Andy White Anthropology
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My Email Exchange With Graham Hancock

5/28/2019

20 Comments

 
In a video I posted last week about Josh Reeves's claim that Graham Hancock plagiarized a section of Reeves's movie discussing Mississippian cosmology (specifically related to Orion), I showed how some of Reeves's script was taken word-for-word from a 2007 article by George Lankford. I was able to show this because Hancock quoted the same passages --properly cited -- from Lankford in his book America Before.

In the last portion of the video I expressed skepticism that Hancock had independently "stumbled upon" the general idea that ancient Mississippian and Egyptian religions were related through their similarities regarding Orion, the Milky Way, etc. My skepticism came from the knowledge that there were, in fact, other sources out there at the time of Hancock's trip to Moundville wherein such comparisons were discussed. At the end of the video I invited Hancock to clarify where he got the idea.

I'm reproducing the three emails we exchanged below, in full (at his request). Hancock states that he had not read Greg Little's (2014) book Path of Souls at this time of his trip, and he points out that he did credit Little and Andrew Collins for their prior discussion of the idea. He also states that I am not telepathic and not inside his head. He is correct in both of those assertions, and it was wrong of me to speculate that he improperly took the idea from someone else. ​
Here is a short video I made to follow up on the original video:
Here are the emails in chronological order:

From Hancock to me:
Dear Dr Andrew White (aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu)

Thank you for clarifying (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbWhm7zfoaE) who plagiarised who in this Josh Reeves issue, and thank you for recognising that I do properly reference my sources while it seems Josh Reeves does not.

As to the second half of your video, from around 9 minutes in, you talk about comparisons between the religious ideas of ancient Egypt and of the ancient Mississippi Valley, and you effectively accuse me of fabricating the claim that I stumbled across that comparison by chance and unexpectedly when I came to Moundville.

9.26ff: QUOTE "The interesting thing, though, in Graham Hancock's book -- he presents it as though he kind of stumbled upon that comparison all by himself..." END QUOTE

You then quote me on how I try to prepare thoroughly and how I realised it looked like I had missed something important in my background reading before starting out on this trip... But I should have known about this...

And you say that you don't buy for one second that QUOTE "he [Hancock] had no idea that those similarities were out there. He would come all the way here and got to Moundville and not have done the very basic reading on Mississippian religion just seems silly. I don't know. Were we all born yesterday?" END QUOTE

With respect, Dr White, you cannot know how and in what order I set about the research for America Before, and you cannot know the workings of my mind, or the chain of connections in my past research that framed how I approached what confronted me at Moundville. You are accusing me of lying and that is a pretty heavy trip to lay on anyone, especially so since you did not contact me in advance to get my position on this and, more importantly, since you deliberately omit mention of the fact that I DO give credit where credit is due and that I do make direct reference in my main text to other researchers who noted these comparisons before me -- e.g. on page 310 of America Before I write as follows:

QUOTE (emphasis added) The Milky Way, the connection with Orion, the perilous afterlife journey of the soul, and the notion of creating an image or copy of the realm of the dead on the ground were all genuinely present in the Mississippian religion, just as they were in the ancient Egyptian religion. No one familiar with the Pyramid Texts and the Book of the Dead could fail to notice these obvious resemblances. I’m not the first to do so. Andrew Collins and Gregory Little made passing mention of them in 2014 and there was earlier brief recognition of the same issue by others in 2012.2 To my knowledge at the time of this writing, however, no in-depth comparative study has ever been undertaken to determine whether there’s a real connection between these two otherwise very different cultures, separated not only by geography but also by time."
END QUOTE

It is this in-depth, comparative study that follows (roughly between pp 310 and 362 of America Before) that I claim to be original to me. You will not find anything in those pages that you can spin as plagiarism, lying or misrepresentation of any kind on my part. All this is my own original take on the content of the ancient Egyptian funerary texts and the comparisons that emerge from my close -- and fully referenced and properly credited -- reading of the work of George Lankford and others on the Moundville religion.

It is disingenuous of you to insinuate that I falsely claim priority in noting the obvious similarities between the ancient Egyptian religion and the Moundville religions when I clearly do not claim priority and when I clearly do state on the record on page 310 of America Before that I am not the first to notice these similarities. The force of your insinuation would be lost if you had quoted me specifically disclaiming priority as I do on page 310. I wonder why you chose not to do so in your video and thus to mislead your viewers on my true position?

