Quote:
Originally Posted by alanX
If the History Channel isn't good enough for you then nothing is
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This isn't something I can argue (requiring evidence to demonstrate) but, no, the History Channel is not sufficient proof. Any TV program, for that matter, is not. No channel or program is. You have to cite specific academics. This isn't because a channel or program may be unreliable in itself, but because these things don't have to provide reliable evidence.
For example you can often watch such documentaries, and many of the witnesses or speakers will be unaccredited people who have a vested interest. They sell books on the topic or something. The documentary has them there for 'balance' and to keep the listener hooked. It usually goes something like:
could this be true???
this guy says so: oh yes it's true
however, this guy says not: nah it's hooey
but questions still remain!: they can't explain this and that
it's a mystery! :O
Whether you believe in whatever the issue is, this kinda format for a popular documentary is common and pretty unscientific. You can't even give the documentary credence for having relevant academics on because it will often sideline them.
Not to suggest that the documentary you watched was like this, or that all history channel docs must be (haven't seen it or them all), but without having to watch either this is a fair assumption for me to have?
Counter argument from a specific academic:
Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse? - USATODAY.com
Quote:
Its Long Count calendar, which was discontinued under Spanish colonization, tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero.
"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."
Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time," Joseph writes.
But scholars doubt the ancient Maya extrapolated great meaning from anticipating the alignment — if they were even aware of what the configuration would be.
Astronomers generally agree that "it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that," says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What's more, she says, "we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point."
University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes "from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own."
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