Matt Shaw

2/14/17

Prof. Boulanger

ANTH 3334

IS GRAHAM HANCOCK'S ARGUMENT BUILD ON FOUNDATIONS OF SAND?

The TED organization has had significant trouble controlling the quality of independent TEDx

talks. Typically TED aims to give a platform for people to give presentations concerning any number of

contemporary topics. Many of these TED talks cover scientific topics and many do not. However those

that do not cover scientific topics do not claim to do so and those that do certainly do not present them

in an irrational, unscientific way. Unfortunately this is what Graham Hancock attempts to do in his

TEDx talk: he attempts to argue for the existence of a mythical city in terms of the common

pseudoscientific vernacular.

Even before any logical fallacies are realized, Hancock's presentation already reeks of a

pseudoscientific pitch. Like many of those involved in pseudoscientific practices, Hancock alludes to a

global archaeological conspiracy that aims to suppress evidence of the existence of Atlantis. Why does

this conspiracy exist? The audience may never know. This archetype of a global conspiracy that aims to

suppress scientific evidence is a common theme that is often found in millenialist and occult rhetoric.

James Webb notes that this archetype of global scientific conspiracy fits neatly into the narrative

of stigmatized knowledge. In general, millenialist and occult rhetoric seeks to define knowledge

claims not in terms of their durability in empirical testing processes but instead in their relationships to

a nebulous group of people often defined as the Establishment. In this narrative the Establishment

always seeks to discredit all evidence that it disagrees with regardless of its validity (Barkun, 23).

Hancock alludes to stigmatized knowledge when he begins discussing global cataclysms. He

cites the case of the discovery of a matching crater for impact proxies that were formed as a result of a

cataclysmic event that extinguished the existence of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period. He

explains how two scientists hypothesized that an unseen crater was created because of these impact

proxies and that this crater was evidence of the cataclysm that caused the extinction of most dinosaurs.

Apparently, these scientists were discredited in uncertain ways by other scientists until the crater was

actually found. Hancock frames this of an instance in which the Establishment sought to suppress the

knowledge of certain scientists. However he goes on to explain that the Establishment eventually was

unable to ignore this evidence and begrudgingly accepted it as fact.

He goes on to attempt to argue that his ostensible evidence of the existence of Atlantis fits the

same narrative; that his knowledge is actively being suppressed by other scientists. However this could

actually be seen as a non-sequitur or a red herring because Hancock does not have any empirical

evidence to support his conclusion, unlike the case he cites in which empirical evidence was eventually

found that supported the relevant conclusion.

Furthermore, his hypothesis that pulse 1B destroyed Atlantis is not the most simple hypothesis

possible. In fact, the only reason he has to believe that Atlantis existed in the first place relies on what

may or may not be an allegory authored by Plato. If we are to consider whether or not Atlantis did or

did not exist, both hypotheses that would lead us to where history is today, it is obvious that a history

in which Atlantis is existed is unnecessarily complex yet still equally plausible when it comes to

explaining the contemporary history of that period. This violates Occam's razor.

Hancock also uses other informal fallacies to argue for the existence of Atlantis. He cites

alleged evidence of advanced civilizations in the Gobleki Tepe ruins and attempts to link this to the

existence of Atlantis. Essentially he aims to say that given that Atlantis was an advanced civilization

and advanced civilizations may have existed around the same time, then Atlantis must have existed.

This is, of course, nothing more than a perverse inversion of modus ponens: he argues that given that A

B : A B although A is not given in this case and B does not match his original assertion. In
fact, his logic is circular to some extent.

Throughout the course of the talk he introduces several more red herrings such as the case of the

Sphinx. He also introduces non-sequiturs in this case when he observes that Gobleki Tepe and the

Sphinx aren't even that far apart.

All-in-all, this is ultimately what Hancock's argument relies on: a mixture of fragments of real

empirical evidence and pseudoscientific evidence. He tries to link these ideas together by non-

sequiturs. This is a common characteristic, too, of improvisational millenialism. Many improvisational

millenialists rely on aggregating several tenuously related pieces of evidence to support their

conclusions. It is then up to their audiences to decide at the end if this is all coincidence (I think not!)

when in reality usually it is more likely that it is coincidence although it may not appear to be. However

they always fail to provide empirical evidence and then provide the excuse that there is a conspiracy to

suppress this evidence and that is why it does not exist. And in the echo chamber of the cultic milieu,

that will do.