Colgate professor denounces 2012 apocalypse legend

UNC students can stop worrying that the world will end in 2012.

Anthony Aveni, a professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate University, arrested those concerns when he spoke at the Morehead Planetarium on Tuesday night.

One popular legend says the world will end Dec. 21, 2012, when the Mayan calendar returns to “Day Zero” and begins a new creation cycle.

But Aveni says no archaeological findings suggest the Mayans believed the world would end in 2012.

“The truth has been greatly stretched,” he said. “The really annoying part is that we think their message is intended for us.”

But prior to the lecture, sophomore Liz Durham said she was intrigued by the theories revolving around 2012.

“I hope that there will be some monumental event but not the end of the world,” she said.

She also said she was unsure of whether to believe the theories associated with the calendar.

“I think that the fact that there’s going to be the end of the world so soon is irrational,” she said. “Although, the Mayan calendar is based on a bunch of truths, so I suppose it’s plausible, but I don’t believe it.”

Tricia Moylan, a UNC alumna and Morehead Planetarium member, said she attended the lecture because she wanted to understand the mystique behind the Mayan calendar.

“I seriously doubt that the world is going to end in 2012,” she said. “I’m here to hear about the lore. I like history. I like stories. I like different belief systems. I think it helps us understand each other better.”

Aveni said he started researching the 2012 apocalypse after Dylan Aucoin, a high school student from Nova Scotia, e-mailed him about his concerns on the topic.

That first e-mail sparked a three-year daily correspondence and the publication of Aveni’s book on the subject, which he dedicated to Aucoin.

Aveni said Americans are more concerned with the end of the world than most other cultures, and fear and discontentment spurs doomsday theories.

“American religion is very unusual in that it has a very strong appetite for the apocalypse,” he said.

“We are so desperate for a change that we think it can happen when the stars shift, and we get beamed. We will find the truth not by looking through a telescope but looking in a mirror.”

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