Leading archaeologists have been denouncing his theories for decades. He has been compared to The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and dismissed as a pseudo archaeologist or “Pyramidiot”. The organisation for whom he is delivering a talk on October 15 - the “mind, body and spirit company” Alternatives - also hosts events about ghosts, clairvoyance and the paranormal.
Hancock has no formal qualifications in archaeology, history or astronomy. His long-standing interest in hallucinogenic drugs – “they are something that society really needs” – has not enhanced his reputation either.
None of that makes him wrong, though
I am one who strongly beleive there are lost civilizations we know nothing about. Look at some of the monoliths with stones weighing hundreds of tons.
We could not even move them today with modern eqipment, let alone cut them with laser-like precision from out of a mountain side.
Scientists don’t like their turf being challenged. They don’t even want this guy giving a lecture on his theory (the article calls into question the loss of academic spirit of inquiry and dissent to group think).
http://www.camelcitydispatch.com/graham-hancock-is-the-devil-5984/
Graham Hancock is The Devil
Dr. Jon Epstein
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Greensboro College
The level of intellectual dishonesty embedded in this note is staggering. In more than 30 years as an academic and researcher I can honestly say I have never seen anything that approached the level of hubris it expresses. While it is clear that the writer is passionate in defending the discipline of archaeology, it is equally clear that what is at stake here, ultimately, is intellectual turf. However, if defending a paradigm makes treachery necessary, it may be a good time to do some soul searching.
One of the first things you learn in an undergraduate logic course is that ad hominem arguments are an obvious sign of intellectual deceit. It is simply not possible to make an informed, critical, and fair assessment of a writer’s entire body of work without ever having read a single word. Additionally, I do not allow my students to consider a perfunctory Google search to be an adequate way of critically considering any topic, let alone one that results in the kind of denigration expressed above, and it is absolutely inappropriate for an academic “scientist” to do so.
Hancock identifies himself as an investigative journalist who reports on prehistory. He has on numerous occasions tried to make clear that he is NOT an archaeologist or a scientist. He has done this in writing, in interviews, and on television. I can’t think of another writer who has gone to greater lengths to explain what it is that they are not. The actual truth of the matter is that the idea that Hancock fancies himself a scientist/archaeologist originated and continues to be perpetuated by archaeologists as a way to then discredit him and discount his work as “pseudoscience.”
The notion that archaeology is “in fact a scientific endeavor” is also not exactly “a fact.” The fact is that the most vocal opposition to the idea of archaeology as a science originates from within archaeology itself, from those who see the discipline as the clearinghouse for a number of interrelated activities, some more scientific than others, and with very little in the way of an overarching theoretical orientation. That is a HUGE problem for any discipline claiming to be a science.
I must admit, however, that I am troubled to discover that archaeology as an institution is being put at risk simply by asking a reporter to give a lecture. I had no idea that the foundations of the discipline were that tenuous. It is certainly a good thing that my discipline of sociology has a firmer grasp because I am subjected to the relentless yammering nonsense of self-proclaimed “experts” every single day of my life. The difference, of course, is that in the case of sociology what is being babbled about are living, breathing human beings; the discussion thus has a certain urgency and immediacy not present in archaeology. Unlike the archaeologists, however, we welcome the challenge and, rather than trying to silence those who may misspeak on our behalf, we provide them a forum, ask hard questions, and educate others in the process. These things, after all, are what science and public debate are for, aren’t they?
*Hancock earned an honors degree in sociology from Durham University in the UK, where he studied with Stanley Cohen, author of the classic book in the sociology of deviance Folk Devils and Moral Panics. That book, interestingly, provides a very useful way in which to understand Hancock’s relationship to mainstream archaeology. In Cohen’s framework, and for archaeology, Graham Hancock IS the devil.
** I have removed any information from the original Email that could point to its author. I have no desire to engage in personal or professional attacks on anyone, as it is my opinion that the larger issue is with archaeology as a discipline, and not archaeologists as individuals.
Classic pseudoscience.