Andy White Anthropology
  • Home
  • Research Interests
    • Complexity Science
    • Prehistoric Social Networks
    • Eastern Woodlands Prehistory
    • Ancient Giants
  • Blog
  • Work in Progress
    • The Kirk Project >
      • Kirk 3D Models list
      • Kirk 3D Models embedded
      • Kirk 2D images >
        • Indiana
        • Kentucky
        • Michigan
        • Ontario
      • Kirk Project Datasets
    • Computational Modeling >
      • FN3D_V3
    • Radiocarbon Compilation
    • Fake Hercules Swords
    • Wild Carolina >
      • Plants >
        • Mosses
        • Ferns
        • Conifers
        • Flowering Plants >
          • Grasses
          • Trees
          • Other Flowering Plants
      • Animals >
        • Birds
        • Mammals
        • Crustaceans
        • Insects
        • Arachnids
        • Millipedes and Centipedes
        • Reptiles and Amphibians
      • Fungi
  • Annotated Publications
    • Journal Articles
    • Technical Reports
    • Doctoral Dissertation
  • Bibliography
  • Data

A Few Things on a Thursday Morning

11/12/2015

7 Comments

 
As usual, I have many more ideas for things to write about than I have time to write.  There's a backlog of material related to giants and plenty of other stuff I'd like to write about related to my research plans in the Southeast, interesting things about South Carolina, teaching, etc.  This post is just to mention a few things relevant to previous posts.

Haplogroup X2a

Based on the metrics I have access to (Facebook likes/shares, Twitter data, and the page view metrics that Weebly provides), the post I wrote on the new paper by Jennifer Raff and Deborah Bolnick was one of the more popular things I've written recently. I think the paper is very nice, and I'm glad for anything I can do to encourage people to read it.  Yesterday, Raff wrote a post addressing some questions about the paper.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic (professional or otherwise). When I looked at where my post was posted on Facebook, I was a little dismayed by some of the comments.  It is evident (and interesting) that a lot of people react to the headline and the image without even reading the content.  Anyway, I encourage you to read the original paper and Raff's answers to common questions.

Hutton Pulitzer Claims He Made Me Famous, Threatens to "Out" Professional Archaeologists

My posts about the various silly activities and statements by Hutton Pulitzer (there's a listing here) appear to be gaining a fan base. A post from September titled "The Philyaw Follies, Fall 2015 Edition" attracted Pulitzer as well as several individuals who he has apparently tangled with online before.  And I've been getting emails from some Pulitzer detractors. 

Among other strange things, Pulitzer made the following comment on my blog:

"Hey Andy, yes saw this and me calling you the "4A" made you quite famous. LOL, but yes archaeologists tend to not let themselves be interviewed. We did in fact offer you a spot to go on record with Wayne May, but yes you did decline. However, some of our new recordings are outing people like you and University coverups."

While I will eagerly await whatever "outing" he's talking about, I won't be holding my breath. If there's one thing that I can confidently identify as part of Pulitzer's M.O., it's the lack of follow-up to his grandiose statements. Anyway, his comments on my blog are worth reading, as are the comments of readers on Jason Colavito's post about a recent interview between Pulitzer and Scott Wolter.

Which brings us to the next tidbit.

Scott Wolter Is Still Participating In My Class

My plans for teaching a class about "fringe" ideas in archaeology (working title: "Forbidden Archaeology") in the Fall of 2016 are moving forward. The paperwork is currently working its way up the various steps in the chain.  I just got here, so the process is somewhat mysterious to me.  But I don't have any reason at this point to think that I won't be able to teach the course.

As I wrote in this post, Scott Wolter responded to my open invitation for "fringe" theorists to step up to the plate and participate in my class. An alert reader emailed me the other day to point my attention to Wolter's blog, where someone had made a comment about my website and Wolter had replied with something like "Who is Andy White?"  The reader questioned if Wolter would still be participating in the class.

The answer to that is "yes."  I had a cordial email exchange with Wolter and the plans for his participation in the class are still on.

