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Graham Hancock
Graham Bruce Hancock (born 2 August 1950) is a British writer who promotes pseudoscientific theories involving ancient civilizations and lost lands. Hancock speculates that an advanced ice age civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but that its survivors passed on their knowledge to hunter-gatherers, giving rise to the earliest known civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica. Born in Edinburgh, Hancock studied sociology at Durham University before working as a journalist, writing for a number of British newspapers and magazines. His first three books dealt with international development, including ''Lords of Poverty'' (1989), a well-received critique of corruption in the aid system. Beginning with '' The Sign and the Seal'' in 1992, he shifted focus to speculative accounts of human prehistory and ancient civilisations, on which he has written a dozen books, most notably ''Fingerprints of the Gods'', '' The Message of the Sphinx,'' and '' Magicians o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh is Scotland's List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, second-most populous city, after Glasgow, and the List of cities in the United Kingdom, seventh-most populous city in the United Kingdom. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Courts of Scotland, highest courts in Scotland. The city's Holyrood Palace, Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchy in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, Scottish law, literature, philosophy, the sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistory
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academic Journal
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and discussion of research. They nearly-universally require peer-review or other scrutiny from contemporaries competent and established in their respective fields. Content typically takes the form of articles presenting original research, review articles, or book reviews. The purpose of an academic journal, according to Henry Oldenburg (the first editor of ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society''), is to give researchers a venue to "impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences." The term ''academic journal'' applies to scholarly publications in all fields; this article discusses the aspects common to all ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scholarly Peer Review
Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is widely used for helping the academic publisher (that is, the editor-in-chief, the editorial board or the program committee) decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected for official publication in an academic journal, a monograph or in the proceedings of an academic conference. Academic peer review requires a community of experts in a given (and often narrowly defined) academic field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review. Impartial review, especially of work in less narrowly defined or inter-disciplinary fields, may be difficult to accomplish, and the significance (good or bad) of an idea may never be widely appreciated among its contemporaries. Peer review is gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cherry Picking
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data that may contradict that position. Cherry picking may be committed intentionally or unintentionally. The term is based on the perceived process of harvesting fruit, such as cherries. The picker would be expected to select only the ripest and healthiest fruits. An observer who sees only the selected fruit may thus wrongly conclude that most, or even all, of the tree's fruit is in a likewise good condition. This can also give a false impression of the quality of the fruit (since it is only a sample and is not a representative sample). A concept sometimes confused with cherry picking is the idea of gathering only the fruit that is easy to harvest, while ignoring other fruit that is higher up on the tree and thus more difficult to obtain (see ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills. Biased search for information, biased interpretation of this information, and biased memory recall, have been invoked to explain four specific effects: # ''attitude polarization'' (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence) # ''belief perseverance'' (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false) # the ''irr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap. Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified many features that tend to be common in pseudohistorical works; one example is that the use of pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. Pseudohistory also frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record. A common feature of pseudohistory is an underlying premise that there is a conspiracy among scholars to promote so-called "mainstream history" over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudoarchaeology
Pseudoarchaeology—also known as alternative archaeology, fringe archaeology, fantastic archaeology, cult archaeology, and spooky archaeology—is the interpretation of the past from outside the archaeological science community, which rejects the accepted data gathering and analytical methods of the discipline. Fagan and Feder 2006. p. 720. These pseudoscientific interpretations involve the use of artifacts, sites or materials to construct scientifically insubstantial theories to supplement the pseudoarchaeologists' claims. Methods include exaggeration of evidence, dramatic or romanticized conclusions, use of fallacy, and fabrication of evidence. There is no unified pseudoarchaeological theory or approach, but rather many different interpretations of the past that are jointly at odds with those developed by the scientific community. These include religious approaches such as creationism or "creation science" that applies to the archaeology of historic periods such as those tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ayahuasca
AyahuascaPronounced as in the UK and in the US. Also occasionally known in English as ''ayaguasca'' (Spanish-derived), ''aioasca'' (Brazilian Portuguese-derived), or as ''yagé'', pronounced or . Etymologically, all forms but ''yagé'' descend from the compound Quechua word ''ayawaska'', from ''aya'' () and ''waska'' (). For more names for ayahuasca, see § Nomenclature. is a South AmericanGoldin D., Salani D. "Ayahuasca: What Healthcare Providers Need to Know". ''J. Addict. Nurs..'' 2021;32(2):167-173. . psychoactive and entheogenic brewed drink traditionally used both socially and as a ceremonial or shamanic spiritual medicine among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, and more recently in Western society. The tea causes altered states of consciousness often known as "psychedelic experiences" which include visual hallucinations and altered perceptions of reality. Ayahuasca is commonly made from the ''Banisteriopsis caapi'' vine, the ''Psychotria viridis'' shrub or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TED (conference)
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a tech conference, in which gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. It has been held annually since 1990. TED covers almost all topics – from science to business to global issues – in more than 100 languages. To date, more than 13,000 TEDx events have been held in at least 150 countries. TED's early emphasis was on technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins. It has since broadened its perspective to include talks on many scientific, cultural, political, humanitarian, and academic topics. It has been curated by Chris Anderson, a British-American businessman, through the non-profit TED Foundation since July 2019 (originally by the non ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century, it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animations and video games. Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that emulate Earth, but with a sense of otherness. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians from ancient mythology, myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Traits Most fantasy uses magic (paranormal), magic or other supernatural elements as a ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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