Obsession with the apocalypse is a  cultural phenomenon. Apolinario Chile Pixtun, a Mayan Elder, thinks this obsession is particularly Western, and perhaps he is right. Certainly in my lifetime it seems there has been one or another apocalypse right around the corner. In 1982 the planetary alignments were going to cause massive earthquakes. There were a number of doomsday predictions over the 80s and 90s, but they were overshadowed by Y2K – perhaps the biggest doomsday fizzle of them all.

Smaller doomsdays have come and gone since the turn of the millennium, but the next big date is 2012, December 21st to be precise (although some prefer the numerical symmetry of 12/12/12). To solidify this date in the mind of the public Hollywood is coming out with a doomsday thriller called 2012 (I don’t blame them, and it looks like good eye candy).

The date of this apocalypse is based upon the Mayan Calendar, which allegedly ends on 12/21/2012. The Mayans were fairly advanced in their study of naked-eye astronomy and had a sophisticated calendar. Their “long count” calendar had, as its largest cycle, a period of 394.3 years known as a B’ak’tun. Thirteen was a sacred number to the Mayan, and counting 13 B’ak’tun from their presumed date of creation lands us in 2012.

Chile Pixtun says that the Mayans never claimed or intended for the ending of this calendar to imply the end of the world. That is a figment of Western apocalyptic obsession only. They have or had mystical beliefs about a transition at the end of that cycle, much like the psychological turning of the page we all make on New Year’s day, but not the end of the world. In fact there are Mayan writings the refer to future dates as late as 4772, so clearly they thought we would still be around then.

While interesting, none of this really matters. Even if the Mayans firmly believed they had uncovered some astronomical secret of the universe and truly believed the earth would be destroyed on 2012 – so what? That would still just be a bit of pre-scientific superstition, and while they may have had advanced astronomy for an ancient culture, modern astronomy has far surpassed all ancient knowledge and has powerful tools at its disposal not dreamed of by ancient astronomers. There would be no reason for concern about ancient Mayan mythology.

So the 2012 doomsayers are doubly wrong.

Actually, not content with wrongness squared, some doomsayers have added some modern pseudoscience to the mix. Some doomsayers are claiming that sunspot activity will peak in 2012, resulting in solar flares that wipe out our civilization. This is not an implausible scenario, but there is no reason to think it will happen in 2012. As usual, Phil Plait is all over this bit of astronomical pseudoscience. Here he debunks the sunspot claims.

There are also those who claim that in 2012 the solar system will pass through the galactic plane, exposing the earth to radiation or something and wiping us out. But, this is simply not true. The solar system will be nowhere near the galactic plane in 2012, and if it were – again, so what, there is no reason to think this will cause problems.

Then there are the planet X aficionados -so, there isn’t a killer planet headed our way. And no, we are not going to experience a geomagnetic reversal either (such things take thousands of years anyway).

Such claims are good examples of retrofitting. Doomsayers start with the incorrect mythological interpretation that the world will end in 2012, and then search for something pseudoplausible and sciencey they can squeeze into this claim.

But – at least it is fun and light blog fodder. It is also an opportunity to teach some real science and history – a fun way to learn about sunspots and galactic structure.

I’m also looking forward to the movie. It will probably be dumb, but I’m a sucker for good large-scale CG.