To give you some background, when my wife Santha and I began the Mississippi Valley leg of our America Before research trip I was indeed not well prepared. My intention early in the project had been to focus on the Southwest, and I was particularly interested in Gary David's Orion correlations in Arizona. But while in Arizona in late May 2017 (travelling with Gary David, Randall Carlson and others) I suffered a massive episode of epileptic seizures described on pages 297/298 ff of America Before, as a result of which I was knocked sideways in almost every imaginable manner possible. I lost all memory of the research I had done in the Southwest, and all interesting in reporting it. When I came to Moundville however, on the long road journey up the Mississippi Valley (with Santha now doing all the driving) that eventually got us to Serpent Mound for the summer solstice -- and having at that point read not a word of the work of George Lankford et al -- I did indeed, as I describe, find myself overtaken by a massive sense of deja vu to do with the blatant and obvious similarities to ancient Egypt. Subsequently I researched the subject in depth, and what I have written speaks for itself, namely I give full credit to Lankford et all for breaking the code of Moundville symbolism and I correctly attribute priority to Greg Little, Andrew Collins and others for preceding me in noting the blatant and obvious similarities between the Moundville and ancient Egyptian religions.

I then go on to mount my own detailed investigation of the similarities, and it is this investigation, (roughly between pp 310 and 362 of America Before) that I claim as original to myself. If you feel I have plagiarised anyone in that investigation please indicate where and who.

Something else that you (and others) appear to have failed to note (or prefer not to note?) is that I have my own deeper background with the "Path of Souls" concept in ancient native America and its connections to ancient Egypt. I review this background (which is reported in my 1998 book Heaven's Mirror) on pp 446 to 448 of America Before, where I write:

QUOTE
I have explored the mysteries of the Maya, and of their predecessors the Olmec, in my earlier work, so I have not retold their extraordinary story here. I will mention in passing, however, that in 1998, long before I knew of the Mississippi Valley civilization and its afterlife beliefs concerning the constellation Orion and the Milky Way, I drew attention in Heaven’s Mirror to a discovery by archaeologists Jose Fernandez and Robert Cormack establishing that the settlement core of the Maya city of Utatlan was designed “according to a celestial scheme reflected by the shape of the constellation of Orion.”9

Fernandez was also able to prove that all of Utatlan’s major temples “were oriented to the heliacal setting points of stars in Orion,”10 and noted that the Milky Way, alongside which Orion stands, “was thought of as a celestial path connecting the firmament’s navel with the centre of the underworld.”11

This should be familiar territory to the reader by now and hopefully you can guess what comes next. “Very much like the ancient Egyptians,” I reported inHeaven’s Mirror, the Maya regarded the Milky Way as a particularly important feature of the heavens:

They conceived of it as the road that led to their netherworld, Xibalba which, in common with other Central American peoples, they located in the sky.12

I also commented on Mexican traditions of the postmortem journey of the soul in which the deceased, just as in the ancient Egyptian Duat, would face a series of ordeals and “a final judgment in the terrifying presence of the death god.”13 Noting numerous other striking similarities in beliefs and symbolism around the mysteries of death and the afterlife, I concluded:

In Egypt, as amongst the Maya, the stellar context involves Orion and the Milky Way. In Egypt as in Mexico a journey through the netherworld must be undertaken by the deceased. In Egypt as in Mexico religious teachings assert that life is our opportunity to prepare for this journey—an opportunity that should under no circumstances be wasted.14

Such correspondences led me to speculate that both ancient Egypt and ancient Mexico had shared in the legacy of an even more ancient cosmological religion, “wrapped up in sophisticated astronomical observations” and specifically focused on the afterlife journey of the soul. Neither Egypt nor Mexico had originated this religion, nor had they transmitted it directly to one another. Rather each of them had inherited it from a third, as yet unidentified, civilization.15

It was a hypothesis. What would help to strengthen it, and perhaps even confirm it, would be evidence of other civilizations with no direct relationship in which the same legacy could be identified.

