Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

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I'm in the middle of watching Ancient Apocalypse, and, as a lifelong skeptic, I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

Hancock isn't a scientist, and has never claimed to be. He presents himself as an investigative journalist. What he explores in his work are a series of "what if" questions that science either can't disprove, or hasn't been actively researching, for whatever reason.

The show is beautifully shot and produced, and provokes some interesting thought experiments. Besides "free thinkers" making an appearance, there are also "mainstream" scientists from renowned institutions around the world, who seem to side with Hancock in many ways.

If the show does nothing but raise more public awareness about these topics, it might lead to funding actual scientific research in some of these sites, which would be a good thing.

So far from being a "dangerous show", it's actually an interesting and well-shot documentary. People who see it as proof of anything factual are likely already conspiracy theorists, and are a lost cause for logical thinking anyway.

> that science either can't disprove, or hasn't been actively researching, for whatever reason

Most often the reason is lack of evidence in proportion to the claims.

Most of Hancock's claims aren't really provable by evidence, or there hasn't been much research done to produce it. He's essentially saying "Isn't this curious? Scientists should look into it.", and "What if this alternative explanation is true?".

This is unlike other "proper" conspiracy theories that claim to know the facts, and present made-up evidence to back up their claims, while ignoring any actual scientific proof that works against them.

Critics can ridicule his claim that an advanced ice-age civilization existed all they want (and there are good counter arguments that do just that[1]), but it's certainly curious that advanced structures were built by what modern history tells us should've been hunter-gatherer groups, millennia before the birth of the oldest civilizations we know about. This is worth thinking about, but more importantly, scientifically researching, so that we can have a better understanding of our past and ancestors.

The more Hancock is ignored, ridiculed and labeled as a crackpot, the more it feels like the scientific community doesn't want to research this for whatever reason, thus proving some of his points.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTkDkSbO-4

> Most of Hancock's claims aren't really provable by evidence, or there hasn't been much research done to produce it. He's essentially saying "Isn't this curious? Scientists should look into it."

Why should they, though? He seems to be staking much of his credibility on vague accusations that someone is not doing the work. Mostly the case seems to be that his propositions are not being ignored, they simply lack substance.

The thing is, the less evidence you have, the easier it is to come up with any number of stories that "fit" the data points. Historians therefore need to be extremely conscious about only drawing conclusions that have an undisputed record supporting them. That is the whole basis of the scientific methodology; if you can't get the evidence, you have no argument.

The period Hancock has chosen to focus on is commonly called "prehistory" for a good reason, as without any written records, there's not much of a basis to build any kind of narrative that stands up to scrutiny. Especially if you only cherry-pick data points that fit your assumptions, and wilfully ignore a gigantic void in the rest of the known record.

Surely that is a problem with the credibility of the claims themselves, and not the rest of the world.

> Why should they, though?

Because of what I mentioned in my previous comment. Because we don't have a scientific answer to how a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers would be able to construct some of these complex monolithic structures, millennia before the dawn of modern civilizations. The timelines we're talking about here certainly make it difficult to gather any conclusive evidence, but the fact that these structures are understudied points to deficiencies in modern archaeology.

Hancock never claims to have the definitive answer to these questions, and from my exposure to his work, he always phrases his claims as a "what if ...?" scenario. He weaves some loosely related myths into a somewhat coherent narrative, but it's clear that as a journalist, he has no scientific qualifications, nor has he done scientific research to present any definitive conclusions.

My point is that any reasonably well educated person who is not already prone to conspiracy theories shouldn't find his work to be conspiratorial or untrue, but mostly interesting and entertaining. Rather than dismiss his wild ideas as being "pseudoscientific" (which is ridiculous, considering he never claims to be a scientist), we should invest more in funding actual scientific research so that we can get some valid answers. Until then, I'll find shows like Ancient Apocalypse very entertaining.

I don't know if sites getting studies funded is unequivocally good.

It could mean some other promising research doesn't get funded

It’s really sad that you need to explain yourself like this. Some people have the perspective that anyone who’s ever been on the Joe rogan podcast is a conspiracy theorist, yet anyone who they’ve ever read about on the NYT is a fully responsible authentic scientist.

This is clearly not the case, as you’ve just laid out about Hancock, not to mention there’s plenty of misinformation on the NYT as well.

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