Graham Hancock did not have a chance against Flint.

Professor Dave made a video mostly about Graham Hancock. Since he seems to use Hancock's debade against Flint Dibble heavely in his video, I decided to pass on Dave's video and watch the debade myself. I didn't want Dave's opinion to blur my assessment of debate technicalities. I was utterly shocked by how much of a fucking douche Hancock was. Flint did not have to do much to discredit him. Hancock himself did most of the work.

First to speak was Flint. I watched enough of Dave's video that he thinks this is a good summary of the debate. I somewhat disagree in terms of Flint's performance. I think Flint should have been more offensive with what is standard of evidence is and just hammer the point home. There were also moments which Flint should have probably just cut the Hancock's bullshit early and just focused on Hancock's uttery unsupported claims. Overall, he didn't do horribly. I think he did better than Dave did with James Tour.

Hancock's starting argument is nothing. Even if all of Archeology was a scam, that does not make him right. That does not logically follow. Since this is a discussion about his ideas, this complaint does nothing. Flint should have made this clearer but I think he wanted defend his own field so he didn't drop it. But because this seems to be the only weapon, Hancock spends a lot of time on "is it fair to associate him with nazis". I'm not sure it is associated with nazis. There is nuance here in terms of the history of the ideas, like Flint points out. Regardless, Flint did not dismiss Hancock's ideas because of that history, and even if he did, it does not prove Hancock is right. In terms of debate, I slap Hancock with the poisoning the well fallacy so bad that I don't consider him an honest debator. This view is forced by him, fully trying not to commit too deeply to topics. THAT IS THE STUFF HANCOCK SHOULD FOCUS ON!

I have now said what furstrated me the most about the Hancock's behavior. Let's focus on when he was actually making arguments on the topic. Roughly, from my memory, the logic he used was:

• It looks like $X$, there for it is $X$.
• Person $X$ with relevant expertise said $Y$, I find $X$ convincing, there for $Y$.
• We have not searched only 5%/not in these areas there for hypothesis $X$ cannot be denied.

There were others, but on smaller topics that I don't remember top of my head. And, the Math argument which... I think Flint was spot on to throw it out as arbitrary.

Argument "it looks like $X$ there for it is $X$", it is not valid reasoning because that is not a refutation of the alternative hypothesis. Like Flint points out with underwater pictures, nature can do very geometric cuts (for example Giant's Causeway), so pictures do not state anything about it. What models were tested that nature could not do this? What papers were read to identify work already done to explain how they form? Has any work been done to rule out any natural process? If not, I don't care. Come back when you have done the work.

The next one came up a couple of times. In debate like this, it would be better to go into why $X$ is convincing. Flint might have made a similar mistake. He clearly didn't feel like his geology knowledge was enough. This led him to refer to a geologist without exploring the topic. However, I think the most damming thing was that Hancock rightly pointed out that just because something says it is a debunk does not mean it is. I would like to extend the good logic he used here to state that just because $X$ is convincing to you, it does not mean it is convincing to the rest of us.

Last one, I do want to discuss more than one paragraph . I do think Flint's counter to this is good for a live event. However, it can be nibbled on when it comes to thinking it through at our own pace. Flint's counter was to state that archaeology works from known to unknown. Most of academic forward pushing is done by looking at what was done previously and from there going forward, testing old ideas with new technology, etc. I do think this point was lost on Hancock because I don't remember him denying that.

Where I would nidle is that it isn't like a random spot check would not be science. Also, the argument does not work if there is a statistically small sample set. One sample has infinite possibilities, two is a perfect line; useless in its "perfectness". Hancock does not counter back about the statistically small sample set. Flint presents maps of samples, and he seems to accept them as valid findings or studies. So, where is Hancocks' line on this? Science will always have percetage of doudt. There is nothing that can be done about that. So, how many more samples are needed, and what measurement? I would like to see a map or something where Hancock presents the goal to satisfy that his hypothesis is wrong. Otherwise, I don't really know if his complaint about 5% has any weight.

Of course, such a map might be too much work, and Hancock probably does not get any research funding for it since his uses the "if it looks like" argument, so let's dig deeper on that 5%. How was this calculated? What area are we calculating? Area that has been inspected? Total area of all the research sites? Just the total drilling hole area? Were human settlements and infrastructure taken into account, as these are places where it is hard to do archaeology? Are satellite imaging calculations included in this? Flint seems not to care, so let's take this 5% at face value. Homo sapiens do have a tendency where things get build up. This 5% is not a really good metric because of that.

I do think Hancock was not making this argument to say that because of it, his hypothesis is correct. He at least has enough logical skill to see that. But how much this discredits Flint's claims. Flint nailed him on that agriculture point because Hancock's civilization would use local crops. Why would they not? Or are we bringing aliens/god in to this and wonder how to make falsiable hypothesis? The 5% certainly does not discredit Flint's point. That much was enough to get information about crops used for many civilations. That does paint a picture, and Hancock has to find evidence to fight back.

In closing, do avoid Fallacy Fallacy. I didn't stop the analysis of his well poisoning. However, his performance was slippery and douche enough that he had to take a step back and look at his logical reasoning. After that, grow a pair and state what would disprove his hypothesis, then go out there and try to disprove his hypothesis. Before he does that, no one should take him seriously because he is not taking it seriously.