Talk:Graham Hancock

Civilization vs Civilisation

The article appears to change between the spelling "civilization" and the spelling "civilisation", with about 45 instances of "ize" and about 10 of "ise" (please see MOS:IZE and MOS:ISE and Mos Eisley for context (last one is facetious)). I think these should be unified to to "civilization" for the following two reasons: 1) this article is about Graham Hancock. He grew up in the UK, he was educated in the UK, he spent his early career writing in UK newspapers, and to my understanding, he's continued to reside in the UK. British English appears to be split on "ise" and "ize", and so like "ise", this spelling would align with the article's subject. 2) it's already the vastly dominant version in the article. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 18:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I looked back to the original version and it used -ize in the examples I could see. It was then deleted as it was a copyright violations. I guess it might have been written using Oxford spelling, but there isn't any indication this was the case. I see no problem with changing this to British English spelling for the reasons pointed out by @TheTechnician27 above. Knitsey (talk) 18:57, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I'm a -ise person in British English; synthesiser looks ok, synthesizer looks more like American English. However, -ize spellings are allowed in British English. Whatever, there should be consistency in the article. By the way, Kenneth Clark's 1969 television documentary was called Civilisation, because -ize spellings were less common back then.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

"The Last Ice Age"

Throughout the article, we call the Last Glacial Period (LGP) the "last ice age" or the "last Ice Age". Colloquially, the so-called "end of the ice age" is conflated with the end of the LGP, but in reality, Earth is still in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age. This isn't in dispute, and this is widely understood among archaeologists and geologists. Per WP:MTAU, we should make technical subjects understandable, but we should also avoid so-called "lies-to-children", which are oversimplifications for the sake of understanding. In reality, the real "last ice age" is the Karoo Ice Age – so it's not just that "last ice age" is incorrect but that it in fact refers to an entirely different period if used correctly. I personally think we should find a way to use more accurate terminology and find an effective way to convey this to the reader at the beginning, perhaps through an explanatory footnote. I really don't think this is pedantry. Saying that the ice age is over is outright and substantial misinformation, and not in a way that simplified but "accurate enough for most purposes" models like Rutherford–Bohr, Newton's laws, Arrhenius acids and bases, and the non-differential equation for a pendulum's motion are.

I'm going to try and see how it shakes out. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Academics somewhat regularly use "last ice age" with the meaning "Last Glacial Period" [1]. There's no need to be a pedant about it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, as long as the reliable sources use it that way, seems fine. Appreciate it. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

New sources

[2] That also mentions an article by Weber, which I can email to anyone who wants it. Doug Weller talk 09:29, 26 May 2025 (UTC)