Hancock is equipped neither by training nor temperament to be a scientist. He does not pretend to be one. Trying, he would fail. Judging him as one is deeply silly. He calls himself a journalist. He is a storyteller, and invents engaging stories.
What he attempts is very different from science. He openly speculates about where the evidence might lead. His failure to understand some of the evidence, and what is possible, sometimes leads him to howlers. But remarkably often he has predicted finds that historians foolishly insisted were impossible.
His appeal is in actually engaging with evidence historians and archaeologists try to conceal or downplay. He takes us to actual sites, and shows us evidence historians refuse to discuss, or as often openly lie about. His speculations are fluff. But taking us around to see things, and inviting us to speculate along with him, is engaging in ways nothing allowed to scientists can.
Scientists could draw huge benefit from engaging with the evidence he exposes, instead of demonizing him. Their complaints fall flat because he is, simply, not a scientist, even a bad one, and should not be treated like one. He inspires with what might be, which is a good thing, and that he would do better with better help.
(Uniquely, Scientists Against Myths, on YT, does more engagement than anybody else, but in a way that is badly off-putting. They forget that they are addressing the audience, not their perceived myth-maker enemies.)
He would still be often wrong, but more interestingly wrong. And sometimes, still, he would turn out to be right. There is nothing wrong with that.
What he attempts is very different from science. He openly speculates about where the evidence might lead. His failure to understand some of the evidence, and what is possible, sometimes leads him to howlers. But remarkably often he has predicted finds that historians foolishly insisted were impossible.
His appeal is in actually engaging with evidence historians and archaeologists try to conceal or downplay. He takes us to actual sites, and shows us evidence historians refuse to discuss, or as often openly lie about. His speculations are fluff. But taking us around to see things, and inviting us to speculate along with him, is engaging in ways nothing allowed to scientists can.
Scientists could draw huge benefit from engaging with the evidence he exposes, instead of demonizing him. Their complaints fall flat because he is, simply, not a scientist, even a bad one, and should not be treated like one. He inspires with what might be, which is a good thing, and that he would do better with better help.
(Uniquely, Scientists Against Myths, on YT, does more engagement than anybody else, but in a way that is badly off-putting. They forget that they are addressing the audience, not their perceived myth-maker enemies.)
He would still be often wrong, but more interestingly wrong. And sometimes, still, he would turn out to be right. There is nothing wrong with that.