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Happy Thanksgiving, Critical Thinkers: "The Argumentative Archaeologist"

11/21/2015

7 Comments

 
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I'm about to get on airplane for some holiday travel. I'm hoping to spend much of the coming week not doing much work, but I've been working hard over the last few weeks to finish a "beta" (i.e., mostly complete) version of The Argumentative Archaeologist website. It's done!  Go have a look!  Please spread the word.

I don't have time to write much about it now, so I'm just going to paste in the content from the About page:

The Argumentative Archaeologist is a website that organizes and compiles links to fact-based information and analysis related to fantastic claims about the human past.  While not all "fringe" (i.e., non-mainstream) claims have been shown to be untrue, many have (some of them over, and over, and over again . . .).  The goal of this site is to provide road maps to information that will help you both identify what's BS and understand the history and context of some of the many claims about the past that can be shown to be false.  They can't all be true, right?.

Who Are the Intended Audiences?

This site was conceived and designed with three main audiences in mind:

  • The Public. Almost by definition, most "fringe" ideas come from outside the professional archaeological community.  The marketing and selling of those ideas, not surprisingly, are largely targeted to audiences that are also outside of the professional archaeological community ("bypassing the mainstream" is a common part of the pitch). The "fringe" community has done a good job of exploiting traditional print and television media as well as utilizing the internet to uncritically spread sensational claims about the past.  While many of those "fringe" claims can easily be shown to be false, the voices of the few individuals and organizations that have made a concerted effort to address the factual basis of those claims are often drowned out the megaphones that the "fringe" community has built for itself.  This site is an attempt to assemble links to openly available, critical analysis of "fringe" claims into one central location to make it easier for interested members of the public to get the other side of the story. It wasn't aliens - see for yourself!

  • Educators. College courses that engage with the history, context, and evidence associated with "fringe" claims about the past are becoming increasingly common. I know several people that teach them, and I myself am planning on teaching one in the Fall Semester of 2016. While traditional textbooks are available that cover many facets of pseudo-archaeology, I feel that much of the real work that is being to address and understand "fringe" claims as they emerge and develop is being done online in formats such as blogs.  Blogs can and have been used to address many different aspects of "fringe" claims with a timeliness and forthrightness that would be impossible in the context of a traditional textbook. I hope that people teaching courses on pseudo-archaeology find this site useful in terms of both the kinds of information it presents and the organization of that information.

  • Researchers (Both Kinds). I hope the links compiled on this site will help those of you out there interested in performing research on many different facets of pseudo-archaeology: where do these claims come from? why are they popular? what do we know about artifact x or site y? I know that I have learned several things I did not know just through the process of initial construction of the site (and that is without actually reading in detail the large majority of the content to which this site links). While many claims have been addressed repeatedly and are fairly well understood, many have not and are not. I think it would also be of great benefit to "fringe" researchers to make an effort to understand the arguments against their claims.  I know that may be difficult when you really, really, really want something to be true . . . but if you want your ideas to be taken seriously you will have to someday address an evidence-based critique.  I'm not optimistic that will happen (evaluating the willingness to actually test an idea is one of the key ways to discriminate between archaeology and pseudo-archaeology), but it would be nice. Maybe try not just repeating the same dumb, incorrect thing that someone else already said? Just an idea.​​

How Do You Choose the Content?

The content in this site was not chosen to give "equal time" to skeptical and "fringe" voices.  As mentioned above, the "fringe" side of the equation has developed a powerful set of tools to communicate its various messages: it does not require any assistance.  This site is intended to serve as a counterpoint to "fringe" claims, providing links to critical analyses of components of those claims, links to critical reviews of "fringe" media, and a structure that lets the user explore and understand how various components of "fringe" claims are inter-connected.

During the initial construction of this site (October-November 2015), I mined the blogs of several of the major skeptical online voices of which I am aware: Jason Colavito, ArchyFantasies, Bad Archaeology, Glen Kuban, Skeptoid, Le Site d'Irna, Michael Heiser, Ancient Aliens Debunked, Hot Cup of Joe, and my own website (Andy White Anthropology). This site does not link to all posts on those websites, of course, but it links to many that are related to the topics of interest here. My plan is to monitor those sites and add links to new posts (and new topics) as they become available. I would love to hear about articles, posts, and other skeptical sites of which I am unaware (please use the Suggestion Box).​

Why Do You Present the Content the Way You Do?

The work of critically evaluating "fringe" claims about the human past is being done by very few individuals.  I hope that this site brings attention (and web traffic) to their efforts.  My guess is that most of us who take the time to investigate and write something about the nonsense that's being sold as knowledge aren't making any money by doing so (in stark contrast to the "fringe" side, which has a large commercial component). Credit should go where credit is due: write an email and thank your favorite skeptic for his or her hard work.