This evidence, I submit, now exists in the astonishing proximity of the religious beliefs, iconography, and symbolism of the Mississippi Valley to the religious beliefs, iconography, and symbolism of ancient Egypt outlined in part 6. These deep structural connections are, in my view, unexplainable by any means other than a shared legacy from a very ancient source—a source predating the separation of peoples when the Americas became isolated from the “Old World” by the rising oceans at the end of the Ice Age. 
 END QUOTE

I wonder if those who accuse me of plagiarism and false claims of priority, etc, are aware of this earlier encounter that I had with ancient Native American religions and their similarities to the ancient Egyptian religion -- all thoroughly documented and referenced in my 1998 book Heaven's Mirror. For example Greg Little (cc'd here, together with his co-author Andrew Collins) seems to be unaware of my earlier work on this subject in his comment and speculations posted beneath your video:

QUOTE

atagreg123 hours ago

Graham had a copy of our "Path of Souls" book before visiting Moundville as well as my Encyclopedia of Mounds. If you look at the "index" in Path of Souls you'll see the Egyptian connection discussed many times. However, on page 310 of his book "America Before" Graham says about comprehending the link between Egyptian beliefs and mound builder beliefs: "I'm not the first to do so. Andrew Collins and Gregory Little made passing mention of them in 2014..." My guess that because of his adherence to Orion being the only important link that he became impressed enough at Moundville to truly comprehend how real the connection is.END QUOTE

Greg's "guess" seems uninformed by my earlier work in Heaven's Mirror, and I don't know if he has read the whole of America Before where that earlier work is referenced. But certainly, Dr White, you should have been aware, since you make much of having read the whole of America Before, just as you should have been aware -- and should have reported -- my specific disavowal of priority on page 310 of America Before. Yet you speculate (12.33 of your video ff -- emphasis added): "I think it's very likely that he took the whole idea of a connection between Egypt and ancient Mississippians -- he got that from somewhere. I don't buy for a second that he just stumbled on it when he got out of his car at Moundville."

Of course, Dr White, you are welcome to your own speculations about my processes, inspiration and chains of thought and connections, but you surely do not claim to be telepathic and a more thorough investigation of what I actually wrote in America Before might have led you to speculate less unkindly.

Wishing you joy on your path
​
Graham Hancock

My response to Hancock:
Hi Graham (et al.),

Thank you for the message. It does help me to clarify something of the history of these comparisons between Mississippian and ancient Egyptian religion/cosmology. I'm not overly familiar with the idea, as most of my work focuses on much earlier parts of North America's human past. 

It appears I may have misunderstood that passage of your book about you being "nonplussed" at Moundville. It read to me as though you were saying you were unfamiliar with Mississippian/Egyptian similarities (specifically regarding Orion) until you arrived at Moundville.  You said you had missed something in your research -- that implied to me that you were not familiar with the other discussions that came before yours in "America Before" (i.e., Greg Little's) at the time you got to Moundville. I know that you credited Little and Collins for their discussion. I don't have the book at home with me, so I can't review how the different sections are organized. I take you at your word, however, that it was a misreading on my part, and I apologize for that.

I'll gladly make another video to clear things up. Could I quote your email? Also, to better understand the history of ideas about this, can you tell me if you remember when and how you first became aware of the Mississippian/Egyptian Orion parallels? 

As a side note, I wonder about the  incorporation of Orion and the Milky Way into religions/cosmologies around the world. Those two features are among the most distinctive and easily recognizable things in the night sky, and I would be surprised to learn that they are not central to many belief systems. I would not be surprised to find (if there was actual any way to know) that they figured into Paleolithic religions that existed tens of thousands of years ago.

Anyway . . . I will re-address the plagiarism issue. It's a holiday weekend here in the U.S. and I'm on summer break, so I'm not sure when I'll be back in the office next. I'm planning on discussing other things in your book over the course of the summer as I have time. As I said in my video, I think there are many interesting ideas in it but also some logical and factual issues. I will do my best to be fair, accurate, and objective, and to not rely on my powers of telepathy, which remain extremely under-developed.

Cordially,
​
Andy

Hancock's response to me:
Dear Dr White

My replies interpolated with your comments. Your comments are highlighted yellow. [I've changed the highlighted text to purple italics so it will show up --AAW]

Thank you for the message. It does help me to clarify something of the history of these comparisons between Mississippian and ancient Egyptian religion/cosmology. I'm not overly familiar with the idea, as most of my work focuses on much earlier parts of North America's human past. 

