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Jim Vieira Has Agreed To Participate In My Class

2/15/2016

12 Comments

 
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I am happy to announce that Jim Vieira, perhaps best known for his role in the History Channel program "Search for the Lost Giants," has agreed to participate in the Forbidden Archaeology class that I will be teaching at South Carolina in the fall of 2016. I've been writing about "giants" for over a year now and I've gone at Vieira's ideas several times. We had an enjoyable phone conversation a week or two ago about "double rows of teeth" and other things connected to giants, science, and fringe research in general.  Without pretending to speak for him, I'll just say that I got the sense that his ideas about giants have changed/developed somewhat over the past few years. I look forward to hearing his current thoughts and seeing how he interacts with the students in the class.  

Vieria joins Scott Wolter in taking me up on my open offer to "fringe" researchers to participate in my class.

I'm still working on refining the syllabus.  Things seem to be settling in nicely for covering three main topics this time around: giants, Ice Age civilization (i.e., the existence of a progenitor civilization or "mother culture"), and pre-Columbian transoceanic contact between the New World and the Old World. I've got Vieira penciled in for September (the month of giants) and Wolter for November.  My draft syllabus has Fingerprints of the Gods as the book we'll be reading and critiquing (and blogging about) for the section of the class dealing with Ice Age civilization, but I think I'd like to change that up and go with a book that hasn't yet been thoroughly examined with a critical eye.  A switch will be even more likely if I can find a book that fits the bill written by an author willing to participate in the class.  Ideas?  Let me know.

To undergraduates at South Carolina: this is going to be a good one! Although this is listed as an archaeology course (because it deals with evidence about what happened in the past), it is weighted heavily as an exercise in critical thinking and communication.  We're going to use historic, anthropological, and scientific frameworks to assess and evaluate a variety of claims about the past that are not part of mainstream thinking. Where did these ideas and claims come from? What kind of evidence could prove a given claim to be false?  How are the claims connected to social, political, and financial agendas? Is there is a worldwide conspiracy among academics to suppress knowledge about what really happened in the past? What can independently be shown to be wrong and what cannot?  We will engage with and evaluate “fringe” claims about the past through readings, discussions, online research and writing, and guest appearances. Forbidden Archaeology (ANTH 291) will meet MWF at 9:40-10:30. I'll post the syllabus when I get it completed.

12 Comments
Uncle Ron
2/15/2016 10:14:25 am

I would like to commend Mr. Vieira, and any other person who leans toward the alternative side of science/history, for attending your class. I look forward to hearing what they have to say afterward and if they are more open to "mainstream" ideas and methodology.

Reply
Pablo
2/15/2016 05:54:52 pm

I don't think there's an alternative side to science, you are talking about pseudo-science. "Mainstream" theories are being challenged all the time by real scientists, with new hypothesis, discoveries, lab tests, work on the field, etc. Coming up with any idea that has no support or just because something "looks like", it's not "alternative science"; it's just pseudoscience that is promoted and believed by people who have closed their minds to real Science.

Reply
Greg Little
2/16/2016 03:30:25 am

What you assert above is precisely why what you call "pseudoscience" lacks trust in what you call "science."

Pablo
2/16/2016 05:51:27 am

I think that lots of scientists lack trust in different aspects of science, but in order to prove that such aspect is wrong, they have to follow a procedure that is called the Scientific Method. Pseudo-scientists see a sword with Hercules on the hilt, and conclude that Romans discovered America and start discrediting the work of Scientists, accuse others of cover-up, etc.

Uncle Ron
2/16/2016 06:40:23 pm

You are nit-picking my vernacular; I was simply being polite. "Pseudo-science" and "fringe-science" are generally employed as pejoratives.

Regardless of how they are derived, there are certainly "alternative" viewpoints on many topics. These disputes generally boil down to methodology. I disagree with Mr. Vieira's, but I welcome his decision to take a look at our way of doing things.

skathes
2/15/2016 01:03:34 pm

This course sounds amazing! I truly think it (or something like it) should be part of numerous undergraduate curriculums as a means of actively teaching critical thinking. Can't wait to see he syllabus. Wish I was I your area to audit the course. What fun you will have.

Reply
Jonathan Feinstein
2/15/2016 02:55:50 pm

Sounds like a great class. Back in the Dark ages, I took a similar sort of class at CWRU in which we studied the claims of Erich von Daniken in this manner. We didn't have von Daniken in the classroom, though. The closest I came to having someone of note in one of my classrooms (aside from one prof who later found a world-famous fossil) was when our teacher managed to get Louis Leakey to agree to speak in our classroom. Unfortunately, he died 5 days before he was scheduled to arrive in Cleveland.

I'm sure you'll have better luck, though. Again it sounds like a great class!

Reply
Spark
2/17/2016 06:10:43 pm

Graham Hancock might be a good idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV9U9tH3lN4

Reply
Cort LIndahl
2/19/2016 07:50:31 am

Scott Wolter has been thoroughly debunked by me. There are so many things he selectively ignores in the context of local and national history it is not even funny. For starters the octagonal form of the Newport Tower points to the Kensington stone 24/7/365 not just on the solstice. The county where the K stone is located is named for Stephen Douglas a direct descendant of Benedict Arnold who standard history and archaeological investigations basically prove built the Tower in Newport. Ignored. The K stone lays right on the margin's of Rupert's Land and French Louisiana. La Salle and d'Iberville note boundary stones that were laid by the french with "foreign writing" on them. The 1809 Thompson Hudson's Bay Map shows the location of the K stone. Turtle Mountain (datum for HBC measurement of lands), and sandstone pillar w/ Hebrew and Ogham inscription on the Milk River. All three of these places and the location of another "rune stone" are all on the border between Rupert's Land and the Hudson's Bay Company. Totally ignored is the legacy of the Douglas family in the Newport Tower, establishment of HBC, and establishment of the Red River Colony. Instead we are led to believe that Vikings left the Kensington Stone in Minnesota. Also oddly the linear array of the Kensington Rune Monument in the Park there points directly to the location of the Heavener Rune in Oklahoma. Someone has played a very large joke in history and Wolter has taken the bait hook line and sinker. All of this is documented in the last two book I wrote. Thank you.

Reply
Eric
2/19/2016 09:17:11 am

Just saw that Wolter cut a deal to be a pitchman for Dodge-he naturally ties the Kensington Rune Stone into the premiere of Season 4 of "Vikings". It aired last night. What I found interesting is in the linked article he specifically says the KRS is not authentic, yet in his on camera persona, he consistently appears to believe in the legitimacy of it, as well as in the commercial. The question is, how much is he acting in front of the camera? It seems for a moment, the mask slipped-

"It's great to see a big corporate sponsor of History, Dodge Motor Company, making a commercial that ties in with one of [the channel's] most successful scripted shows, 'Vikings,' with the Kensington Runestone" Wolters said. "Even though it's not a Viking Age artifact, it was long believed to be one by many people and it is connected to a group that certainly included Norse people that were directly descended from Vikings, so it still works."

http://www.echopress.com/news/3934783-runestone-mystique-prompts-truck-commercial-shoot

Reply
Mike Jones
2/23/2016 01:16:31 am

Well. I mean, it was created by humans and Vikings were human so it still works, right?

Reply
A.D.
2/23/2016 08:37:53 am

Will you be recording it and uploading it on youtube?Everyone has a phone now to record vids.

Reply



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