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0 pointsnico1y ago0 comments

The show seemed very convincing, not in the speculative theories about an ancient precursor civilization necessarily, but definitely in some of the findings they show

Do you have any resources you could share that debunk the specific things they show? Like the rock paintings they dated to 10k years ago, or some of the other digs that were dated as 20-25k years old?

Are you saying it is all made up? Or just some of it?

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vdupras1y ago· 1 in thread

This is precisely what I'm looking for too. All critiques of Hancock I can find with my feeble googling skills seem to be focused on unimportant stuff such as encouraging uses of psychedelics and accusations of racism.

But what's far, far more important, is debunking evidences like rock painting dating, geoglyphs dating. That thing on Rapa Nui about statues being more-than-half buried seemed really intriguing. The speculation he makes about why that might be so (spoiler alert: that famous lost civilization being there first) seemed interesting to me. Is there a specific debunking of that somewhere?

I'd also be interested in specific debunking of his theory that incas didn't have the capabilities to do some of the rock walls they've made. You know, with heated rocks and all. That seemed interesting too.

AlotOfReading1y ago

The moai are half buried because that's just what tends to happen in erosive environments. Sediment buries things.

As for specifically debunking his LGM speculation, there isn't much because no one with public credentials wants to spend time and effort on it in the current academic environment. You can find debunkings in popular media (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A) and a few scattered "popular" academic publications like the SAA's special edition on Hancock's pseudoarchaeology (http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?i=634462&p=10&view...), but most of the information is buried in papers and books that don't discuss him at all.

There's just flat out no actual evidence for (virtually?) all of his speculation and you can't prove a negative. Hancock's MO is to take 1-2 anomalous results and spin out media around "these dates don't line up, so let's speculate about something entirely unrelated". The rapa nui episodes in Ancient Apocalypse S2 talk to one actual archaeologist, who doesn't even support the dates discussed in the episodes. They were just anomalous banana phytoliths that were present from sediment intrusions. Dating is hard and this stuff happens regularly, especially in areas without much active research like Rapa Nui. The standard understanding is post-1200, as documented in papers like https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105094 and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03902-8

mmooss1y ago

> The show seemed very convincing

On a tangent, isn't that a signal of inaccuracy? Accurate people - i.e., committed to be truthful and correct - are very careful and nuanced about what they claim, make weaknesses as clear as strengths, and are careful to not be too convincing, because that can distort their reader's critical thinking.

At least, that's the ideal. But why be especially convincing - why be more convincing than your empirical evidence?

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