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Pseudo-Archaeology & The Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

Sharon Hill said:
These examples aren't comparable to a scientific fringe theory that became part of the accepted narrative. Politics is a different animal. Fringe social ideas can push progress forward by changing norms - doesn't operate the same way in science.

I agree that the reality of the Illuminati is a fringe belief. It may be mainstream pop culture but it still remains an idea unsupported by sound evidence and embraced due to belief. Same thing with other conspiracies.

Some "fringe" ideas I can think of -- the idea of meteorites. There was a strong rejection of the ideas that rocks fall from the sky. But they came around. Also, continental drift -> plate tectonics. These were quite a while ago. I'm sure it might happen again but notice how these examples were supported by more and more robust, legit science.
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Or the idea that Atlantis was real, or the idea that the Queen of Sheba was real, or that El Dorado was based on something real....

There's been a lot of ideas that got lambasted by the mainstream when first proposed, that actually turned out to be right. "Well there wasn't proof..." Um... this sort of thinking can be a double standard. How much proof is there for the currently accepted explanation?
 
marhawkman said:
Or the idea that Atlantis was real, or the idea that the Queen of Sheba was real, or that El Dorado was based on something real....

There's been a lot of ideas that got lambasted by the mainstream when first proposed, that actually turned out to be right. "Well there wasn't proof..." Um... this sort of thinking can be a double standard. How much proof is there for the currently accepted explanation?
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Proof is a terrible word to use in science.
 
Even Troy and the Minoan civilisation were considered to be legends at one time.
Mind you, the truth is more complex; quite a few people had a good idea where the Troad was, and once Schliemann found all that treasure, he was convinced he had found the remains of Priam's Troy - but he was nearly a thousand years out.
 
Sharon Hill said:
Proof is a terrible word to use in science.
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Both the theories of the use of handwashing to limit the spread of disease and the smallpox vaccination were ridiculed originally. When they consistently achieved the results expected in a way that could be duplicated, they moved from fringe to good theory. I would not try to apply this discussion to cultural issues, as there is no process for "proof". There are archeological theories that did end up being unexpectedly proven, trying to think of a few.
 
Sharon Hill said:
These examples aren't comparable to a scientific fringe theory that became part of the accepted narrative. Politics is a different animal. Fringe social ideas can push progress forward by changing norms - doesn't operate the same way in science.

I agree that the reality of the Illuminati is a fringe belief. It may be mainstream pop culture but it still remains an idea unsupported by sound evidence and embraced due to belief. Same thing with other conspiracies.

Some "fringe" ideas I can think of -- the idea of meteorites. There was a strong rejection of the ideas that rocks fall from the sky. But they came around. Also, continental drift -> plate tectonics. These were quite a while ago. I'm sure it might happen again but notice how these examples were supported by more and more robust, legit science.
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So you don't think "science" is influenced by politics or money? Where have you been for the past thousand years?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Wait! Objecting to the idea of Ancient Aliens is racist against aliens.
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You know, there's more truth to this that one would think at first. How so? Well if we accept the possibility that Earth may have been visited by non-Human intelligences, how can we be sure as to what level of contact they had with ancient people? Especially when the stories told by those people are very much extraordinary?
 
Having never watched Ancient Aliens I decided to watch one tonight. What utter tosh. It was full of 'is it possible that', 'could it be that', 'many people believe that' etc.

Alien abductions featured in this episode & Whitley Strieber featured briefly. This is the man that according to wiki, 'witnessed' the Texas Uni Charles Whitman shooting spree in 1966, giving numerous graphic details about victims, subsequently admitted he hadn't been there at all, then changed his mind in a later book & said he was there. His mother however said he was in Austin on the day of the shooting but not on campus. You'd have to be credulous as fuck to believe anything he says yet here he is blathering on about his abduction.

It then moved on to 'alien implants', 'alien/human hybrids' with speculation of genetically altered human sleepers who will be switched on by aliens at some point in the future for nefarious purposes & so on. Utter bollocks.
 
