Habits of Mind
Correcting errors is an essential skill for a rational society. Easier said than done, especially when a person is emotionally and socially committed to an idea.
There is a show on Netflix called Ancient Apocalypse featuring a British writer who is absolutely convinced he has discovered evidence that invalidates the entire “establishment” of archeology. Graham Hancock believes human beings lived in complex societies well before commonly theorized. He believes that some cataclysmic event around 12,000 years ago wiped out these advanced societies, killing nearly all of humanity in the process.
A television critic at The Guardian called Ancient Apocalypse “the most dangerous show on Netflix.” According to the television critic, the show is dangerous because, while popular, the featured writer’s theory is “preposterous” — liken to the Flat Earthers.
A writer at Slate concurs, calling the theory “a whole lot of bunk.” The Slate piece links to an article written by an archaeologist debunking the so-called bunk. The archeologist defends his profession, saying that he and his fellow archeologists operate under scientific scrutiny, not conjecture.
I found the show a bit strange, though oddly entertaining. I’m not an archeologist, but my takeaway after watching a couple episodes is that Graham Hancock is probably oversimplifying things that are more complex than they appear in his breezy documentary. I stopped watching around the time he started talking about the likely historicity of the story of Noah and the Flood.1
But I was chuckling at the thought of the “archeology establishment” stubbornly refusing to recognize this new and obvious evidence — obvious to any casual Netflix viewer — that invalidates long-held theories about early human history. Humorous, because there probably are such long-held theories, somewhere in our intellectual culture today, that will one day seem stupid. Humorous in a dark sense because it is entirely within human nature to selfishly guard held beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.
This discussion of archeology is a segway into a confession.
I made a careless mistake in my previous newsletter post.
The mistake bothers me because it was made in haste, which is exactly what I wanted to avoid in stepping back from social media. Ironically, I caught the mistake while browsing Twitter on a burner account.2
In my previous post, I wrote that this past summer monsoon season brought “slightly lower rainfall than average.”
This was true — but only as registered at Sky Harbor Airport. In the entire state of Arizona, there was significantly more rainfall than average during this past monsoon season.
My bad.
While I cannot, on Substack, correct the mistakes of previous emails, I am always happy to correct my own mistakes, or to be corrected on my mistakes if you notice one. The goal here is accuracy.
This particular mistake is pretty easy to admit.
It would be undoubtedly harder to change course on a theory or idea that is held tightly or has become part of one’s identity in some way.
Conservative columnist Bret Stephens recently changed his tune about climate change. Before, he railed against the “certainty” espoused by many climate activists. He used his column at the New York Times to criticize the proposed policy solutions. Now, he recognizes the serious nature of the problem facing humanity, he is concerned about worst-case scenarios, and he is proposing constructive solutions.
What’s interesting to me about his changed course is the reasons why he changed course. The reasons were twofold. First, he traveled to Greenland with an oceanographer. In doing so, he saw evidence with his own eyes. It was a learning experience. Second, I will quote him from an interview with The Bulwark (linked above):
I’ll say that the biggest single factor that changed my thinking about climate was the experience of the pandemic—the experience of a natural occurrence simply overwhelming the ability of a modern technological civilization to handle the problem without huge loss of life and disruption to our economies and our way of living.
Experience plus experience = a change in perspective.
Even so, it takes guts and humility for a public intellectual to change course on an issue of such gravity.
About changing his mind in public, he says this:
And I always said to myself, that I should never be afraid to change my mind in public, even on subjects where I’ve taken, you know, I’ve really put a stake in the ground.
For a negative example of this attitude, we can look to the intense anger surrounding lost elections. For whatever reason, Arizona is the epicenter for this anger. If there are legitimate complaints about our election procedures, they have been lost in the waves of personal attacks, misrepresentations, and outright lies.
I am grateful for the voices in our public sphere — especially the officials in Maricopa County — who have effectively communicated facts and evidence to the public. Many Arizonans have urged Governor Ducey to be more vocal on the elections front. Though reticent on this issue, he has consistently followed election law as governor, and he has consistently recognized the legitimacy of our elections. He recently provided an example of statesmanship by meeting with Governor-elect Hobbs. Ducey issued a statement and tweeted some pictures celebrating the peaceful transfer of power.
“The people of Arizona have spoken, their votes have been counted and we respect their decision.” — Governor Ducey
There is a simple way to capture the essence of what I’m talking about in this post:
Intellectual honesty.
We could use more of it.
One last point about archaeology. A book called The Dawn of Everything, written by a couple of scientists, takes a different angle to challenging conventional interpretations on early human history. It has been reviewed more favorably by the establishment. If you’re doing your own archaeological research, don’t forget about books.
His conclusion is that, because the story of a destructive flood appears in the mythology of many different cultures across the world, there is probably a historical event at the core of it. From what I understand about the history of human ideas and mythology, cross-cultural repetition is pretty common. Maybe something about a collective unconscious.
Double confession. Yes, I still browse Twitter occasionally even though I wrote about deactivating my Twitter account. My account remains deactivated. A deactivated Twitter account self-deletes after 30 days of hibernation, so I will need to re-activate soon unless I want my account to disappear forever.