists really explains how deep it is. Wind/sand erosion cannot carve that deeply, especially since so much of the pyramids was under sand until maybe only modern times when it became a large part of the Egyptian economy via tourism, thus preserving it from further erosion.
      - robbiep 6y ago
        I had a reply here but on further thought I decided I would do some reading on Hancock’s contribution to the Younger Dryas hypothesis. Wiki not only suggests that he wasn’t the first but that his contributions to theories largely amount to other claims which are just as hard to substantiate (ie cyclical nature of impacts) [0]. So really it seems that he hasn’t contributed a huge amount to this field at all apart from being another voice amongst many, when the claim has still not been fully substantiated by the geological record. An area worthy of more study, but it’s hardly ‘his’ contribution To say that this guy has thrown 10,000 darts and come up with hardly anything is absolutely an accurate way to characterise Hancock’s work. I also think it’s quite disingenuous to claim that modern Egyptologists are unable to claim ‘how’ ‘water’ erosion exists there (or even if it is water erosion) - there’s not only a decent chunk of carbon dating from ie. The camps next to the pyramids used by the builders but on an Occam’s razor perspective the consensus is the one most substantiated by existing evidence. And don’t go into an argument about how groupthink dictates too much of consensus, as a doctor and scientist I understand the need for alternative hyptheses and I’ve found Hancock’s theories to be very interesting, but he makes a literal living out of pareidolia - he sees faces in every group of shadows, and vociferously denies they were just shadows when the lights are turned on. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothe...
  - pps 6y ago
    What work? Doesn't look like he did much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi... and it doesn't look like there is consensus about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#Causes
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      That page is "curated" by a retired historian with a grudge. Take a look at the revision history of the page, where you see him routinely reversing revisions that would improve the page -- particularly, reversing deletions of irrelevant but prejudicial content. There is no reason to mention Graham Hancock on the page at all, or any century-old stories. They are there just to muddy the water, and to give the ex-professor a soapbox for name-calling. The evidence is presented in a deliberately confused order, and very selectively. New evidence is not permitted. Wikipedia is ruled by people like that, now. We have to wait for them to die before we can have pages not somebody's hobby-horse.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Hancock didn't originate the theory an impact contributed to the Younger Dryas event, nor has he originated any evidence or research towards substantiating it. So other than mentioning it in some books and talk shows, what was his contribution that merits a PhD?
    - Melting_Harps 6y ago
      > Hancock didn't originate the theory an impact contributed to the Younger Dryas event, nor has he originated any evidence or research towards substantiating it. So other than mentioning it in some books and talk shows, what was his contribution that merits a PhD? I didn't say he was the only one to do so, but he put in the work to get observational data and brought to the mainstream archeaologists and historians who wrote countless works and based their dissertations on their 'irrefutable fact' of how the Ice Age ended which never included an asteroid impact and he staunchly challenged academia as a JOURNALIST and did the legwork with his colleagues who were actually trained archeologists and documented his observations. And just so it's clear: I'm not parroting academia's indoctrination it forced me to bend to, but Wikipedia is not a valid source for citation for a reason, and if I had submitted a paper referencing it was dismissed entirely. But here is an essay from the Man himself if you are so inclined to read it [0]. I think his work is notable and his contributions worthy and have merit, which is honestly much more than what many people based their PhDs on when they make arguments about things like the extinction of wooly mammoths and other mega fauna as result of Human over hunting. When NOTHING could explain these massive dead zones, but were none the less awarded degrees for their findings. 0: https://grahamhancock.com/hancockg17/ https://grahamhancock.com/hancockg17/
      - simonh 6y ago
        No reputable scientist deals in 'irrefutable facts' like that, only evidence. If you're going to put quotes on something like that, I think it's reasonable to ask for a reference. I'm just wondering, can you give examples of the research papers for these PhDs or degrees where you evaluated them and found them insufficiently rigorous. It sounds like this has happened a lot, so are there any resources on this I can read? Hancock's pop sci summary of other people's work you linked to is entertaining, but are we really surprised that geologists 100 years ago had a limited understanding of the history of the earth? That controversy was 40 years before we even came up with plate tectonics. It's hardly cutting edge stuff.
simonh 6y ago
Absolutely not. He's not Von Daniken crazy, but potentially more insidious. He's extremely careful to caveat and disguise his crazy under a legitimate looking veneer. His books are extensively annotated and referenced, he talks like a legitimate archaeologist and makes sure that the more outlandish and conspiracy theory ideas are there by implication rather than overt claims. He works very hard to make it difficult to dismiss him out of hand and to keep a seat at the legitimate debate table. However he does make sure that the more out there crazy does get referenced and carefully avoids saying anything, or referencing any counter-evidence that would discredit them. So he avoids being categorised with the more extreme crazies, while assiduously making it clear he is their friend. After all, he needs to sell his books. Having said that, his stuff as with Von Daniken really is a lot of fun. I occasionally check it out just to keep current on state of the art crazy. Just bear in mind there's a lot of flim-flam in there and he will avoid referencing any evidence that debunks his claims, no matter how much of it there is. You will not get the whole story from him. For example he will write a book on a topic from the point of view of say 20 years before the book's development and publication, and ignore any inconvenient research later than that, and probably also ignore some relevant research and counter-arguments from before that as well.
- balhbloo 6y ago
  Ignoring conflict evidence, ie, confirmation bias, sounds like just about every human I've ever seen. Especially scientists with their pet theories. I suppose it comes down to how people weight the evidence, they're definitely biased toward weightings that support their favorite theory. Just as I'm sure you are with your Hancock's BS theory. Is it really true that he's only been peddling unsubstantiated stuff tho? Didn't he propose that the younger dryas ice age was caused by an impact, a claim later supported by more evidence, including nanodiamonds? I know the cause remains unsettled, but even if you read Wikipedia, which starts out saying the evidence for that is misinterpreted, it goes on to detail a bunch of solid sounding evidence. That's there's contention and ambiguity is not unusual for science, particularly such a speculative science as archaeology. But his proposal, at least, sounds neither crazy, nor appears to be unsubstantiated, as you claim.
  - 6y ago
rapsey 6y ago
There are two episodes dedicated to him on the our fake history podcast. He thoroughly demolishes pretty much everything about his theories.
pps 6y ago
https://astronomy.com/news/2020/09/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-astronomical-observatory https://astronomy.com/news/2020/09/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-f... > Hancock's ideas have helped fuel the surge of interest in Gobekli Tepe as an ancient observatory. But he has an even more fantastical claim about the vulture and other carvings on Pillar 43. He believes, again without evidence, that it's an ancient constellation diagram that shows the winter solstice against a backdrop of today’s modern sky.
- RikNieu 6y ago
  A team from the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering doesn't think it's too crazy. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322150872_Decoding_Gobekli_Tepe_with_archaeoastronomy_What_does_the_fox_say https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322150872_Decoding_...
  - pps 6y ago
    You might want to read the article from astronomy.com, part of it is based on this paper. ("In 2017, a pair of chemical engineers made global headlines [...]")