Sorry, but there is no truth to these fantasies whatsoever. No evidence of ancient alien technology, no ancient alien DNA, no bodies, not even any alien poo. Everything the Ancient Alien proponents say was done by aliens was within the capabilities of ancient humans, so it is a hypothesis that is entirely unnecessary.
 
Streiber is a fiction writer, and quite a good one. When he says something is a true story you should regard it in the same way as when the Coen Brothers stated that Fargo was a true story; i.e., not at all.
 
eburacum said:
Sorry, but there is no truth to these fantasies whatsoever. No evidence of ancient alien technology, no ancient alien DNA, no bodies, not even any alien poo. Everything the Ancient Alien proponents say was done by aliens was within the capabilities of ancient humans, so it is a hypothesis that is entirely unnecessary.
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Ok, but there's a flaw in this line of thinking. "Could X have done Y" is not proof that Z didn't do Y. Sure it's might be possible to find proof Z didn't do Y. But knowing that X could have done Y doesn't prove Z wasn't involved.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
But you not answered... :D
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Because it was a silly question. 1. It has nothing to do with what I was talking about. And 2. I work as a technical employee for the government. I know about politics and money so don’t go insulting my intelligence.
 
I find the ancient Alien theory rather silly, however the fact is our knowledge of human history is very limited, which leads to Archaeologists coming up with silly theories as well, they found some pig skulls near Stonehenge (I think) they all had rotten teeth and were dated to the Neolithic period, why did the pigs have rotten teeth? According to the Archaeologist they were sacrificial animals and had been fed honey! You just have stand aghast that a professional Archaeologist could have arrived at that conclusion, like the sweetest substance neolithic man could get his hands on often with great difficulty was fed to the pigs over such a period it rotted their teeth.

Was it Fort who said something like people using making things fit the fact?
 
eburacum said:
The Greeks were capable of pulling quinqeremes out of the water onto dry land, and they weighed upwards of 150 tonnes. They had to do this to protect them from teredo shipworm.

It is less than an order of magnitude of difficulty from moving 150 tonne ships upwards, to moving 800 tonne blocks of stone from the quarry at Baalbeck. They tried to move a 1000 tonne block and failed - this is a pattern that is repeated over and over again, in quarries over the world, even on Easter Island. People get too ambitious.
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The thing is, when one does things the dumb way, i.e. the wrong way, one fails. The Moai of Easter Island were walked into position via hawsers, a rocking motion and forward impetus by more hawsers. As a single man who has often had to move house on his own, I am able to move fridges and other heavy furniture on my own using a similar system, providing ease of movement by pivoting and balancing the mass. While there is still some "grunting" involved, you can achieve a lot with some nouse and a bit of intuitive physics. See my other post for how to move 800 tons with seaweed and wet sand.
 
Robbrent said:
I find the ancient Alien theory rather silly, however the fact is our knowledge of human history is very limited, which leads to Archaeologists coming up with silly theories as well, they found some pig skulls near Stonehenge (I think) they all had rotten teeth and were dated to the Neolithic period, why did the pigs have rotten teeth? According to the Archaeologist they were sacrificial animals and had been fed honey! You just have stand aghast that a professional Archaeologist could have arrived at that conclusion, like the sweetest substance neolithic man could get his hands on often with great difficulty was fed to the pigs over such a period it rotted their teeth. Was it Fort who said something like people using making things fit the fact?
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On the other hand, archaeologists get peer reviewed, to which Ancient Alien Theorists say a categorical "no".
 
Robbrent said:
You just have stand aghast that a professional Archaeologist could have arrived at that conclusion, like the sweetest substance neolithic man could get his hands on often with great difficulty was fed to the pigs over such a period it rotted their teeth.
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What's your explanation then?
 
Min Bannister said:
What's your explanation then?
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Some have suggested cereal mash, but given the pigs came from Scotland, and whiskey is an ancient drink indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if they fed them up of all sorts of luxury given they were to be sacrificial animals. Whiskey can certainly make your teeth rot quite quickly, but it also makes pork taste amazing, and contrary to what most people expect, sacrificial animals were nearly always eaten by the congregation by Pantheists. A great many cultures had a history of feeding sacrifices on luxury foods too. The tooth rot certainly isn't a product of having been buried in a pit for centuries.
 
