4 ms·

No, Graham Hancock is an anti-science charlatan. No actual archaeologists take him remotely seriously.

mistrial9 4y ago
describing people who publish original thought as "anti-something-important derogatory-name" sets off alarm bells for me. Is conformity really that precious? are public writings so black-and-white ?
- nobody9999 4y ago
  > describing people who publish original thought as "anti-something-important derogatory-name" sets off alarm bells for me. Is conformity really that precious? are public writings so black-and-white ? In that case, I recommend you check out Erich von Danniken[0], Giorgio Tsoukalos[1] and Charles Dawson[2]. They have some original thoughts that have been wildly popular. Or are you saying that if something is "popular" that it's "conformity" and should be rejected for being conformist? If it's generally accepted (as bible dogma in the middle ages was), then it must be a false flag designed to hoodwink the masses into accepting false information, because no amount of consensus is enough. amirite? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_A._Tsoukalos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_A._Tsoukalos [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dawson
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -- Ozymandius by P.B. Shelley
aksss 4y ago
Calling people “anti-science” now also sets off alarm bells for me. “Anti-science” is analogous to calling someone a “heretic” in the 1400’s, but with our benefit of hindsight into the fallacy of groupthink and servility to orthodoxy.
- edmundsauto 4y ago
  Especially when the field is archaeology, which is a study and not a science. It has its rigor, but it is more of an interpretation of understanding rather than experimentation. Still valuable, still rigorous… but no ground truth is possible.
  - tonyg 4y ago
    > no ground truth is possible. Oof. I have bad news for you about science in general.
    - edmundsauto 4y ago
      Eh, I'm not overly proscriptive that science answers all the questions, or that it has the precision people think that it does. OTOH, it has been important for civilizational science, so I'm pretty comfortable saying that it's a good option. More germane to the point, it's probably better to think about "ground truth" as "sufficiently reasonable approximation for the grain that I need to operate at".
  - anthk 4y ago
    >but no ground truth is possible. Carbon 14.
    - edmundsauto 4y ago
      This is actually a really interesting situation. Carbon-14 resides only in organic matter, and so a lot of stone age artifacts found can only be dated based on what surrounds it. Humans have a tendency to dig down to bury organic matter, which makes it very difficult to understand if the C14 readings are associated with what artifacts. So while we can reasonably ascertain the age of (organic) artifacts, it does not answer the questions being asked.
icare_1er 4y ago
There has been a lot of precedents of "actual scientists" not taking anti-science charlatans seriously: before the discovery of genes; before the discovery of DNA; before the discovery of tectonicsl before the discovery of the ultraviolet catastrophe. Etc, etc, etc....

describing people who publish original thought as "anti-something-important derogatory-name" sets off alarm bells for me. Is conformity really that precious? are public writings so black-and-white ?

nobody9999 4y ago
> describing people who publish original thought as "anti-something-important derogatory-name" sets off alarm bells for me. Is conformity really that precious? are public writings so black-and-white ? In that case, I recommend you check out Erich von Danniken[0], Giorgio Tsoukalos[1] and Charles Dawson[2]. They have some original thoughts that have been wildly popular. Or are you saying that if something is "popular" that it's "conformity" and should be rejected for being conformist? If it's generally accepted (as bible dogma in the middle ages was), then it must be a false flag designed to hoodwink the masses into accepting false information, because no amount of consensus is enough. amirite? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_A._Tsoukalos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_A._Tsoukalos [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dawson
- mistrial9 4y ago
  I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -- Ozymandius by P.B. Shelley

aksss 4y ago

Calling people “anti-science” now also sets off alarm bells for me. “Anti-science” is analogous to calling someone a “heretic” in the 1400’s, but with our benefit of hindsight into the fallacy of groupthink and servility to orthodoxy.

edmundsauto 4y ago
Especially when the field is archaeology, which is a study and not a science. It has its rigor, but it is more of an interpretation of understanding rather than experimentation. Still valuable, still rigorous… but no ground truth is possible.
- tonyg 4y ago
  > no ground truth is possible. Oof. I have bad news for you about science in general.
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    Eh, I'm not overly proscriptive that science answers all the questions, or that it has the precision people think that it does. OTOH, it has been important for civilizational science, so I'm pretty comfortable saying that it's a good option. More germane to the point, it's probably better to think about "ground truth" as "sufficiently reasonable approximation for the grain that I need to operate at".
- anthk 4y ago
  >but no ground truth is possible. Carbon 14.
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    This is actually a really interesting situation. Carbon-14 resides only in organic matter, and so a lot of stone age artifacts found can only be dated based on what surrounds it. Humans have a tendency to dig down to bury organic matter, which makes it very difficult to understand if the C14 readings are associated with what artifacts. So while we can reasonably ascertain the age of (organic) artifacts, it does not answer the questions being asked.

icare_1er 4y ago

There has been a lot of precedents of "actual scientists" not taking anti-science charlatans seriously: before the discovery of genes; before the discovery of DNA; before the discovery of tectonicsl before the discovery of the ultraviolet catastrophe. Etc, etc, etc....