I'm still looking for one or two more who like to be involved - I'd love to have a person talk abut giants and a person to make a case for any aspect of claims related to Ice Age civilization.  Send me an email if you're interested: aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu.

Boycotting Discovery and the History Channel?

I think many of my readers will agree that the overall quality of programming on The Discovery Channel and The History Channel has gone downhill in recent years. I don't have anything new to say about why that's a bad thing, but I wanted to direct your attention to a blog post by Gordon Bonnet at Skeptophilia calling for a boycott. Here is a bit of what he says:

"Look, it's not that I'm against speculation.  Sometimes people doggedly pursuing ideas that everyone has thought ridiculous has paid off in the end.  But there is nothing to be gained by formerly reputable channels airing fiction passed off as truth, and fantasy passed off as documentary.  In the end, it makes everyone's job harder, from lowly science teachers like myself who are trying to get kids to learn how to sort fact from bullshit, to the honest researchers who would like to investigate fringe claims and do so in a rational, evidence-based manner.

So it's time to turn off The History Channel and Discovery.  They've been veering off course for a while, but it's getting worse, and it's time to send a message.  Stop watching this garbage, and better yet, send a letter or an email to them telling them you're doing so.  It's time to get some good science and history programming back on the air."


Yeah . . . believe it or not there is a distinction to be made between programs honestly investigating ideas at the "fringe" and programs presenting outright fantasy that is disguised as documentary.  It's the turn toward that second kind of programming that irks a lot of us, I think.  Mermaids, anyone?  

I really think there has to be a way for media to tap into the public's interest in the human past (and a spectrum of ideas about it) without resorting to just making things up. 
7 Comments
Greg Little
11/12/2015 11:18:26 am

Archaeologists openly boycotting the History Channel is a sure way to increase the ratings of the shows the archaeologists despise so much. Great fuel for conspiracy theorists; headlines like: "Archaeologists don't want you to see this show!! What are they trying to cover up?"

Reply
Andy White
11/12/2015 11:20:43 am

Yeah, I think you're right about that. I will just repeat my last sentence, which I'm guessing you agree with:

"I really think there has to be a way for media to tap into the public's interest in the human past (and a spectrum of ideas about it) without resorting to just making things up."

Reply
Greg Little
11/12/2015 04:08:31 pm

I certainly agree with that last statement. Back in 2006 I was asked to help with a series that would supposedly do that, and one BBC show on Clovis-Solutrean was the result. But I ceased all participation in documentaries when things were quoted out of context and made to sound like something that wasn't... But what you wrote can be done, what it will take is a producer who can sell such a show. The interest to the public is in the possibilities, possibilities that can be shown without saying that the "possibilities" are the actual truth. Like I've written and said so many times, physics has managed to do it. MtDNA X2 is good example of a topic that could hold the public's interest. The "First Americans," already done in documentaries, is another example.

Andy White
11/13/2015 08:09:30 am

If I were ever asked to appear on television, I would be very concerned about the relationship between the message I would be trying to communicate and the appearance the show would try to create. There are too many cautionary tales out there to not be concerned about that sort of thing.

Don Spohn
11/19/2015 08:19:00 pm

I think we will always have more interested in fiction impersonating science than in pure science. For the most part professionals do not know how to make their subject understandable or interesting. Writers of Ancient Aliens do and they are successful. Follow the money!

Reply
Ron
12/6/2015 04:31:39 pm

You don't get very far with the producers when you start with 'By the way all you just said is wrong....'

Reply
Bill Wagner
2/8/2016 04:30:14 pm

I suspect (FWIW) that you are only seeing part of the problem. The History Channel (aka the holocaust/holy grail channel) is not only putting (as you call it) Woo stuff out there. At the same time, it is denying paid advertising to the company which translated the Fomenko Group's detailed studies of chronological revisionism.

It's about Public Opinion Creation/Control in the final analysis. Not just irresponsibility.

Reply



Leave a Reply.


    All views expressed in my blog posts are my own. The views of those that comment are their own. That's how it works.

    I reserve the right to take down comments that I deem to be defamatory or harassing. 