Robbrent said:
I don't have a clue, and it's perfectly OK not to have a clue, no one does it's a mystery but coming up with a ridiculous theory does not help
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Why do you think the theory is ridiculous? There are loads of cultural precedents to suggest similar behavior in many ancient communities. We are even doing similar things today: Link
 
AlchoPwn said:
Why do you think the theory is ridiculous? There are loads of cultural precedents to suggest similar behavior in many ancient communities. We are even doing similar things today: Link
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Because honey would have been quite rare and hard to collect, and throughout history it has been valued as a foodstuff, in order to cause tooth decay at that scale they would have to be eating lots of it, in order for Neolithic people to have that much honey it would require almost industrial scale production it just does not stack up for a society that had just developed farming
 
Robbrent said:
Because honey would have been quite rare and hard to collect, and throughout history it has been valued as a foodstuff, in order to cause tooth decay at that scale they would have to be eating lots of it, in order for Neolithic people to have that much honey it would require almost industrial scale production it just does not stack up for a society that had just developed farming
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Apiary has been a long term allied trade with agriculture. The oldest managed hives we know of are from Egypt in 2500BC, but there is no reason to suspect that the practice is not older than that, as it would be very hard to find evidence of it, given that hives tend to be made of materials that decay very completely. Beer production is also very ancient, and also rots the teeth. While whiskey is supposed to only have come about in the 16th Century, the fact that the inhabitants of the Orkneys have a genetic immunity to the effects of poisonous amyl alcohols is telling of an older association imo.
 
Robbrent said:
Because honey would have been quite rare and hard to collect, and throughout history it has been valued as a foodstuff, in order to cause tooth decay at that scale they would have to be eating lots of it, in order for Neolithic people to have that much honey it would require almost industrial scale production it just does not stack up for a society that had just developed farming
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What exactly was the scale? You only said "some skulls" so I don't know exactly what we are talking about here. You probably don't need that much honey to rot the pigs teeth if they weren't getting their teeth brushed twice a day.
 
AlchoPwn said:
On the other hand, archaeologists get peer reviewed, to which Ancient Alien Theorists say a categorical "no".
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Well, how often is peer review more than a rubber stamp? From what I've observed it's sometimes detailed scrutiny, sometimes little more than checking for typographical errors before publishing. It all depends on who's doing the actual publishing. Not sure what degree archaeological stuff get reviewed.
 
marhawkman said:
Well, how often is peer review more than a rubber stamp? From what I've observed it's sometimes detailed scrutiny, sometimes little more than checking for typographical errors before publishing. It all depends on who's doing the actual publishing. Not sure what degree archaeological stuff get reviewed.
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The reports you hear about peer review being pulled up is due to the fact that it is taken quite seriously and when people get lazy, they get hauled over the coals. That should be the take-away lesson here. I am, personally, unremittingly vicious about bad peer review practices. Lazy peer review should be a sacking offence imo, tenure or no tenure. If I find out someone has cut corners on peer review I seek to get them sacked. Peer review is the foundation of academic excellence, and every discipline stands or falls on the quality of it. As such it needs to be held to the highest standard.
 
marhawkman said:
Well, how often is peer review more than a rubber stamp? From what I've observed it's sometimes detailed scrutiny, sometimes little more than checking for typographical errors before publishing. It all depends on who's doing the actual publishing. Not sure what degree archaeological stuff get reviewed.
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I don't recognise this at all. Disclosure: Academic Archaeologist, retired fully earlier this year. Which ought to mean that my views on this count for something. Or does this mean that I am a shill in the system and therefore inherently untrustworthy?

It's part of what one does as an academic. So it appears in the CPD and Review process under the Esteem heading - which is used to judge if you are performing your job. You mess it up? it's serious. It is also almost always an honour to be asked and also almost always a challenging and rewarding thing to do.

By rewarding I don't mean in the material sense. I very occasionally get a book token from a publishers but £20 doesn't go far when it's Elsevier for example. Actually, it's some years since that happened... could be a decade plus. Certainly not enough to encourage you to wreck your career to let something by you.

