Friday, 13. November 2009
Topic: Glaubensfragen - on November 13, 2009 at 11:07:00 AM CET
2012 Debunking: The Short-Attention-Span Version
Great example of how the believers get this stuff wrong: The "facts" on the believer side of the graph are pulled directly from believer Web sites. When David from IIB sent me the original version of the graphic, I noticed that the believers had managed to misspell the name of Yale archaeologist Michael D. Coe, calling him "Michael D. Cole". They were also claiming that he was one of them. I don't have Coe's email, but I do have John Hoopes'. He's an archaeologist who has spent his life studying the ancient Maya and other ancient Central and South American civilizations...and my former professor when I was an anthropology undergrad at the University of Kansas. I contacted Hoopes to see what he knew about that claim and, according to him, it's way off. Coe, Hoopes says, does believe that 2012 would have been an important date to the ancient Maya*, and probably one they would have celebrated. But "important" like, say, Christmas is important to us. Or New Years Eve 1999/2000. Not "important" as in "the world is going to end."