    Andy White

    Follow me on Twitter: @Andrew_A_White

    Email me: andy.white.zpm@gmail.com

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Picture

    Sick of the woo?  Want to help keep honest and open dialogue about pseudo-archaeology on the internet? Please consider contributing to Woo War Two.
    Picture

    Follow updates on posts related to giants on the Modern Mythology of Giants page on Facebook.

    Archives

    January 2023
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    3D Models
    AAA
    Adena
    Afrocentrism
    Agent Based Modeling
    Agent-based Modeling
    Aircraft
    Alabama
    Aliens
    Ancient Artifact Preservation Society
    Androgynous Fish Gods
    ANTH 227
    ANTH 291
    ANTH 322
    Anthropology History
    Anunnaki
    Appalachia
    Archaeology
    Ardipithecus
    Art
    Atlantis
    Australia
    Australopithecines
    Aviation History
    Bigfoot
    Birds
    Boas
    Book Of Mormon
    Broad River Archaeological Field School
    Bronze Age
    Caribou
    Carolina Bays
    Ceramics
    China
    Clovis
    Complexity
    Copper Culture
    Cotton Mather
    COVID-19
    Creationism
    Croatia
    Crow
    Demography
    Denisovans
    Diffusionism
    DINAA
    Dinosaurs
    Dirt Dance Floor
    Double Rows Of Teeth
    Dragonflies
    Early Archaic
    Early Woodland
    Earthworks
    Eastern Woodlands
    Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project
    Education
    Egypt
    Europe
    Evolution
    Ewhadp
    Fake Hercules Swords
    Fetal Head Molding
    Field School
    Film
    Florida
    Forbidden Archaeology
    Forbidden History
    Four Field Anthropology
    Four-field Anthropology
    France
    Genetics
    Genus Homo
    Geology
    Geometry
    Geophysics
    Georgia
    Giants
    Giants Of Olden Times
    Gigantism
    Gigantopithecus
    Graham Hancock
    Grand Valley State
    Great Lakes
    Hollow Earth
    Homo Erectus
    Hunter Gatherers
    Hunter-gatherers
    Illinois
    India
    Indiana
    Indonesia
    Iowa
    Iraq
    Israel
    Jim Vieira
    Jobs
    Kensington Rune Stone
    Kentucky
    Kirk Project
    Late Archaic
    Lemuria
    Lithic Raw Materials
    Lithics
    Lizard Man
    Lomekwi
    Lost Continents
    Mack
    Mammoths
    Mastodons
    Maya
    Megafauna
    Megaliths
    Mesolithic
    Michigan
    Middle Archaic
    Middle Pleistocene
    Middle Woodland
    Midwest
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    Mississippian
    Missouri
    Modeling
    Morphometric
    Mound Builder Myth
    Mu
    Music
    Nazis
    Neandertals
    Near East
    Nephilim
    Nevada
    New Mexico
    Newspapers
    New York
    North Carolina
    Oahspe
    Oak Island
    Obstetrics
    Ohio
    Ohio Valley
    Oldowan
    Olmec
    Open Data
    Paleoindian
    Paleolithic
    Pilumgate
    Pleistocene
    Pliocene
    Pre Clovis
    Pre-Clovis
    Prehistoric Families
    Pseudo Science
    Pseudo-science
    Radiocarbon
    Reality Check
    Rome
    Russia
    SAA
    Sardinia
    SCIAA
    Science
    Scientific Racism
    Sculpture
    SEAC
    Search For The Lost Giants
    Sexual Dimorphism
    Sitchin
    Social Complexity
    Social Networks
    Solutrean Hypothesis
    South Africa
    South America
    South Carolina
    Southeast
    Stone Holes
    Subsistence
    Swordgate
    Teaching
    Technology
    Teeth
    Television
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Topper
    Travel
    Travel Diaries
    Vaccines
    Washington
    Whatzit
    White Supremacists
    Wisconsin
    Woo War Two
    World War I
    World War II
    Writing
    Younger Dryas

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly