Hacker News Reader

Comment by dougk16 | Hacker News Reader

Great book, highly recommend. Even if you say 90% of it is pseudo-scientific bs, fine, read it like you would fantasy or sci-fi and there's still easily 10% of mind-expanding possibilities in here. I've read many critiques of Hancock's work and there are always arguments and evidence left over that critics don't address. The only way to decide for yourself is to read his work with an open mind. Or don't!

View on HN

Fantasy stories about archaeology do serious harm. I've mapped dozens of burials looted by people who had bought into similarly fanciful tales of lost treasures and empires. That fantasy didn't make them any richer, but it did desecrate hundreds of graves and destroy a lot of cultural heritage.

Please be careful with giving recommendations you know are inaccurate. Not only does it mean archaeologists have to go back and correct those misunderstandings, it contributes to the destruction of the very things we're trying to protect.

Ok I will stop recommending his books. Thanks for the heads up. I did not know his ideas were causing such destruction. I will still read all his books with an open mind but you don't have to worry about me looting any sites. :)

I will not stop recommending Hancock's books. In many cases they are the only source of excellent photography of ancient constructions.

Furthermore, Hancock is always very careful to separate factual exposition from his speculations.

Finally, he has remarkably often turned out to be right, and his critics badly wrong. The Younger Dryas Boundary comet strike is now mainstream pre-history, supported by excavations as far afield as Chile, South Africa, and Syria. A culture cultivating the whole Amazon basin for at least 1500 years before being wiped out by smallpox 500 years ago is now well established fact, supported by LIDAR surveys revealing hundreds of miles of major earthworks.

I'm with you. I tried to find that keen edge of sarcasm in my comment but I missed the mark. And really it was childish and I shouldn't have even attempted it. Apologies to AlotOfReading for not replying in earnest, and since I think they upvoted me. Yes I will continue to recommend Hancock's books, along with recommending critiques of his books. Hancock is pretty tame compared to other books I recommend ;). Free flow of information and especially the freedom to be wrong is vital and Hancock is a great expression of this.

>I've read many critiques of Hancock's work and there are always arguments and evidence left over that critics don't address.

It is much easier to generate nonsense than to debunk it. That is why we have the notion of "burden of proof". If someone overwhelmingly writes pseudo-scientific BS, the correct course of action is to dismiss all their writings as potential cognito-hazards - it is certainly not to read them "with an open mind". You know what we call people who let known bullshit artists tinker with their brain? Gullible.

Just open one of his books. He travels the world with his partner and takes incredible photographs, scuba dives submerged ruins, interviews locals and mainstream archaeologists like Klaus Schmidt, digs very deep into mythology and cross references with science, gives almost exhausting levels of citations and references. Not to mention dealing with incredible levels of vitriol and threats while doing so. Not so easy to generate such nonsense! :)

Gullible means believing something. Believe nothing. This is what an open mind is.

Klaus Schmidt, who died around 5 years ago, was the director of excavations at Gobleki Tepe. I highly doubt he would have allowed Hancock to perverse the legitimacy of his work. To read more about how Gobleki Tepe has been abused by pseudoarchaeologists, check out the Tepe Telegrams blog, which is produced by archaeologists who actually work at the site: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/

> Gullible means believing something. Believe nothing. This is what an open mind is.

Umm what? If you can't believe anything is true then you can't retain or formulate any knowledge at all. Seriously, this is a really bad take.

Hancock has at least one transcribed interview with Klaus. Look it up for yourself. They had an interesting relationship. Klaus definitely did not agree with many of Hancock's ideas. It's admirable, an open exchange of ideas with people you disagree with. Just like we're doing here! Good on us.

> It's admirable, an open exchange of ideas with people you disagree with. Just like we're doing here! Good on us.

Well there are disagreements stemming from different perspectives or opinions, and then there is the distinction between proper research and conclusions drawn from wilful ignorance, cherry picked data and wild presumptive leaps of imagination that masquerade themselves as legitimate research. Graham Hancock's work is pseudoscience, period. My disagreement with you is not a matter of exchanging perspectives, it's a matter of exposing lies.

Ok, thanks for your reply and perspective.

So which exact lie have you spotted where?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com