I have used block quotes to introduce many of the topics, artifacts, and sites for which I have created entries. Many of those quotes are from Wikipedia.  I chose to do this not because it is the best source of information, but because it probably reflects a reasonable consensus view.  And it's designed to be "open."  I've attributed the textual quotes that I use, and I've attributed the sources of images that I use by linking to my sources.  I have added internal links (i.e., links pointing to other pages within this website) and indicated those changes with the designation [links added]. I do not believe that I am violating any copyrights or other prohibitions by presenting the material the way I do. If you disagree, please let me know via email (aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu).​

What Do I Do Now?

Begin your search for information by Topic, by Person, by Geographical Area, by Title of a book, film, or television program, by Meme or Image, or Alphabetically. ​Please use the Suggestion Box to offer topics or links to information, and please sign the Guestbook.

​Enjoy! 

7 Comments
Greg Little
11/21/2015 02:08:28 pm

I'm honored to be included. But thankfully I'm only a "fringe" writer who has an interest in the fringe field. I don't deserve such recognition. The photo used of me is owned by the Memphis Commercial Appeal and was part of an article series they issued about our professional involvement in "crime." I dislike it as it was staged by the photographer who shot from high above. Whoever lifted it for various sites cut out Dr. Robinson, who was next to me, who looks astonishingly like Einstein. You have your work cut out for you, for example see this for how extensive you'l have to eventually get: http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/a-z-listing/

Reply
Andy White
11/21/2015 02:56:23 pm

So you think I should use a different photo?

I debated including you but went ahead because of Path of Soulz (which remains the most reasonable recent "fringe" book I've read - I think the "Adena royalty" hypothesis is likely to be the last one standing regarding "giants").

I'll never be able to create an exhaustive reference, but I can take a stab at compiling and maintaining a listing of critical analysis. I think that will be useful (for me and a few others).

Reply
Greg Little
11/21/2015 05:32:29 pm

The pic is OK with me, the newspaper has been sold and resold since then and I would guess no one really cares. I'm a somewhat unpopular and a very minor figure in the fringe, and I'm happy with that, actually busy in other professional areas. I hadn't thought of the term "Adena royalty" but like it. Jim Vieira and Hugh Newman's new book "Giants on Record" takes the same view. They discuss hoaxes and the issues with your favorite phrase, "double rows of teeth." If and when I ever get my other professional projects to slow down I'll write a bit more on the topic. Dewhurst's book on giants, a jumbled mass of newspaper clippings, has sold nearly 30,000 copies. Unbelieveable in some ways but true. My best-selling fringe book was "People of the Web" (1990) which amazingly, to me anyway, got to 15,000. That was the old days of books. It was when I first got into Native American archaeology. The Mound Encyclopedia has done astonishingly well, even sells at a lot of archaeological museums. Nothing in it is fringe at all. That's my next project, adding another 1,000 sites to it. It is what I have called a "ghost hobby" in other types of books I've done. All of the "Atlantis" work (diving, using side-scan, exploring in the Bahamas and Yucatan) was just a fun thing to do as a ghost hobby, but as I related countless times, we never found anything that could even remotely linked to Atlantis. But even looking makes one subject to ridicule. As you are well aware, I see a lot of truth distortion on both sides in all of this. It is all fertile ground for a psychologist to look at.

Andy White
11/22/2015 05:33:57 am

Hi Greg. I have the new Vieira/Newman book but haven't had the chance to go through it in any detail yet. I skimmed the "double rows of teeth" chapter and was not impressed - it didn't appear to me on first glance that they made any effort to consider the linguistic dimensions/variations of the phrase that I have gone to significant effort to point out. So I'll probably write about that at some point. It amazes me (but also doesn't) how popular the Dewhurst book is. It is a really awful work, filled with errors and having really no redeeming qualities that I can discern. Oh well.

Lisa Young
11/21/2015 07:08:45 pm

Thanks for putting this together -- it's a great resource. If you want a set of students to give you feed back on anything, let me know. I'm teaching the "Frauds" class next semester. Might be a good discussion section activity at the end of the semester.

Reply
Andy White
11/22/2015 05:35:31 am

Hi Lisa. I hope you find it useful. I would love to know if/how you end up using it in your class, and any feedback on organization and content would be welcome. Let me know!

Reply
David L Ulrich
11/24/2015 10:11:20 am

So we are using a picture that has been altered and posted on on academic site. In the humble opinion of a non academic person who lived and worked in a field where people were outright fired for such activities, this does have a bad taste in the mouth.....hummmm

Reply



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