More Hancock Woo

At the website Counterknowledge I recently posted the following reply to two comments. The link can be found Here. I’ve slightly modified my reply and added more references. (Note, December 2012, The Counterknowledge Website is no longer up or maintained. Although a copy of the Website is available at the Internet Archive. Sadly the copy of the page saved at the Internet Archive was copied before my reply posted below and one of the posts I was replying to. See Here.)

Kevin you say:

Sanji I to came to this site for exactly the same reasons has u and come to the same conclusion .watched both videos thanks for that .my first introduction to Bauval who I think is both intelligent and honest man listening to him now on information machine try watching black genesis by Bauval and don’t waste your time arguing with Pacal think him rude and offensive and blind to exploration of facts.

Bauval is not worth taking the slightest bit seriously along with Hancock. The whole Orion correlation thing as been exploded long ago. You are not aware that the constellation of Orion when imposed on Pyramids at Giza and the neighbouring area doesn’t match up. But then Bauval’s a joke. Have you bothered to read up on why the majority of Geologists do not accept an early date for the Sphinx as suggested by Schoch? Or how about how Bauval and Hancock were gunning for a 10,500 B.C.E., date for their Sphinx and basically ignoring that even Schoch gave a date after 8000 B,C.E. Of course do you accept the idea that the great pyramid was planned in 10,500 B.C.E., although built thousands of years later to reflect the date of 10,500 B.C.E. Which by the way Hancock got from Edgar Cayce, (the sleeping prophet). Both of them have been in the past quite ready to accuse Egyptologists of lying, of fraud, fabrication and forgery. In Fingerprints of the Gods Hancock accused an 19th century Egyptologist of fabricating Khufu’s name on stone blocks found in the chambers above the Kings chamber. Hancock has since retracted this baseless accusation but he continues to blither on about wicked Archaeologists suppressing the truth.

As for your last comment given the quite vicious names I’ve been called here I find you thinking me rude / offensive hilarious. I’ve merely said you guys were ignorant and clueless. Which you most evidently are. As for blind to exploration of the facts. Depends. If you mean the made up nonsense of Hancock and Bauval; that is speculation and fantasy not fact. But then you guys seem to have absolutely no interest in doing any sort of real research at all, but just mouth whatever Bauval and Hancock pull out of their asses.

Sanji you say:

Yeh its probably pointless to discuss with those guys, because in the end I'm just gonna repeat what Hancock and others have already said, and I m gonna read here the same critics I’ve seen, which sometimes are legitimate, but never good, solid, proven, unbreakable reasons to completely dismiss Hancock and every single aspect of his work. In the end, what he says has been going on for a quite a while through history, it s not brand new, so that debate has already been going on for ages.

Yep the debate between the cranks and Scientists as been going on for ages. Almost all of it in the minds of the cranks. Thank you for indicating that you have no desire to do any real research.

As for your request for unbreakable reason to dismiss Hancock. What about the simple fact that his lost super civilization seems to have vanished without a trace. How about the fact that each and everyone of the anomalies he points to is almost always has a “prosaic” explanation. How about Hancocks conspiracy mongering. I should not forget to note Hancock’s 2012 boosterism. From Baalbak, (built in Roman times), to the Piri Re’is map Hancock recycles mysteries that are not mysteries. Sanji then says:

Maybe because people like me haven’t yet spend a massive amount of time reading work to boost their knowledge, intelligence and ego, that what might be actually misleading or wrong, its easier to get on with the “outside the box” way of thinking.

Yep mustn’t have ones head clogged with knowledge it might inhibit one’s ability to swallow woo. I guess ignorance is a blessed state and knowing nothing is cool. Oh and Hancock doesn’t think outside the box his thought is firmly in the area of twentieth century crank Archaeology, he is right up their with Von Daniken, and especially Robert Charroux, (One Hundred Thousand Years of Man’s Unknown History). Sanji then says:

I wont go into details because they all say it better than me, but his position about C14 dating process for ancient monuments, his position about the Ice Age and its many mysteries, about maps found around the globe showing what might be locations unknown at the time, about ancient monuments that seem to have astronomical aspects to it, about underwater structures looking suspicious, about drawings, texts, interpretation of some ancient texts. and so on and so on….

There is just so much that you cant just ignore all of this, even when “it’s not a prefect match”, “most specialists disagree “, “he isn’t a professional” and blah blah blah blah.

Hancock’s position about Carbon 14 and how it is used to date monuments is deeply ignorant. Hancock never seems to get the fact that the materials that are associated with the monuments are dated. But then how Archaeologists do that would require him to read some of the many texts about Carbon 14 dating and how to use it. For dating methods see Archaeology, Second Edition, Renfrew, Colin & Bahn, Paul, Thames and Hudson, London, 1996.

He could also use with reading a book about climate history. Say Climate Change in Prehistory, Burroughs, William J., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.

