I'm kind of particular about watching television documentaries anymore. They usually annoy me so much I become hard to live with. I rage on about the bad research, the 'talking heads' who say nothing (or what they were told to say), the misleading factoids, and above all, the bad organisation of material. The worst, of course, are those scatterbrained infodumps you get from US 'history' people. Oh, and the second-worst are the 'bait and switch' stories, where they pretend they're going to talk about one thing, and then veer off onto another topic. The British are particularly guilty there.

So it is with some trepidation that I decide to watch a documentary series. But last night, my curiosity got the better of me, and I clicked on Tony Robinson's 'Gods and Monsters'. Unfortunately, episode 1 (about mutilating dead bodies) came on just as I was eating a snack. This caused some fast-forwarding past the morgue scenes. But on the whole, I found it entertaining.

Though, as usual, not very informative.

Okay, I spoke too soon. It was informative, just not in the way the producers probably intended. To me, the series (which I'm still watching) is both funny – Robinson cuts up a lot – and enlightening as to exactly what 21st-century middlebrow people think the world and its history are about. Not much, I gather. And I thought the NPR crowd was thick…

The first clue came near the beginning of the first episode. Robinson said something like, 'Ancient people believed in an afterlife. Now, of course, we know that's not scientific.' I chortled. I also wondered why a US streaming service was running this: surveys routinely show that over 90% of US people still believe in an afterlife, no matter how enlightened Mr Robinson considers himself. Full disclosure: I believe in an afterlife, no matter how scornful Brit comics get. But that wasn't the point.

Robinson was saying in essence – and kept saying, at least all the way through episode 2, and I suspect beyond – that modern people know everything. At least, everything worth knowing. And people from The Past were ignorant, probably just out of spite. We've improved so much since the early 19th Century, when a suicide's body was buried at a crossroads to keep it from walking around…and the late 19th Century, when an Irishman murdered his wife because he thought she was a fairy changeling, and…

Don't bet on it, Bubba. Better observers than you have noticed that, frankly, humans have not evolved appreciably since the Palaeolithic. In other words, those are just Cro Magnons in business suits. And what in holy Hannah makes you think 'scientists' have all the answers? Are these the same 'scientists' who denied the existence of meteors until the falling space rocks nearly wiped out a French village? Why in the world do people expect mathematicians, physicists, and chemists to have all the answers to life, the universe, and everything? What makes them so qualified to answer questions about, say, metaphysics? Or language, for that matter?

On the same day I started watching this (admittedly hilarious) nonsense, I also ran across some articles, papers, and a couple of video-taped lectures on the subject of the Indo-European Controversy, which I suppose you've never heard of.

Here's the short version: a few years ago, some, er, 'scientists' came up with a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Science that claims to explain the human migrations and spread of Proto-Indo-European using a mathematical model usually applied to virus vectors. (Proto-Indo-European is the great-great-grandpappy of hundreds of languages, including what you're reading right now.) 'Scientists' were triumphant: we've explained it, now go on about your business, nothing to see here…

Historical linguists, however, had a fit. They pointed out, among other things, that the model placed Proto-Indo-European far too far back in the past. For one thing, historical linguists know that there's no way all those languages have the same root word for 'wheel' unless the split came after the invention of the wheel. That's a no-brainer. And then there's the howler the model makes with the Romance languages, a group with a really well-documented history…pretending Sardinian was 'invented' outside Sardinia… You can watch the historical linguists making mock, if you've the time and interest. My favourite was the scholar who quit trying to find mistakes after he hit the magic number of 103, since the 'scientists' used 103 languages as a sample.

Well, you may ask, didn't the journal Science ask historical linguists for comments before publishing this allegedly seminal paper? Oh, yes, indeed they did. And the linguists pointed out what was wrong with the model. But, they say, they were ignored. Why? Because their objections didn't refer to the mathematical model. Apparently, if the mathematics were okay, the theory must be true.

In other words, if reality fails to conform to the theory, then reality can go play with itself. These deep thinkers might be surprised to know that in taking such a position so publicly, they're proving my point: that sounds just like all our ancestors. Muddy thinkers 'r' us, every time. Ask any Neanderthal you happen to meet.

So what am I saying in this rambling rant? When you write, when you investigate, sooner or later, you're going to run into the question of 'Why?' Why did people in the past do things that look superstitious to us? Why do people on the other side of the planet do those crazy things? Why does my neighbour plant those bushes that grow over my fence? Why do historical linguists get hopping mad when mathematicians invade their turf and start making completely false assumptions?

Well, the last question I can answer, because I was once a student of Germanic linguistics at German university, and I heard all the stories from the bad old days. Historical linguists get frantic over screwball theories about the human past like this because they've been burned before. One word: Nazis. Historical linguists hate 'em worse than Indiana Jones, and most of them won't use the word 'Indogermanic' these days. Watch out. There's an agenda in that bad scholarship, probably, just as there was in the idiot invention of those noble 'Aryans'. Historical linguists do what they do because they are patient and curious, not because they are looking to justify other people's prejudices. Just saying.

Tony Robinson's cavorting is pretty funny, and the questions he raises just go on my list of Things to Find Out. Not, of course, from a television documentary, but from reading up on genuine research. So that's okay. But writers, be aware: when you ask a 'Why?' question, and then make up a 'Because', which you are completely free to do, of course, be aware that somewhere, someone will read it and question your sources. They might also draw some conclusions about the 'Why?' of your choice of answer.

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Dmitri Gheorgheni

05.09.16 Front Page

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