Latest / Tales From Aztlantis / Dispatches From Aztlantis! An Olmec Update

Transcript

Dispatches From Aztlantis! An Olmec Update · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to yet another dispatch from Ostlanthus.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host for today, Curly Tlapoyawa.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we usually do these dispatches every other Thursday, but due to unforeseen circumstances, uh I was not able to get this one out yesterday.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So apologies for my lateness, but I hope you appreciate today's short, short episode on what I have been up to.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So recently I had the privilege of giving a lecture or presentation at Skepticamp, New Mexico, which took place on June 1st and 2nd here in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It featured a wide variety of talks and presentations.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was a documentary film shown, and I got to meet a lot of really cool people and listen to some really excellent presentations.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: The topics covered, you know, stuff like Bigfoot and UFOs and medical quackery and ghosts and uh you know just stuff like that.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh amongst the guests with me, if I could go through this list real quick, was Adrian Hill, uh our Ben Radford, our good friend Ben Radford, who's been a guest on the show before.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: He gave a great talk.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Celestia Ward, our very own Larry Barker.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're from Albuquerque, New Mexico, you know who Larry Barker is.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dave Thomas from New Mexicans for Science and Reason was there.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And who am I missing?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid Podcast gave a short talk and then showed us his newest documentary film called The UFO movie, They Don't Want You to See, which, if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend looking it up online.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you could find it on uh your the various streaming sources.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really good talk.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the the talk that I gave was called Course Correction.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was basically how pseudo-archaeology, pseudoscience, pseudo history, and new age nonsense are undermining the purpose or the goals of ethnic studies in general and Chicano studies in particular.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went into a lot of the things that we've discussed before here on the show, right?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I gave the origin of the concept of hunab ku, which is not a Maya concept, and uh the origin of the symbol that people commonly know as hunab ku.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I went into the whole story of where that came from, and how teaching a distorted and misrepresented version of Maya philosophy is not only wrong, but it's undermining, it's damaging the goals of Chicano studies, because I think our history, our culture is worthy enough to be taught as it is, that it stands on its own two feet, that it is a valid uh topic that should be taught in universities, and it does not need to be propped up with pseudo-historical and pseudo-archaeological nonsense.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I gave that part of the talk, and then I finished it up by talking about the whole uh black Olmec myth, right?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that we had discussed way back on episode six of this podcast.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't listened to it yet, I highly recommend that you go back and check it out because in that episode we discussed this paper that had been published called Early Pioneers of the Americas: The Role of the Olmex in Urban Education and Social Studies Curriculum.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this paper was put out in 2020 into an academic journal called the Urban Review.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I talked about this in my presentation and how this paper that had been published in an academic journal was really pushing the idea that the Olmecs were black Africans.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the paper started from the premise that, you know, yes, the Olmecs are black Africans.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we teach this properly in the public school system, in social studies curriculum?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they started off with a false premise, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They started off with pseudo-historical nonsense.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so my my co-host and I, Dr.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ruben Ariano Tlakatecat, we wrote a letter, an open letter to the Urban Review.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you want to check it out, it's there on episode six.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, we basically went point by point and uh addressed the issues with this paper to the Urban Review.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to our surprise, the Urban Review retracted the paper.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this made us really excited.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it felt like a victory for us.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the headline from Retraction Watch, a website that details retracted papers, uh, read Journal retracts paper claiming that group of indigenous Americans were black Africans.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: A journal has retracted a paper on the origins of a group of indigenous Americans after readers said the basis of the paper was long discredited.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So good for them, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Good for the Urban Review.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the official statement put out by Urban Review stated the editor-in-chief has retracted this article, Wigan et al.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: 2020, following concerns raised by readers.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: After post-publication peer review, which holy shit, what does that even mean?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was found that the theory that Olmecks were black Africans on which the lesson plan is based is not substantiated according to current Mesoamerican archaeology and genetic evidence.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: The authors have been offered to submit a revised manuscript updated with information based on current knowledge for further peer review.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Author Greg Wiggins stated on behalf of all co-authors that they do not agree to this retraction.