If you are not familiar with these comparisons then it was irresponsible of you to be in such a panty-twisting hurry to make defamatory statements about me in your video -- particularly your insinuation that I had lied about my first encounter with Moundville (e.g. QUOTE "This whole, you know 'I had never realised that Orion was a thing in Mississippian religion' -- the story [holds up book] that we get from Graham Hancock -- I think just doesn't pass the smell test to me. Surely he was aware of that... I think it's very likely that he [Hancock] took the whole idea of a connection between Egypt and ancient Mississippians -- he got that from somewhere. I don't buy for a second that he just stumbled on it when he got out of his car at Moundville... in terms of the stealing of ideas [holds up book]... I don't know [tone of voice significant here]... I'd like to see Graham Hancock clarify that all this stuff just poofed into his head -- cause that arrival story [facial expression significant here] -- I'm not buying it." END QUOTE

In these sneering, false and damaging statements (as well as others in your video) you specifically and clearly insinuate that I am involved in QUOTE "the stealing of ideas" END QUOTE. That is an extremely serious charge, capable of causing lasting harm, to lay against the reputation an internationally-known, New York Times bestselling author. If the charge of "stealing ideas" were true, and if it could be proven true, you would have been justified in making it, but since the charge is not true there is no justification whatsoever for your snickering speculations about my integrity. The bottom line here is that you failed to do due diligence before rushing rashly off to Youtube with your libels. Since you make much of the "fringe" failing to do due diligence, it is right and proper that you should be held to account when you yourself fail to meet the standards that you demand of others. 

It appears I may have misunderstood that passage of your book about you being "nonplussed" at Moundville. It read to me as though you were saying you were unfamiliar with Mississippian/Egyptian similarities (specifically regarding Orion) until you arrived at Moundville.  You said you had missed something in your research -- that implied to me that you were not familiar with the other discussions that came before yours in "America Before" (i.e., Greg Little's) at the time you got to Moundville. I know that you credited Little and Collins for their discussion. I don't have the book at home with me, so I can't review how the different sections are organized. I take you at your word, however, that it was a misreading on my part, and I apologize for that.

Rather bizarre squirming logic in the above Andrew (shall we use first name terms?). You misunderstood nothing. How I described my reaction to Moundville in the book is exactly how it happened. I certainly had the Little/Collins book "Path of Souls" in my library before that but I had not read it. I did, however, read it after my Mississippi Valley research trip -- as also I read Lankford et al. You state, QUOTE "I know that you credited Little and Collins for their discussion". END QUOTE. But this merely makes your rash and hasty rush to defame me even more reprehensible, since you knew I had credited Little and Collins with priority on the specific Moundville/Ancient Egypt connection yet failed to inform viewers of your video of this. As I said in my earlier mail, QUOTE "It is disingenuous of you to insinuate that I falsely claim priority in noting the obvious similarities between the ancient Egyptian religion and the Moundville religions when I clearly do not claim priority and when I clearly do state on the record on page 310 of America Before that I am not the first to notice these similarities. The force of your insinuation would be lost if you had quoted me specifically disclaiming priority as I do on page 310. I wonder why you chose not to do so in your video and thus to mislead your viewers on my true position?" END QUOTE

I'll gladly make another video to clear things up. Could I quote your email? 

I will return to this suggestion of yours at the end of this mail.

Also, to better understand the history of ideas about this, can you tell me if you remember when and how you first became aware of the Mississippian/Egyptian Orion parallels? 

If you were a responsible scholar (and do you not, yourself, demand responsible scholarship from what you call the "fringe"?) you would have asked me this question first, before rushing to defame me on Youtube with your unevidenced  "telepathic" speculations. It is peculiar that you are asking me this question now -- especially so in the light of the information given to you in my lengthy, opening email, and in the light of what I actually state in print in the book -- namely that I first became aware of the Mississippi/Egyptian Orion parallels during my 2017 visit to Moundville. I did indeed feel that I had missed something important in my research prior to that visit -- precisely because, as I also outline in my opening email, I have been talking about parallels between ancient Native American and ancient Egyptian religious ideas (with specific reference to Orion and the Milky Way) since I researched and published my 1998 book Heaven's Mirror. Having long previously commented on these parallels in the case of the Maya it would be bizarre indeed if the notice-boards at Moundville had not caught my attention and made me aware that essentially the same "path of souls" complex was present in the Mississippi Valley. But it was not prior knowledge of this that brought me to Moundville. It was just one stop on a long drive up the Mississippi Valley from New Orleans to Ohio during which Santha and I visited many mound sites on our way to witness the summer solstice at Serpent Mound.

Again, you failed to do due diligence (e.g. reading and reacting to pp 446-448 of America Before) which would have shown you that I have a  history (in my 1998 book Heaven's Mirror)  with the "path of souls" complex amongst ancient Native Americans and the similarities of this complex to ancient Egyptian religious ideas. It's either that (i.e.you failed to do due diligence and did not in fact read the whole book as you claim) or, if you did read the whole book, then you must have deliberately ignored these pages in order to give illusory force to your insinuations that I am involved in "the stealing of ideas". 

