digging for the truth

[ElijahPrice]

Anyone here seen Digging for the Truth on The History Channel?  My brother keeps raving about it – and has gotten me really amped for the premiere this Monday. trolling for vouchers, yes i am....

[stiffler]

I'm sure I've seen it, but I'm not sure what series it is.  There are a few that seem to have the same kind of show across History and History International.  It almost seems like they just rebrand the same show, or at least the same premise, every few years.

Based on the others that I have seen that are like this I will give it a thumbs-up.

I miss History's Mysteries.  But I am now in love with the Modern Marvels episodes when they do the most mundane stuff.  Like "containers" last night.

Obviously I don't watch "regular" television.

[Doopri]

i never really liked it - too much fluff and "gee whiz" type stuff and too little actual history

i always thought it belonged on travel and not history

[Sarkus]

If it's the one I'm thinking of it's ok but not great.  They often deal with interesting subjects but discard alternate theories by simply having an expert say "not true" and not digging any deeper.  The end result is that you get the conventional explanations for everything with no serious look at other opinions. 

Also, it's not always scientifically valid.  An example: last year they did an episode on the "DaVinci Code" controversy.  Part of that theory/story is that a line of French kings married into the relatives of Jesus.  The show decided to test this theory by comparing the DNA of one of the members of the dynasty to modern relatives of the people who lived in Israel at the time.  One problem was that they never clarified who the DNA source was (direct line, wife of a king, etc. - it would only work if it was a direct line descendent).  The second problem is that there is no clear modern relative of the people of Jesus time.  They ended up comparing the source to a guy who they found in Jerusalem who spoke the language of the time who belongs to a Christian faction that claims to have been around since right after Jesus death.  Again, there was no proof of a DNA link.  Despite all this they claimed the story was untrue when the DNA comparison showed not much in common.

If you don't know anything about the subject it's not a bad introduction, however.

[ElijahPrice]

I watched the premiere last night and thought they did a good job of presenting the information in a way the general population can grasp it. If you are pretty up on your Atlantis facts you may have known a lot of what was presented, but for newbs looking for a general perspective, I thought it was pretty decent. I liked how he went from investigating evidence that was pro-Atlantis to investigating that was anti-Atlantis. so to speak.