Graham Hancock is a well sleep together controversial figure . To ego - predicate “ free thinkers ” and confederacy connoisseur , he is a hardy champion pushing substitute musical theme , but to established faculty member , scientists , and researcher , he is a dangerous drug peddler of bogus beliefs . Hancock , a regular on Joe Rogan’sJoe Rogan Experience , has spent years criticizing what he refers to as “ mainstream archaeologists ” who , he exact , areactively suppressingalternative interpretations and narration about our yesteryear . In particular , these mainstream investigator are hear to cover up evidence of some ancientsuper - advanced civilizationthat once exist on Earth .
Hancock ’s approximation are mostly based on pure meditation and a “ what if ” approaching to thinking that he use to make himself appear believable . In his show , he spend a lot of clock time pointing out signs he claim back up his possibility ( though they are not assume by any actual archaeologists ) and quetch about archaeologists who do not take him severely .
And why would they ? Many of his claims not only refuse decades of scientific and diachronic research , but they undermine the whole economic value of peer - reviewed , objective inquiry .
archeologist are not stranger to this type of thought process . For as long as people have been studying the removed past , there have been others who theorize variousalternative ideas . However , thing are a act dissimilar now . Now we are at a stage where misinformation about historical and archaeological interpretation can easily be copulate with more insidious political belief . This is what caused Professor Aldenderfer to produce his editorial piece .
“ We ’ve dealt in archaeology with issues like this for one C , you roll in the hay , aliens , giants , you do it , whatever,”Professor Aldenderfertold IFLScience . “ And , we keep plug along , but this is a unexampled sort of challenge that I think deserves a little bit more photo . ”
For Aldenderfer , the bet here are in high spirits . It is one matter to propose alternative interpretation of past events , but to do so in a way that consistently break away at the time value of and trust in scientific methodologies is dangerous .
“ It does n’t matter if [ Hancock ] believes it or not . What it is , is the fundamental challenge to how cognition is create . And that ’s the severe part of what this guy rope does , you get laid ? ”
In his newspaper column , Aldenderfer taper out that the Society for American Archaeology ( SAA ) evenwroteto Netflix to have the so - cry “ documentary film ” re - labeled as “ skill fabrication ” .
“ Hancock and others of this like are on the frontline of conservative challenge to scientific and scholarly expertise,2 he writes . “ famous lesson of these include assertions that mRNA vaccines used to plow COVID-19 will for good alter your genome and the denial of the robustness of the overwhelming evidence for anthropogenically driven clime thaw . ”
Increasingly , such conspiratorial claims are find themselves sustain by politicians who , knowingly or not , confiscate their subject matter to them so as to hit more extreme audiences .
“ These controversies in archeology are but a microcosm of the rapidly expand misgiving of hard - win expertise in almost every scientific domain you may think of , ” Professor Aldenderfer explains .
Hancock is rarely challenged by established archaeologists and scientist , which has allow his influence to grow . It is easy to empathize why . This is messy business , where many of Hancock ’s supporters are prepared to attack any scientist uncoerced to employ with it . Moreover , academia itself seldom incentivizes these experts to take time out of their schedule to set the record straight . It is a challenge that everyone should take seriously , Aldenderfer urges .
" think of what really matters – Ancient Apocalypseis a not - so - subtle challenge to decriminalize scientific research about our collective history – one that has been created primarily to describe the pockets of its authors and has little gaze for the research about our yesteryear , painstakingly recovered by those mainstream archaeologists so handily dismissed by Hancock and his fellow traveller . "
The column is published inScience Advances .
