8 Takeaways from the Dibble/Hancock Debate on the Joe Rogan Experience

Analyzing a handful of standout moments across the 4 hours of back and forth discussion over the existence of a lost prehistorical civilization, and explaining what we can interpret from them.

A few weeks ago, Joe Rogan hosted a debate between the archeologist Flint Dibble and the alternative historian/Netflix TV show host Graham Hancock. There was a point in this blog’s history where I had considered covering the problems of Hancock’s series, but archeology isn’t my forte and there was enough of a popular backlash to the pseudoscience he presented that I didn’t feel I could add anything to the discussion. This time around, I thought it prudent to offer some analysis on the debate from a logical perspective and to see if any lessons could be learned about dealing with the less desirable factions of those who make antiquity their locus of study. Flint Dibble did a tremendous job in this debate; he’s worthy of more praise than I can possibly give him in these few paragraphs, and it’s worth exploring how and why the reaction to his performance has been so positive, even among those who were previously on Hancock’s side. Therefore, for people who don’t want to sit through a 4 hour podcast, I have come up with 8 stand-out takeaways that reflect the highlights of the whole ordeal.

1. Dibble establishes his ethos not through degrees, but through personal, tangible connections. Instead of citing papers or showing off degrees or naming digsites he worked at, Dibble shows the group artifacts he has personally analyzed, replicas his teams have created and establishes his familial connection to the discipline. This last point is especially keen; the crux of Hancock’s argument throughout the years has been to establish the archeological discipline as part of the “ivory tower” of academia, when really that couldn’t be further from the truth in the modern age. There are some instances where he does bring up abstract ways he contributed to some of the evidence he presented (i.e. mapping paleoecological proxies around the Greek peninsula), but for the most part he focuses on actual, tangible experiences he had. The photos he shares aren’t just of the digsites, but rather are photos of him (or at times his father) at the digsite, which is an important distinction. Modern rhetoric has invented the term “rhetorical triangle” to sum up the points from Aristotle’s masterwork on their subject for those too lazy to read the work itself. We have come to see that in the world we now live in, credentials mean little to the average person, and can even be a hindrance to those with a (justifiable) distrust in large institutions. Dibble, at times, almost presents himself as “folksy,” rather than professorial, even though his degrees give him the right to behave otherwise. Overall, I’d have to say that if I took one thing away from this experience, it’d be how effective this strategy is.

2. Hancock’s belligerence works against him in a number of ways. At one point early on, Hancock asserts himself (to the point of boasting) to have a deeper understanding than Dibble about the site of Sacsayhuamán because he had been there personally, while Dibble had not. Dibble then catches him off-guard by saying that Hancock’s visit was as a tourist, rather than as an archeologist, which he believes to be about as good as one can get from looking at photographs and reading articles from established journals. From an outsider’s perspective, this may seem to be a silly assertion, but it’s fundamentally true. All archeological exhibits are curated. What gets presented to the public is a conscious decision made by teams of archeologists. The majority of artifacts (usually those of lower quality or which are in danger of falling apart) at any site get cataloged away in back rooms for academic access. Mention of this very basic fact of preservation sends Hancock into a tizzy; at multiple times throughout the debate he emphasizes that he has “risked his own life” to carry out his research, which may make him sound impassioned on paper, but he comes off as whiny in comparison to an actual archeologist. Dibble is affable throughout, even when his expertise is challenged, and focuses on the archeology first rather than the pettiness, which shows his passion and his proficiency. On the other hand, Hancock gets caught up in complaining about cancel culture and his “death-defying” work not being taken seriously. There are a few times when Dibble does laugh out of turn, but even then he explains what is worthy of such ridicule in a polite and friendly manner.

3. Hancock’s obsession with the Clovis First hypothesis ultimately works against his own point. I should mention that Dibble does not actually bring this up in the debate, but rather tacks towards the difference between professional archeology and pop archeology to dispute Hancock’s point on this matter. First, Hancock begins the debate asserting that a single, monolithic establishment in academia is shutting out any new ideas, citing Tom Dillehay’s discoveries at Monte Verde as an example of a chilling effect that the establishment had on progress in the field. Later on, he postulates that academia is “stuck on” the Clovis First theory, citing that articles of its debunking have been published across the last few decades, despite the fact that it was “officially” debunked in the 1980s. These two things cannot be true at the same time. Either there is a monolithic establishment in archeology, or there is still rigorous debate over a controversial theory. Of course, those things can also both be untrue at the same time as well. Indeed, those articles aren’t “debunking” the Clovis First theory for the first time, but rather providing new evidence to support the initial debunking. There isn’t one thing that “debunks” a theory, but there ought to be multiple that prove it. On the contrary: a single piece of evidence is more likely to be an aberration. Every couple of years mathematicians discover a new way to “prove” the pythagorean theorem. This does not discredit the original way that has passed down to us through Euclid, but rather shows a different way we could have arrived at the same conclusion.