Mysteries :
The Official GrahamHancock.com forums
For serious discussion of the controversies, approaches and enigmas surrounding the origins and development of the human species and of human civilization. (NB: for more ‘out there’ posts we point you in the direction of the ‘Paranormal & Supernatural’ Message Board).
Thanks for your contributions to this message board which are intelligent and reasonable.
I have a position on "objectivity". My opinion is that the structure and intellectual framework of science and education in industrialised societies is powerfully biased against the lost civilisation hypothesis and has effectively closed people's minds to this interesting possibility.
I do not see myself as a scientist. I see myself as an advocate of the lost civilisation hypothesis. You may not like that, but that's what I am and that's what I say I am.
I've just copied and pasted the paragraphs below from my introduction to the Library page on this site.
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If you want a slavishly "balanced" and objective account of "both sides of the argument" then I'm the wrong author for you!
I operate on the assumption that our education system, media and indeed our entire society today combine to give massive support and unquestioned acceptance to the orthodox side of the argument. Until I and a few of my colleagues like John Anthony West and Robert Bauval began to speak out there was really no counterbalancing view at all! And even now, although we've managed to get some people's attention - and some television time - we're still in every sense outnumbered and outgunned.
So the way I see it it's not my job to be "balanced" or "objective". On the contrary, by providing a powerful, persuasive single-minded case for the existence of a lost civilisation, I believe that I am merely restoring a little balance and objectivity to a previously unbalanced situation. There exists a vast array of academic "experts", on comfortable and secure salaries, with the resources of full university departments behind them, whose life's work is to churn out endless refinements and confirmations of the orthodox theory of prehistory. These scholars, and their many fans and chums in the quality media, do not hesitate to mount Doberman-like attacks on any who try to argue in favour of a lost civilisation. The Dobermans also systematically ignore all forms of evidence that cast doubt on the established view (for example the implications of the astronomical alignments of the Pyramids of Giza) while at the same time accusing us "alternative historians" of being "pseudo-scientists" who dishonestly "select" only evidence that supports our case and who ignore or even misrepresent contradictory data.
Readers will have to make up their own minds about such attacks. Meanwhile my own definite feeling, in such a hostile climate, is that it's my job - and a real responsibility to be taken seriously -- to undermine and cast doubt on the orthodox theory of history in every way that I can and to make the most eloquent and persuasive case that I am capable of making for the existence of a lost civilisation. If I'm wrong ... fine! Let the Dobermans prove me wrong, or persuade the public that I am wrong. Whatever the outcome I'm glad to have played a part in forcing an intellectual elite - historians, Egyptologists, archaeologists - to defend their previously unquestioned theories and speculations about prehistory and to confront a well-worked-out alternative theory presented to a mass public in a series of bestselling books.
I have a position on "objectivity". My opinion is that the structure and intellectual framework of science and education in industrialised societies is powerfully biased against the lost civilisation hypothesis and has effectively closed people's minds to this interesting possibility.
I do not see myself as a scientist. I see myself as an advocate of the lost civilisation hypothesis. You may not like that, but that's what I am and that's what I say I am.
I've just copied and pasted the paragraphs below from my introduction to the Library page on this site.
**************************
If you want a slavishly "balanced" and objective account of "both sides of the argument" then I'm the wrong author for you!
I operate on the assumption that our education system, media and indeed our entire society today combine to give massive support and unquestioned acceptance to the orthodox side of the argument. Until I and a few of my colleagues like John Anthony West and Robert Bauval began to speak out there was really no counterbalancing view at all! And even now, although we've managed to get some people's attention - and some television time - we're still in every sense outnumbered and outgunned.
So the way I see it it's not my job to be "balanced" or "objective". On the contrary, by providing a powerful, persuasive single-minded case for the existence of a lost civilisation, I believe that I am merely restoring a little balance and objectivity to a previously unbalanced situation. There exists a vast array of academic "experts", on comfortable and secure salaries, with the resources of full university departments behind them, whose life's work is to churn out endless refinements and confirmations of the orthodox theory of prehistory. These scholars, and their many fans and chums in the quality media, do not hesitate to mount Doberman-like attacks on any who try to argue in favour of a lost civilisation. The Dobermans also systematically ignore all forms of evidence that cast doubt on the established view (for example the implications of the astronomical alignments of the Pyramids of Giza) while at the same time accusing us "alternative historians" of being "pseudo-scientists" who dishonestly "select" only evidence that supports our case and who ignore or even misrepresent contradictory data.
Readers will have to make up their own minds about such attacks. Meanwhile my own definite feeling, in such a hostile climate, is that it's my job - and a real responsibility to be taken seriously -- to undermine and cast doubt on the orthodox theory of history in every way that I can and to make the most eloquent and persuasive case that I am capable of making for the existence of a lost civilisation. If I'm wrong ... fine! Let the Dobermans prove me wrong, or persuade the public that I am wrong. Whatever the outcome I'm glad to have played a part in forcing an intellectual elite - historians, Egyptologists, archaeologists - to defend their previously unquestioned theories and speculations about prehistory and to confront a well-worked-out alternative theory presented to a mass public in a series of bestselling books.
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