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So good on the urban review.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, although this whole idea of post-publication peer review is uh pretty suspicious, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty suspect because you're supposed to do the uh the peer review before the article actually gets published.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That way you know if you're gonna be putting out bullshit or not.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this was back in 2020.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was preparing the talk that I was uh going to give, I was, you know, going back and pulling up the information, looking stuff up online so I could get it all together for this talk.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I came across something that was disappointing, to say the least.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what I discovered was that despite having this paper retracted in such a public fashion, the authors of this paper reworked it as a chapter in a book that was published in 2023.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So three years after this paper was retracted, they snuck it back through and got it published as a chapter in a book.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think it's chapter five of this book called Unbleaching the Curriculum: Enhancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Beyond in Schools and Society.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, using deliberately, intentionally using misinformation, pseudo archaeology, conspiracy nonsense to undermine, to actively undermine ethnic studies and just spit in the face of indigenous history.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Spit in the face of indigenous people, saying that your history is wrong and we're gonna teach it however we feel like it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this was disappointing.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Although I can't say that I'm surprised, right?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the publisher is Roman and Littlefield.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if the authors of this book bothered to inform the publishers that, hey, you know, this this manuscript includes information that was retracted by an academic journal after it was shown that it's based on bullshit, that the information we included in this chapter is absolute horseshit.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But here you go, here's the manuscript.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We want it published anyway.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if they were that honest or if they are truly just intellectually and morally bankrupt individuals, because this is one of the most dishonest, underhanded, scumbag things that I've seen in quite some time in uh in the academic circles.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if they did, if they did tell Roman and Littlefield, hey, look, here's this manuscript, and it includes discredited information that we were forced to retract, and Roman and Littlefield went along with it anyway, well then fuck them.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck Roman and Littlefield.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: If that was the case, something tells me that the authors neglected to inform their publishers that they had submitted a manuscript filled with nonsense.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here it is, chapter five, The Olmech, Ancient Civilizations in the Americas.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I've read the chapter, and it's basically they took the retracted paper and reworked it so that it works better as a chapter in a book rather than a standalone paper in a journal.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they did not change any of the core content, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: The the idea that the Olmecs are black Africans, none of that has changed.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It still goes off on, you know, the Olmec, the oldest civilization in the Americas, uh, were was founded, was established by black Africans, and how can we better teach this uh in social studies?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So a little bit of a disappointment there.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um we felt like we had we had gained a victory, but unknown to us just last year, they uh they just said, fuck it.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put out lies, we're gonna put out disinformation, and we're gonna put out utter bullshit anyway.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: What a smack in the face.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So sorry to leave you on such a down note, but I wanted to get this off my chest because I think it's really shitty um that they were able to get this out here, and the fact that this book, the intent of this book, is to be used as a textbook in universities.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the disinformation is gonna get out there, and it just lets me know that the work we do here on the podcast is needed more than ever, and we just need to keep moving forward, onward and upward.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you, dear listeners, for the support that you've given us because it really means a lot.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when we see stuff like this, we're like, God damn, do do people even care?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, all the messages we get, the feedback we receive, the comments we get, it's it's just an outpouring of support for the work that we do, and we really, really appreciate it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Dimo Itase.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Curly.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my name is Randy, man.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Saludos is uh this Central California, man.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um Porterville, to be exact.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just wanted to just send you this quick voice message, man, and just um give you your flowers to you and and your co-host.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I just wanted to say thank you guys for uh for the work that you guys put in um and for the podcast that you guys created because it is by far my favorite podcast.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I listen to it every single day when I'm over here working at the dairy.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's just so insightful and so careful at the same time, if that makes sense.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you guys are very careful with uh and mindful with the things that you say and put out.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to say I appreciate it and respect it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, man.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um much love, much love.