As Greg Little acknowledges in his email cc'd to you earlier in this thread with reference to Heaven's Mirror:

QUOTE
There is a lot more relating Egyptian beliefs to the Americas in the book [Heaven's Mirror], but it is very clear that he [Hancock] has had some ideas about this for a very long time. 

Far longer than me.... as I related in Path of Souls (p. 139) I first became aware of the specifics in the mound builder ideas in 2006. 
END QUOTE

As a side note, I wonder about the  incorporation of Orion and the Milky Way into religions/cosmologies around the world. Those two features are among the most distinctive and easily recognizable things in the night sky, and I would be surprised to learn that they are not central to many belief systems. I would not be surprised to find (if there was actual any way to know) that they figured into Paleolithic religions that existed tens of thousands of years ago.

It's a reasonable point you make here and once we have got the deceit and hypocrisy in your video properly apologised for and corrected, I might be willing to discuss it with you. 

Anyway . . . I will re-address the plagiarism issue. It's a holiday weekend here in the U.S. and I'm on summer break, so I'm not sure when I'll be back in the office next. I'm planning on discussing other things in your book over the course of the summer as I have time. As I said in my video, I think there are many interesting ideas in it but also some logical and factual issues. I will do my best to be fair, accurate, and objective, and to not rely on my powers of telepathy, which remain extremely under-developed.

Yes, you do need to re-address the plagiarism issue, and you need to do so in a timely way, regardless of your "summer break" -- especially so if you wish to preserve any semblance of being an honest and objective commentator on the work of those of us on what you call the "fringe". I would suggest the proper format would be to leave your existing sloppily-researched and defamatory video online, with a health-warning, as a matter of permanent record, and prominently link it to an article that you will write and a new video that you will make in which you correct your errors and omissions in that existing video. 

Returning to this offer of yours, highlighted earlier -- I'll gladly make another video to clear things up. Could I quote your email? 

The answer is 'Yes, you may quote my mail if you do so representatively rather than cherry-picking passages in order further to spin your own agenda. So that there is no doubt about what I did in fact say in my mail I suggest that you reproduce it in full within an article linked to the new video that you have offered to make "to clear things up".

Thank you for your 'Cordially' at the end of your mail. Cordial is as cordial does. If you honestly and openly put right the mess you have made by publicly correcting the false and damaging accusations you have levelled against me, then yes, sure, let's be cordial with each other in the future.

Please note also, in case you are concerned, that I have no intention of taking this matter to law. What a stupid waste of everybody's time that would be!  But you set yourself up as an honest and reliable commentator on the supposed errors and misrepresentations of the "fringe" so it should not be too much for me to expect honesty and reliability from you in correcting your own errors, misrepresentations and libels.

All the best

Graham
20 Comments
Carl Feagans link
5/28/2019 09:37:16 am

What an ass he is. In reading your response, I was genuinely expecting rational and sensible dialog. Instead, he just doubled-down as an asshole.

Most of his ideas over the years are rip-offs from Sitchin, Velichovsky, and Donnelly--dressed up to look new. His "best selling" book--proof that he's a good con artist--is giving him an drug-addled ego trip. Or maybe he's laying off the drugs now.

Reply
Shake and Baked
5/29/2019 01:17:53 pm

Hancock fried his brain a long time ago. Getting inside his head would be a very scary experience. He has stated that for years he was high all the time. Do you really want to trust Hancock's recall about when he did or didn't become aware of something?

White was overly generous to give Hancock the benefit of the doubt that his side was entirely truthful or accurate.

Reply
Saluki
5/28/2019 11:34:28 pm

These guys are seeing Orion correlations in the toppings of Pizza Hut Meat Lovers Pizza. If you keep pushing that line often enough you are gonna be right from time to time.

If he knew of other authors who had posited the connection and cited or discussed them elsewhere in the book (although he obviously had missed an important source published three years before) then why discuss the 2017 trip as some sort of an epiphany? Or maybe I'm just not fully understanding his rant and got it wrong?

The sad thing is that you were willing to engage with him and make the exchange public. Quite transparent. Yet, he will milk this for years as an example of the archaeological conspiracy against him and it will get brandished as a deflection play every time he is called out on a wrong or unsubstantiated claim.

Classic fringer, though. Even when they are kinda right on a relatively minor point they still come across looking like a doofus and drama queen.




Reply
Lee Albee
5/29/2019 07:51:27 am

Overall, Mr. Hanncock has a poor history of interactions with academia. Mostly in the form of dismissive and ad hominem attacks upon his character and person. This has unfortunately sensitized him to reviews of this nature.

