Ancient Apocalypse...

[PigFish]

@Fugu My friend, I won’t bother to comment on if I agree with you or not, not the reason why I am writing this.

I just wanted to say this post above is extremely well written and persuasive. I enjoyed reading that. You have a gift! Hats off to you!

-Ray

[helix]

Unsavory tossers making a living by blocking out the truth.

[99call]

2 hours ago, PigFish said:

@Fugu My friend, I won’t bother to comment on if I agree with you or not, not the reason why I am writing this.

I just wanted to say this post above is extremely well written and persuasive. I enjoyed reading that. You have a gift! Hats off to you!

-Ray

This is classy Ray,  hats off to you 

[joeypots]

I can’t remember where this came from but It struck me so I copied it. I don’t mean to bring up another issue, just the idea that academia is less trusted that it had been previously and that can give rise to a lot of unvetted ideas that can catch hold of the public.

A 2018 Gallup survey found that only 48 percent of American adults polled have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, a drop of 9 percentage points from just three years earlier.

It is an unfortunate trend because it means that in cases where academics ought to have credibility, where the research is not infected by political correctness, such as climate change, there’s a sapping of confidence in the scientific consensus. Given that virtually every climate scientist believes that human activity is warming the planet, how could anyone deny it? The answer is, people don’t necessarily believe what scientists say because they correctly sense that within academia a person can get punished for unorthodox beliefs.

[99call]

4 hours ago, joeypots said:

A 2018 Gallup survey found that only 48 percent of American adults polled have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, a drop of 9 percentage points from just three years earlier.

I don't think you can judge this in the black and white. In America and in the UK, it very much seems you can either buy your way into, or pull social strings to get favourable passage into the finest schools, colleges, and universities. 

I wonder how much of this skepticism, is based on admittance corruption, as opposed to the standard of education itself. 

[joeypots]

9 minutes ago, 99call said:

I don't think you can judge this in the black and white.   In America and in the UK, it very much seems you can either buy your way into, or pull social strings to get favourable passage into the finest schools, colleges, and universities. 

I wonder how much of this skepticism, is based on admittance corruption, as opposed to the standard of education itself. 

The quote pertains best to political correctness, I think. Binary thinking and certainty are best avoided at all costs, imho.

 

[Rhod]

4 hours ago, 99call said:

I don't think you can judge this in the black and white. In America and in the UK, it very much seems you can either buy your way into, or pull social strings to get favourable passage into the finest schools, colleges, and universities. 

I wonder how much of this skepticism, is based on admittance corruption, as opposed to the standard of education itself. 

The lack of confidence comes from the fact that the majority of teachers are spending their time indoctrinating, rather than teaching.  

[Lunettesman]

The Clovis first theory has been clearly debunked rather recently. And for years everyone who dared to question the "Clovis first" theory were demonized. I think we should be open minded.

Archeology is a weird concept to my opinion, is it really a science at first?! The archeologists who had written books about Clovis first, selling their courses, definitely didn't want the history to be rewritten. They lose credit and money, if not their jobs.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as it's a consensus, there's room for debate. A consensus is not a fact. 

 

[MoeFOH]

9 hours ago, Fugu said:

It’s not simply a “labelling” without reason, Steve. What one needs to understand, and this might indeed be difficult to be seen by the wider audience, people like him aren’t meeting even the most basic scientific standards. What these people so derogatorily call “mainstream” or “establishment” science/history is in fact the evidence-based science they are attacking. And in the particular case of Hancock (I intended to keep my statements more general and not give this particular person the credit of addressing it that much...), he has in fact been dealt with, and his “theses” been widely debunked by science. From an academic standpoint, he’s doing nothing more than pontificating. He is a (sensationalist-) journalist at best, a fantasist and conspiracy mystic at worst. Scientifically, he is a nobody. He doesn’t even call himself a scientist.

For a deeper immersion (even if you won’t care whether science or fiction, as you said ) reading the rebuttal by deputy editor Mark Aldenderfer in Science Advances may be warmly recommended (link below).

The outpouring of ilk like Hancock is not simply “entertainment”, let alone coming from “independent” “critical minds”. As Ken @Ken Gargett already so rightly addressed, one has to very carefully distinguish between fact and fiction. Otherwise, these people, transporting their ideological agenda under the guise of science/expertise - and there are even worse Pied Pipers out there than Hancock - are a threat to our values of Enlightenment and common - not only scholarly - ethics (the few that there are / there are remaining). Don’t fall for it. The Guardian calls it the most dangerous show on Netflix. Either way, one certainly shouldn’t be naive about it. And people like you and me, posting on public forums, are likewise a cog in this system, forming a - though tiny - part of the game and thus bear their own responsibility in this regard. Keep yourself your own critical mind!

Could be said so much more, but I’ll keep it at that.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8096

First up, thanks for the link, I'll read it later today. 

With all due respect, I believe it is primarily entertainment. I don't turn on Netflix for my dose of peer-reviewed academia. And you're right, Hancock doesn't call himself a scientist. He says that upfront and repeatedly. If you fail to acknowledge and apply that distinction, then surely that is on the viewer. And, as I've said, I don't have any dog in the fight of his theories except for his right to have them.

So I'm clear, here's how I see Hancock: primarily a presenter/book salesman; secondarily as someone with a genuine passion and interest for what he's presenting. He's selling a story based on an evidence gap, on both sides. As to his threat to Enlightenment and common ethics, well, I don't even know where to start with that, except to say I think there are a lot bigger fish to fry than Graham Hancock in that realm. And on the flip side, what I've tried to elucidate is that science as an industry has its own issues there. There are, after all, humans involved. 

Here's why I'm grateful for the show. Since I've watched it and gone on my own exploration about Hancock and elements of the series, I've watched and read independent and academic material on both Gobekli Tepe and Clovis First. Leaving aside the show altogether, I'm fascinated both by what we're now learning from them and how it reminds us to have a curious mind and not to accept everything as gospel. I fail to see anything dangerous or bad in that. 

The essence, for me, in this whole debate lies in being able to make the above distinctions and then do your own critical thinking. If for whatever reason you're unable to do that, then that's a whole other issue which extends well beyond a single Netflix show. You can't hold everyone's hand all at once, and you have to have the open-mindedness to admit that you might not even being leading them down the right path. In sum, I see open discussion like this as way more advantageous than shunning something from ever seeing the light of day, regardless of how wacky or controversial it may or may not be. 

[Fugu]

9 hours ago, PigFish said:

@Fugu My friend, I won’t bother to comment on if I agree with you or not,

Ray, I know you wouldn’t - at least not in every respect 😉😅. 

So thanks a lot for your comment (and your company on this forum)!

[Fugu]

I think I got all that from your earlier post already @MoeFOH Still, I think we are talking a good deal past each other. 

[MoeFOH]

6 minutes ago, Fugu said:

I think I got all that from your earlier post already @MoeFOH Still, I think we are talking a good deal past each other. 

I'll agree with you there! 😉 I stopped short of adding to the end of my post, "I'm out, as I'm sure I'm just repeating myself now" 😊

Good debate. Appreciate it. 

[PuroDiario]