Graham Hancock did not have a change against Flint.

Professor Dave made a video mostly about Graham Hancock. Since, he seem 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 option blur my assenment on debate technicalities. I was utterly socked how much of a fucking douche Hancock was. Flint did not have to do much 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 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 and just hammer point home. There were also moments which Flint should have probably just cut the Hancock's bullshit early and just focus on Hancock's uttery unsupported claims. Overall, he didn't do horribly. I think he did better then 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 discussion about his ideas this complaint does nothing. Flint should have made this more clear but I think he wanted defend his own field so he didn't drop it. But because this seems to be only weapon, he spends a lot time on "is it fair to associate him with nazis". I'm not sure it is associating with nazis. There is nuance here in term of history of the ideas like Flint points out. Regarless Flint did not dismiss Hancock's ideas because of that history and even if he did it does not prove Hancock is right. Terms of debate I slap Hancock with poisoning the well fallacy so bad that I don't consider him honest debator. This view is forced by him fully trying not commit too deeply on 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 actual making arguments on the topic. Roughtly, from my memory, logic he used were:

• 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 arbitary.

Argument "it looks like $X$ there for it is $X$", it is not valid reasoning because that is not refutation of alternative hypothesis. Like Flint points out with under water pictures, nature can do very geometric cuts (for example Giant's Causeway) so pictures do not state anything about it. What models where 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 natural process? If not, I don't care, come back when you have done the work.

Next one came up couple times. In debate like this, it would be better to go into why $X$ is convincing. Flint might have done similiar mistake. He clearly didn't feel like his geology knowledge was enough. This lead him to refered to geologist without exploring the topic. However, I think most damming thing was 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 jsut because $X$ is convincing to you, does not means it is convincing to rest of us.

Last one, I do want to more then one paragraph to discuss. I do think Flint's counter to do is good for live event. However, it can be nibbled on when it comes to thinking it through with our own pace. Flint's counter was to state that Archeology works from known to unknown. Mostly all of academic forward pushing science is done by looking 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 random spot check would not be science. Also, argument does not work if there is statisticly small sample set. One sample has infinite possibles, two is a perfect line; useless in its "perfectness". Hancock does not counter back about statistical small sample set. Flint presents maps of samples and he seems to accept them as valid find 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 ma or something where Hancock presents the goal to satisfy that his hypothesis is wrong. Otherwise, I don't really know his complaint aboutn 5% has any weight.

Of course such a map might be too much work and Hancock probably does not get any research funding even with it since his idea "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 whole area? Were human settlements and infrestructure taking into accout as these are places where it is hard to do archaeology? Flint seems to not care, so let's take this 5% in face value. Homo Sapien do have tendency where things get build. This 5% is not really good metric because of that. What area should be excavated

When it comes to current paradigm to be based upon faulty assumption, I'm not sure would Hancock disagree, but current paradigm has predictive power so it has got something right. That something can be used to close out ideas like Hancock's to be fringe idea that has evidence against it until Hancock proves otherwise. This plus him admitting that he has no idea what his civilation, which taught agriculture to others, used in agriculture, fully makes his idea not have any evidence behind him. Flint nailed him on that agriculture point because Hancock's civilation would use local crops. Why would they not? Or are we bringing aliens/god in to this and wonder how to make falsiable hypothesis?

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