As @AlchoPwn says, it's a cornerstone and the reason you hear about when it goes wrong is that it is serious and worthy of publicity.

It all depends on the publishers? how? If a publisher inflates or fiddles the system it will become known. People won't offer their work to them and they will be on a downwards slope. Material published shoddily will not be counted to a Ref return for example.

There is no penalty for a tough review either. The author wants to publish something great. The publishers want something that will sell. The reviewer wants to keep their good name unsullied. Where in this process is the reward for "rubber stamping" as you put it? Cui bono? The author gets the anonymoised reports back and discusses with the editor, what needs done and how it can be achieved.

Spelling etc can be noted as you go through, it's hard not to do it :), but that is an Editorial process not a Review process.

@marhawkman You do seem to have a down on us academics - if you are able to say why it would be interesting to hear. Certainly your descriptions, assumptions and analyses are a long way from what actually happens.

TL:DR Take away:

* does my direct, current experience make me a reliable source of real data or an untrustworthy shill? :rollingw:
* Cui bono?
* if you have evidence of what you suggest then contact the relevant institutions
 
For general interest, this is the review process I'm in at the moment. Internet Archaeology.

This is from their Guidelines for Referees:

Internet Archaeology is interested in publishing high quality content that is accurate, original and rigorous. As a referee, you are essential to our existence as a quality journal of record. Without your valuable time and effort, archaeological reports and articles would not be adequately evaluated. We appreciate your help and always welcome suggestions for improvement of our peer-review process. We know that good refereeing is hard work and it is essential for us. Thank you for letting us impose on you!

Referee comments are required to be sent back to Internet Archaeology by email.

Authors have been assured of the privacy and security of their submitted work, so we ask that you do not refer to the work that the draft describes before it has been published. We hope that you will adopt a positive, impartial attitude towards the article you are assessing but if you feel you are unable to judge a submission impartially, please inform us stating why. Deadlines for referee reports are arranged individually with the editor.

Your Report

Please prepare a free text report on the article you have been asked to assess (should you wish to use them, some topics to consider are suggested in the list below). Your comments should be straightforward, constructive and in sufficient detail for the author to follow your line of reasoning, and where applicable, suggestions for improvement and revision should be included. If you are requesting revisions, please be as explicit as possible, and distinguish those you consider necessary from those you consider desirable but optional. If you deem it necessary, your report may be divided up into two sections: comments for transmission to the author and comments for the editor only. If you choose to do this, please mark your sections clearly. More specific detailed comments may be inserted using the Comment function in the document you are sent/given access to.

The draft you receive may not be in the journal housestyle, but you are not expected to correct basic language or grammatical errors. However, errors which a copy editor may not recognise e.g. misspellings of site names/species, incorrect or outmoded terminology, inappropriate jargon etc. should be pointed out.

It is not a requirement but feel free to use the following questions to help you structure your report
  • Comment on whether and how the article contributes to the field of archaeology
  • What are the key strengths?
  • Is the content appropriate in topic, quality and originality?
  • Is all relevant documentation supplied or are there any irrelevant sections? Are the visuals adequate/appropriate?
  • Are the basics covered? e.g. Is the title appropriate, does the abstract provide the correct emphasis? Are keywords supplied (or are there any that are missing)? Do the references reflect an appropriate level of familiarity with the subject area? Is the overall level of clarity acceptable (e.g. Some technical language and concepts are necessary but they can also be obscure, so please note if there are aspects to be clarified)?
  • Structure and organisation of the text e.g. is the discussion length and relevance appropriate. IA places no restrictions concerning article length, number of images/figures etc. but the overall length of an article should be commensurate with the content presented.
  • Clarity of objectives - is the research design/methodology/framework/theoretical position clearly described?
  • Overall adequacy of approach and execution
  • Does the article acknowledge the pertinent theories and current debate in the field in question?
  • Are the interpretations and conclusions sound and supported by the discussion
  • Minor criticsms aside, as a whole, is the article judged to be suitable for publication with/without minor revisions, or are major revisions required?
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Etc....

It also links to the ethical standards you are expected to maintain.
 
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