Pseudo-Archaeology

In regard to Episode 180, “Is Carbon 14 Dating Fake?”, I do not see the method as fake, it is the assumptions. How do we know that the decay rate is constant when Dr Willard Libby himself recognized that the atmosphere itself isn’t in equilibrium? To me, that seems like an inconsistency not to be ignored…

I gotta say this show is super entertaining for me. I listen while I survey and commute to and from different projects. Andrew, I enjoyed the little Toyota Land Cruiser moment in one of your episodes. I have an old fj40 that I used to daily drive in high school and undergrad in NM and your story hit home about cruising the desert hit home haha.

I stumbled across this podcast looking for something to bridge conversation over shared interests in the history of humans with someone who’s been sucked in by Hancock in part because of the colonialist mindset of those who have historically dominated archaeology. But the 2025 host painfully pompous in exactly that way (the earlier hosts were far better but terrible sound quality). My hope is that he’s intending to mirror Hancock et al and somehow his condescension is effective with a large portion of that audience for his goal (which I share) of decreasing the alarming spread of racist misinformation. For the people I’ve known interested in the conspiracy theory Atlantis stuff since the 90s, they’re curious people generally turned off by total certainty (again, not sure how the conspiracy stuff is presented to them, if it taps into that or gets in and then flips to the same rigid thinking) especially from privileged people in dominant societal positions who have historically wielded this authority to tell others without power that they know better than them/what is right for them. If the host is genuinely interested in countering anti-science conspiracies that feed into dangerous rhetoric and propaganda, I’d suggest he spend time studying how to approach people in high control groups (Steven Hassan and Rachel Bernstein both have excellent podcasts). Perhaps he might also reflect on how he can develop/express real intellectual humility out of a contextual understanding of his field and empathy for some nucleus of true shared interest in the misinformed people he rails against.

Don’t listen to this podcast. Came for the cenotes episode, left after hearing his personal views on transgender people guised behind reductionist science. Byeeeeee loser lol