To your credit, you have corrected your misrepresentation of Mr. Hancock. Kudos to you for that.

I hope you both can have fruitful discussions in the future. He has some unique perspective. A good hypothesis builder.. though some of his ideas are not easily testable.

I look forward to your review of his book. I personally found the book to have some issues. It seemed fairly hasty and incomplete versus several of his previous works. He also leaves at least 2 or three poorly connected ideas sort of hanging...

Reply
J. Battaglia
5/29/2019 09:35:42 am

Lee,

Hancock has established a reputation for using his own shoddy scholarship, piggybacking on the ideas of other fringe writers, and cherry picking the work of academics to support a number of wild claims. He himself stated that he had a very bad drug habit during much of the time that he was writing his various books and he still seems to be dabbling in hallucinogenic drugs. Some obvious anger management issues there as well. He also has a reputation for launching his own attacks on individuals and fields that are in disagreement with him. If scholars are dismissive of him or find faults in his character and work it is generally because there is a basis for these actions.

Take note of the fact that in this instance Hancock chose to make a spectacle out of inaccurate comments about when he did or didn't know about the work of others on the same topic. However, you rarely hear a peep out of him on various occasions when White or others have pointed out countless flaws in Hancock's work. Or, when he does respond it is with the same dismissiveness that is attributed to his critics.

Others, Jason Colavito for example, have written at length about Hancock and indicate that he doesn't build hypotheses as much as he simply copies the outlandish claims of earlier fringe writers. Case in point, a major impact event that wipes out an earlier advanced civilization. You might want to look into the origin of that tale.

Reply
Michael Davias link
5/31/2019 05:51:50 pm

While I am no anthropologist, I have been a recipient of your blog by email since you ventured a bit into the discussion Carolina bays in March of 2016, and were kind enough to reference one of my web pages. I have found the blog to be quite insightful and provides an interesting read about the history of our spices. Your blog of 5/29 was especially enlightening, as it does provide some evidence regarding the transparency of your messaging. Our “YouTube” culture has created a realm where misquotes and inconsistent attention to detail can do great harm, and you are setting a fine example by sharing your discussion with Graham Hancock in an attempt to address a wrong.

In his emails, Mr. Hancock has offered a competent and compelling defense against your accusations of plagiarism and improper credit-taking. One might wonder how a book such as America Before, which is densely packed with footnotes and attribution details, could ever be misrepresented by a diligent reviewer. I do hope you don’t view those dense footnotes and attributions as merely a smoke screen.

Allow me to add an observation regarding Mr. Hancock’s scientific diligence and sincerity. In "America Before", chapter 27 (Cape Fear), he discusses the content of a meeting held at the mouth of Cape Fear River, in Wilmington, North Carolina, in the fall of 2017. As a participant to that meeting and its subsequent email threads, I can confidently say he represented the discourse among the attendees accurately and fairly. An example for you to contemplate involves the genesis of the Carolina bays. A fellow “citizen scientist” traveler of mine, Antonio Zamora, presented his case for a Younger Dryas time frame, which plays well to Mr. Hancock’s narrative of a North American disruption event circa 12,000 years ago. In contrast, I presented my reasoning for an event circa 800,000 years ago.  Despite it not being congruent with the book’s general narrative, Mr. Hancock accurately portrayed my theory, and went so far as to provide references to my efforts to socialize it at GSA meetings.

Why is that so remarkable? Well, the only other place I have seen a formal reference to my 2015 GSA talk was in an Elsevier-published journal paper that properly credited me with identifying the researchers subject of interest: "The putative Saginaw impact structure, Michigan, Lake Huron, in the light of gravity aspects derived from recent EIGEN 6C4 gravity field model." Nice to see my work referenced, and see a possible validation of my astrobleme, but those authors inferred that my 2015 talk was supportive of a YDB time frame and failed to reference a Mid-Pleistocene date. Why? I can only assume they felt the YDB would get them more clicks. Or they failed to digest the entire talk… or even read the abstract! 

There is a great moral tale told at the conclusion of Mr. Hancock’s Cape Fear chapter: Those who hold the mantle of the “consensus opinion” often resort to distortion and innuendo to discredit alternative theories. Tread with Fear should you dare to prosecute a level-headed scientific discussion that steps outside the a priori solution, regardless of how many decades that solution has been challenged by data point after data point.