And of course has mentioned above Hancock’s “mysteries” are almost always not mysteries at all.

It is quite easy to ignore most of it, because it is generally not a mystery, and what little is “mysterious” does not require a unknown super civilization or aliens. I should mention here that for a time Hancock supported the idea of alien monuments on Mars, he as backed away from that I hope.

I lost any respect for Hancock from reading the sections of Fingerprints of the Gods (A deliberate play on Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, in my opinion.), on the Maya and Tiwanaku. In the Tiwanaku chapter he almost entirely, (except for a throw away line) ignores the conventional dating of the site and instead advances a far out date based on astronomical alignments deduced from recently reconstructed buildings. These dates contradict dozens of Carbon 14 results along with ceramic, and stratigraphy studies to say nothing of ethno-historical data all of which date the site 200-1000 C.E (A.D.). Please see Ancient Tiwanku, Janusek, John Wayne, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, The Tiwanaku, Kolata, Alan L., Blackwell, Oxford, 1993. As for the Maya please see The Ancient Maya, Sixth Edition, Sharer, Robert J, & Traxler, Loa P, Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, 2006, pp. 102-120, for the Mayan calendar. It also shows why Hancock’s discussion of it is a crock. Hancock’s discussion of the Sarcophagus lid in the tomb of Pacal at Palenque is also totally bogus. Sanji also says:

There are obviously a lot yet to discover about ourselves and our past, and that dude and his mates definitely bring something worth looking into. If a lot of experts of our time are against even debating or considering all this with a new eye, then so be it. It happened countless times before. Doesn’t mean we should blindly believe people like him, but if you sit on your books and ignore such character, then you really have shit in your eyes and your ears, and your slowing down the learning process of mankind. Anyway, I'm wasting my time typing all this, lets agree to disagree.

Guys I m still waiting to hear your opinion about those two videos

Thank you for the Galileo gambit, the typical cliché of cranks everywhere. However for every Galileo who was right there were 10,000 cranks who were way wrong.

As for seeing it with a new eye? Nope! It is the same old same old processed woo. In the 19th century Ignatius Donnelly was touting woo in his Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, in the early twentieth century we had Edgar Cayce and in the late 60’s and into the 70’s we had Von Daniken, along with countless others. It is the same old crap served for another generation.

As for shit in eyes and ears. Since people like Hancock listen to other woo miesters and ignore reams and reams of data while continuing their diet of woo. It is clear who has shit in their eyes and ears and it is Hancock and those who believe like him.

Although it is nice to know that you think the hard won knowledge of the past won over the past century or so is shit.

Some more reading:

Invented Knowledge, Fritze, Ronald, H, Reaktion Books, London, 2009.

Ancient Astronauts, Cosmic Collisions and other Popular Theories about Man’s Past, Stiebing, William H, Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1984.

Giza: The Truth, Lawton, Ian & Ogilvie-Herald, Chris, Invisible Cities Press, Montpelier Vermont, 2001.

The Atlantis Syndrome, Jordan, Paul, Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2001.

Frauds, Myths and Mysteries, Feder, Kenneth L, Mayfield Pub. Co., Toronto, 1999.

Ancient Mysteries, James, Peter & Thorpe, Nick, Ballantine Books, New York, 1999.

Imagining Atlantis, Ellis, Richard, Vintage Books, New York, 1998.

The Space God’s Revealed, Story, Ronald, Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1976.

The Code of Kings, Schele, Linda & Mathews, Peter, Simon & Schuster, New york, 1998.

Lost Continents, de Camp, L. Sprague, Dover Pub. Inc, New York, 1970.

In Search of Ancient Astronomies, Editor Krupp, E.C, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1978.

The New Age, Gardner, Martin, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1991.

From the website In the Hall of Maat, Here, are the following articles of interest.

Tiwanaku: Alternative History in Action, Fagan, Garrett, Here.

Antarctic Farce, Fagan, Garrett, Here.

Analysis of Hancock's Position Statement on C-14 Dating, Fagan, Garrett, Here.

An Answer to Graham Hancock, Fagan, Garrett, Here.

The Gentle Art of Myth Management, Edlin, Duncan, Here.

Fingerprints of the Gods: A Review, Malek, Jaromir, Here.

An Analysis of the Quality of Graham Hancock's Science, Bass, Mickey, Here.

Myth of the Open Mind, Edlin, Duncan, Here.

Going Orion in a Circle (Or: The Challenging Cayce of 10,500BC), Wall, John, Here.

Age of the Sphinx, Bordeau, Alex, Here.

The New Atlantis and the Dangers of Pseudohistory, Fagan, Garrett, & Hale, Chris, Here.

Tracing Graham Hancock's Shifting Cataclysm, Bass, Mickey, Here.

The Lost Civilization in Historical Perspective Déjà vu all over again, Feder, Ken, Here.

P.S. The two links are to films that are merely the same dull old nostrums that have been coming from those two for quite sometime.

Pierre Cloutier