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> The article further vindicates Graham Hancock's complaints of vicious mis-representation. His projections are certainly wrong in myriad details, but he is tot

by Hayvok 4y ago

> The article further vindicates Graham Hancock's complaints of vicious mis-representation. His projections are certainly wrong in myriad details, but he is totally sincere in advancing them. I’ll +1 some of this - the evidence is mounting that standing theories re. the end of the last ice age, impact hypothesis, development of civilization, at the least deserve another look and not quite so much dogma. More underwater archaeology is needed off the coasts, and under the Amazon and probably Sahara. These are all tough places to investigate but who knows, maybe we need to push our civilizational history back a few thousand years. Graham really can’t clutch his pearls too much though. His early stuff was just kooky and he still has a tendency to weave way too much of the metaphysical and flat-out conjecture into his ideas. It turns academics off (putting it mildly), exactly the people who’s credibility and attention he craves. It’s tough for me to tell when Graham has actually done some interesting research and is calling out something real vs Graham when he’s nine oh-what-if-they? levels deep into conjecture. If Graham would put his head down, eat a great big ice cream scoop of skepticism chocolate, and then go do investigative work and let the facts lead him - full stop - he’d probably make a ton more progress with his ideas than he has.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Hancock is equipped neither by training nor temperament to be a scientist. He does not pretend to be one. Trying, he would fail. Judging him as one is deeply silly. He calls himself a journalist. He is a storyteller, and invents engaging stories. What he attempts is very different from science. He openly speculates about where the evidence might lead. His failure to understand some of the evidence, and what is possible, sometimes leads him to howlers. But remarkably often he has predicted finds that historians foolishly insisted were impossible. His appeal is in actually engaging with evidence historians and archaeologists try to conceal or downplay. He takes us to actual sites, and shows us evidence historians refuse to discuss, or as often openly lie about. His speculations are fluff. But taking us around to see things, and inviting us to speculate along with him, is engaging in ways nothing allowed to scientists can. Scientists could draw huge benefit from engaging with the evidence he exposes, instead of demonizing him. Their complaints fall flat because he is, simply, not a scientist, even a bad one, and should not be treated like one. He inspires with what might be, which is a good thing, and that he would do better with better help. (Uniquely, Scientists Against Myths, on YT, does more engagement than anybody else, but in a way that is badly off-putting. They forget that they are addressing the audience, not their perceived myth-maker enemies.) He would still be often wrong, but more interestingly wrong. And sometimes, still, he would turn out to be right. There is nothing wrong with that.

by Hayvok 4y ago

moloch-hai 4y ago

Hancock is equipped neither by training nor temperament to be a scientist. He does not pretend to be one. Trying, he would fail. Judging him as one is deeply silly. He calls himself a journalist. He is a storyteller, and invents engaging stories. What he attempts is very different from science. He openly speculates about where the evidence might lead. His failure to understand some of the evidence, and what is possible, sometimes leads him to howlers. But remarkably often he has predicted finds that historians foolishly insisted were impossible. His appeal is in actually engaging with evidence historians and archaeologists try to conceal or downplay. He takes us to actual sites, and shows us evidence historians refuse to discuss, or as often openly lie about. His speculations are fluff. But taking us around to see things, and inviting us to speculate along with him, is engaging in ways nothing allowed to scientists can. Scientists could draw huge benefit from engaging with the evidence he exposes, instead of demonizing him. Their complaints fall flat because he is, simply, not a scientist, even a bad one, and should not be treated like one. He inspires with what might be, which is a good thing, and that he would do better with better help. (Uniquely, Scientists Against Myths, on YT, does more engagement than anybody else, but in a way that is badly off-putting. They forget that they are addressing the audience, not their perceived myth-maker enemies.) He would still be often wrong, but more interestingly wrong. And sometimes, still, he would turn out to be right. There is nothing wrong with that.