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"Forbidden Archaeology" (ANT 291): An Update

6/23/2016

8 Comments

 
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My plans for the Forbidden Archaeology course I'll be teaching in the fall continue to take shape. I wanted to take a few minutes today to write a quick update.

Course Organization

The course will be organized into four sections. We'll spend the first couple of weeks on background, discussing the characteristics of science and pseudo-science, the status of archaeology as a science, and why "getting it right" matters. Because this is a 200-level course with no prerequisites, it's going to be important to make sure the students have some general understanding of the tools we use to learn about the past and to discriminate credible from non-credible explanations. We'll explore the various motivations for creating narratives about the past and discuss the ways that pseudo-science attempts to masquerade as science while simultaneously trying to shelter it's ideas and "evidence" from the scrutiny that is fundamental to the scientific endeavor. Finally, we'll talk about how ideas and arguments are effectively communicated on the internet.

In Section 2 of the course, we'll be talking Giants. Readers of this blog know that this is one of my favorite topics. We'll start with some deep background, tracing the origins of western giant mythology through the Bible, Greek and Roman writings, and early European sources. We'll examine the origin and development of the fascination with giants in 19th century America and try to understand how the re-emergence of belief in the existence of "giants" fits into our world today. 

The topic of Section 3 will be Ice Age Civilization.  We'll trace the origin of ideas about an ancient, lost "mother culture" from Plato's description of Atlantis up to today, critically examining the idea that some high-tech civilization that was destroyed in a global cataclysm. We'll be looking at various pieces of "evidence" that are put forward to support this claim, and we'll be reading and reviewing portions of the book Species with Amnesia.  

The final section of the course will look at claims for Transoceanic Pre-Columbian Contact, focusing heavily on proposed interactions between peoples in Europe and North America. We'll review the main claims for the presence of Europeans in the New World before Columbus and tie the origin and history of those claims to their current manifestations. How do we separate real pieces of evidence from hoaxes and misinterpretations? Why do some ideas persist despite a complete lack of objectively credible evidence? Why does it matter that we get this right?

Guest Participants

My plans to bring in some guest participants are moving forward. Jim Vieira will be visiting in September to talk about his experience investigating "giants." Scott Wolter will (hopefully) be coming in November to participate in the pre-Columbian contact section. I'm trying to raise money to offset the costs of flying both of these people down to Columbia: they are coming at my invitation to participate in a class that I'm setting up, so it is the courteous thing to do. Neither Wolter's nor Vieira's appearance constitutes an endorsement of their ideas on my part, and they both know that. Neither will be getting paid for his appearance. They are participating in, literally, an academic exercise: it's about showing students how to weigh the credibility of ideas by putting them into an arena where they can be challenged on the basis of logic and evidence. How do you phrase an idea in terms of a falsifiable hypothesis? What kind of information is required to prove something wrong? That's what we'll be asking all through the semester, and that's what we'll be asking of Wolter and Vieira.

I just started a Go Fund Me Campaign for Vieira's travel expenses this morning. The fund I set up to cover Wolter's travel expenses has been active for over a week now, but seems to have stalled out after a few donations. Thanks to those who donated! If you're excited about this class and what may come out of it, please consider contributing something (if you're able) to make this happen. 

Finally, I'm happy to announce that Jason Colavito has agreed to participate in the course. I've asked him to talk to the class about his long history of online engagement with "fringe" ideas and explain how he gathers evidence and crafts an argument. I'm also going to ask him to discuss the history of ideas about Atlantis, as he has far more expertise there than I do.  Thanks for agreeing to participate, Jason!

No, You Can't Visit -- Sorry!

Several people have asked (online and in person) about sitting in on the class during the guest appearances and/or me streaming them live somehow. Sorry, but my answer to that question has to be "no:" the course has to be geared to serving the students who are enrolled in it.  Letting in spectators would be a slippery slope.  I do hope, however, that the wider public will benefit significantly from the material that comes out of the class. The students will be writing blog posts that we'll put on a new website, and I anticipate that we'll be able to post some video content related to the guest appearances (those details will have to be worked out and agreed to by all parties).  

8 Comments
Gina Torresso
6/23/2016 08:39:06 am

Is this class offered on line? I would love to be in this class. Are your students studying to be Archeologists?

Reply
Mike Morgan
6/23/2016 10:07:45 am

I'm in on the fund for Jim Vieira also. I believe a "face to face" with the pseudo/fringe in the classroom will be of great benefit to your students and can only increase their level of interest.

Great to hear Jason will also be a participant.

I had thought of posing the question of if it would be possible to have information of the student's thoughts and reactions, so happy to see they will be writing blog posts. Might also be interesting to perhaps take a poll of the students about their beliefs or acceptance of fringe ideas at the beginning of the course and at the end of the course.

Although you will not allow outsiders to participate, or streaming of the class to the general public, for reasons which are completely valid and understandable, have you thought about or reached out to other Universities programs to see if they would be interested in "sitting in" via conference or stream during these encounters?

Reply
hal
6/23/2016 11:54:08 am

And the fringe authors will have credibility and can say they lectured at the SC archaeology department. It's a win-win situation.

Reply
John
6/23/2016 09:00:13 pm

Who cares? Anyone who is interested can google their claim, it will link to Andy's page, and see they participated in an interesting class. This participation and flow of info (fringe and non-fringe) should be interesting for all.

Reply
Graham
6/24/2016 10:18:45 am

Good luck, hope you don't find activists demanding that those you invited should be told to 'get lost'...

Reply
Joe Scales
6/26/2016 08:45:10 am

Hate to be a spoiler, but Wolter favors fallacy over logic and will insult anyone who presents evidence counter to his assertions as either being biased, jealous, or they somehow really agree with him, but are afraid that an oppressive academic regime will crush them for doing so. As for falsifiability, he couldn't meet that challenge when presented to him by the Swedish geologists over a decade ago in regard to his "hard science". Now with Templars, Masons, Jesus, Mary Magdalene and "secret knowledge" only he is privy too, even the remote possibility of falsifiability has long been abandoned.

Reply
Mark
6/26/2016 07:24:53 pm

Let's hope that when SW visits the class he will stay focused on the authenticity of the KRS and not drag in the Templars, Mason's,etc. That will just confuse everyone.

Reply
Joe Scales
6/26/2016 08:29:45 pm

Warning: More spoilers ahead:

Wolter will open with the fallacy of false dilemma, telling the class that the KRS is either a hoax or it's authentic. Then he will offer proof by assertion that it is not a hoax because he compared it to some really old tomb stones on the other side of the country and Ohman was a swell guy who wouldn't perpetrate a hoax. So then he'll argue circularly that since it has to be as old as the tombstones, the best way of dating it is the inscription on the stone slab itself. Because then it is the genuine article, any question or fact that would run counter to such an assertion cannot possibly be true. So Wolter can cherry pick from only possibilities that make it genuine.

That'll take about two minutes... so then it's on with the Templars, Masons, etc. When it's all said and done, he'll make a blog post about it saying how he convinced numerous young minds to see things his way and will forever deny otherwise.




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