Reply
Walter Bunn
5/31/2019 08:27:27 pm

No need to resort to distortion and innuendo to discredit Hancock. He does a fine job of that all by himself. Dr. White made a mistake on a matter that really has nothing to do with Hancock's major assertion about an ancient advanced civilization in North America being wiped out without a trace. Have you engaged in firsthand field research and encountered evidence of such a civilization?

No doubt Hancock will be supportive of any research that plays into the narrative of catastrophic impact since any apparent validation of impact scenarios can then be used by him as support for his ancient civilizations "research." He does the same thing with archaeological and paleontological research if it works for him. Anything else gets ignored or casually dismissed when it comes time to develop those footnotes.

If you ever find yourself producing work that might in some way reflect negatively on Hancock's work then it is highly likely that you will ultimately end up with much less pleasant thoughts of him.

There is no moral tale here other than exercising a little more caution in public criticism of Hancock. As others have noted, people like Hancock can commit countless errors and get countless passes by his supporters. If one professional scholar makes a single mistake involving Hancock then suddenly it is cause for extreme moral outrage.

Just out of curiosity, do you smoke marijuana heavily while collecting, analyzing, and writing up data? Would you trust and respect the results of work by someone in your field who did?

Reply
Michael Davias link
6/1/2019 07:26:44 am

I venture no further into mind expanding drugs than a glass of wine with a fine dinner, but it is well documented that there is no term "angry marijuana high", while our newsprint is full of the actions of angry drunks (which is seemingly OK).

Seems many sentiment folks have set their eyes on a windmill to tilt at. I might agree that Mr. Hancock presents an easy target, as does my Mid Pleistocene Impact theory, as well as those who deny Anthropological climate change. Yet, I am quite amazed that so much time and creative energies are spent attacking the soft underbellies of those who at least aspire to follow some semblance of scientific process, when there are Billions of Humans who outright dismiss the mere concept of free will. "God wills it, if it is to be, it will come through his grace, and I will tell you what his grace wills".

For one example, Republican and ultra the righteous religious males want to strip women of all free will in the use of their bodies, treating them as mere chattels in their quest to rule their realm; protect the UnBorn, yet fail to nourish and educate those who are already here. The NRA wants to maintain the money flow into the arms manufacturers, and buys politicians off to prohibit the NIH from any research into the harm firearms do to humans. Education in STEM across the USA is atrocious... we are falling well behind the rest of the civilized world. Large segments of the American population believe the lunar landings were fake. Such dismissals of our past technological and scientific success are frightening to me, and when I see comment threads full of attacks on soft underbellies, I say "use your words" to strike at hard targets instead.

Ad hominem attacks, as well as outright banishment has been visited upon great scientists throughout history. It was less than 50 years ago that the administration of Columbia University threatened workers with dismissal should they use academic funding to pursue the heresy of Continental Drift. In the early 1990's planetary scientists had 2 years to predict what SL-9 would do when it slammed into Jupiter; the cognoscenti got it all wrong, because a fireball the size of the Earth was simply incomprehensible to them. Yes, of course, we are all so sophisticated now.

Carl Feagans link
6/1/2019 09:22:05 am

" I do hope you don’t view those dense footnotes and attributions as merely a smoke screen."

They're most definitely a smokescreen. And a cherry-picked one at that.

His conclusion is that his fabled, lost civilization--for which he produces no tangible or empirical evidence--was able to transmit all its glory and achievement via ESP to later cultures, which explains how they were all capable of building pyramids, etc.

Any reader that paid $29 for his new book "full of footnotes and references" only to discover this mechanism of magic should feel cheated. The only reasons they don't are because they're already part of the Hancock cult-following and/or the smokescreen of footnotes and references he cherry-picks leave them satisfied enough to over look the bullshit ending.

My review is on Amazon and my website if interested.

Reply
Walter Bunn
6/1/2019 01:13:57 pm

Michael,

Whether or not marijuana makes people angry it does effect cognitive processes. Ayahuasca is even more problematic. Again, would you trust the work produced by people in your own discipline who used drugs heavily while doing it?

Evoking Republicans, NRA, abortion, critics of continental drift, etc. in response to criticism of the fringe by archaeologists is really barking up the wrong tree.

Reply
Michael Davias link
6/1/2019 02:02:16 pm

Walter, I respect your right to label whoever you choose as 'fringe". As a citizen of this Earth, just like you, when I see comment threads full of attacks on soft underbellies, I say "use your words" to strike at hard targets instead. Perhaps you do also rant at societiy's real problems, but if you spent more time there, you might make more progress for science than chasing after Graham Hancock - who's theories represents a far less risk to the world.

Reply
Walter Bunn
6/1/2019 06:39:55 pm

Hancock has gone on the record as claiming, without substantiation, that people with heroin addiction have cured it by traveling to the Amazon and taking hallucinogenic drugs there. Some people might find that type of assertion as encouraging great risk. Many ways that one can find value and contribute to scientific progress by calling out pseudoscience.

You might consider the risk to your own reputation by refusing to answer a simple question about how heavy drug use could result in garbage in, garbage out research results.

Reply
Hendy
6/19/2019 09:54:57 pm

Walter,

An ignorant comment on your part.

Johns Hopkins University has been publishing peer reviewed studies that fully support the claims that Hancock has made with regard to overcoming addiction with psychedelic treatment - sometimes with just a single dose.

https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/

Michael Davias link
6/1/2019 07:22:25 pm

Greetings Mr. Bunn:
Ah ha! We get to the heart of the matter. The implied threat to my "reputation" is a cynical joke. I won't respond to your silly "so, have you stopped hitting your wife" question, because the framing of the question requires one to believe that taking a toke is far more dangerous to science than getting drunk (and being occasionally a bit tipsy seems to be OK with you). As a retired citizen scientist, you and your silly question can't take away my reputation. All you can do is to try and induce Fear in others to never question the consensus- see Chapter 27.

Reply
Walter Bunn
6/2/2019 11:33:10 am

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/graham-hancock-cannabis-and-the-lost-civilization

Fundamental difference between taking a toke and staying royally stoned for over two decades then graduating to Hallucinogenics. Fundamantal difference between a gotcha "when did you stop beating your wife" joke and a perfectly straightforward question about how the work of someone who did it in a drug haze should be perceived. Fundamental difference between using science to challenge consensus and using decidedly unscientific methods to sell books. The fact that you can't grasp these very simple distinctions does in fact call into question your reasoning abilities and judgment.

I certainly agree, though, as it related to matters relevant to this page, nothing that happens here is going to "take away" your reputation. That sucker ain't going anywhere....

Since you can't/won't answer a simple question and instead babble away about the NRA and abortion and use apples and oranges logic I don't see any need for further discussion.



Reply
Hendy
6/19/2019 09:57:32 pm

Preliminary evidence from a new study led by Harvard Medical School Affiliate McLean Hospital's Staci Gruber, PhD, suggests that medical marijuana (MMJ) may not impair, and in many cases, may actually improve executive functioning in adults. Splendor in the Grass? A Pilot Study Assessing the Impact of Medical Marijuana on Executive Function, assessed the impact of MMJ treatment on executive function and explored whether patients improved cognitive functioning. "After three months of medical marijuana treatment, patients actually performed better, in terms of their ability to perform certain cognitive tasks, specifically those mediated by the frontal cortex," explained Gruber in a press statement.

Anthony
6/4/2019 03:08:02 pm

I have no way of proving it, however, some College Professors were talking about part of this "Orion Connection" in 1981-82. The layout of the pyramids in relation to the rivers. No mention of religious similarities just, mirroring the stars. I wish these men were still alive. My words would not be hearsay. Very few Woo authors have original ideas.

I appreciate your blog, Andy White. It is a tremendous resource of information, and insightful Links. You have kept me busy reading for months. Thank you!

Reply
Walter Bunn
6/24/2019 10:07:16 am

Hendy,

The sources that you cite are irrelevant to the discussion here. It is like saying that because there are studies asserting that two glasses of wine per day can have a therapeutic effect that means it is okay to drink 4 bottles of wine per day.

Hancock has issues with substance use as well as anger management. That is pretty clear in his exchanges with anyone who disagrees with him. So I don't think that those ayahuasca dropping sessions have really helped all that much.

You can post all the links that you want but you are just putting lipstick on a pig.

Reply
Mr J Holmes
7/11/2019 02:40:41 pm

"Cherry picking passages!!"
Christ, that is all he ever done over the years!!!

Reply
Jim
7/18/2019 05:38:28 pm

Hey Andy,, off topic but I thought you might get a charge out of this.
It appears Scott Wolter wants to die on the same hill as Pulitzer.
He is talking about zinc content on the proven fake plaque that Sir Francis Drake was supposed to have left in America.

"I looked at the 1970s zinc content test results and to be frank, was unimpressed. Brass with virtually any zinc content could have been made in recent times or back then. It is NOT a definitive test for when it was made."

http://scottwolteranswers.blogspot.com/2019/07/american-unearthed-season-4-episode-8.html#comment-form

(from the comments)

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