mididoctors Wrote:PANDORAS BOX

do you really want to go there?

the current procedures in place in commercial archaeology (whatever the original intent was) are now a function of middle management decision making too such an extent that commercial archaeology is now optimized around the day to day problems faced by middle management! All the decision making concerning how the record is extracted is function of these middle management issues rather than recovering relevent data that can help get "the right answer" this extends into every area EG site specific reserch agendas which have become an exercise in absurd confirmation bias rather than probing the limits of Knowledge and understanding... which in turn should be instructing us as field archaeologists to modify our techniques to collect data in meaningful ways thus revealing "the truth" or "a truth"

evaluations appear at first glance to be a very sensible idea but have in practice become a way to preempt inquiry so that they are subservient to middle management problems IE archaeological practice has evolved to solve middle management issues rather than solve the riddles of the past.

evaluations are probably unavoidable for practical reasons that are too obvious and boring to mention

The current problems with commercial archaeology can be best described as a profession that has become optimized around middle management cack

interestingly this is occurring in other professions and disciplines. Some will argue our role is not to solve specific research goals but just collect data but this assumes we are collecting data in a manner our descendants (or academic contemporaries) will find useful ... ie we have reached the ultimate methodology. That assumption is so stupid I can't be bothered to labour the point. What you need is a system that feed-backs modifications from the analysis interpretation end to the field end in the most productive and expedient way possible. What we have now falls short of that by a few parsecs. We are currently moving in the opposite direction and the misuse of evaluations is part of that.

if you want to keep archaeology in the commercial sector you need to engineer evaluations so they are able to function in the role of middle management quantification assessment but not form part of a mitigation strategy to ease middle management functioning.. a default human behaviour that is not always the primary goal.

I don't know ..something like

evaluations should be paid for by a consortium of potential tendering archaeological units for cost estimation... all sites are dug 100%

THE END

identifying where the problems are and why isn't difficult... trying to undermine the entrenched thinking is a ffffing nightmare

not least because the IFA itself operates as a middle management facilitator and has one of its major clauses acting as a block on any change whatsoever

its position of authority on the need to avoid bringing the profession of archaeology into disrepute is a tremendous own goal

RedEarth Wrote:So many things going on there I'm not sure where to start, but I certainly don't understand your proposal of 'evaluations should be paid for by a consortium of potential tendering archaeological units for cost estimation... all sites are dug 100%'. I'm not sure what you've got against evaluations, I would say they are one of the more interesting and useful methods of making new discoveries.

Far too much use of the term middle management (what does that even mean, do you know?) and your notion of 'a system that feed-backs modifications from the analysis interpretation end to the field end in the most productive and expedient way possible' is potentially even more flawed than the alternative you are criticising as it too will always be seen as the 'ultimate methodology' while constantly shifting. The most current methodology is always going to be perceived as the best one.

Clearly you missed the session from our guest lecturer Professor Jones 'Archaeology is the search for facts, not truth'.

Enough about all that talk about drugs, it had got very boring, a bit like drugs, ironically enough.

Geli Wrote:Well thanks to some steering away from the original subject this thread now seems to have come to an end. It has been quite interesting to see the various opinions regarding random testing. For my part I have never seen the issue as whether or not anyone does or doesn't do drugs but rather one of further invasion into peoples private lives. All this done for a bit of health and safety window dressing. Since about 2003 (I think) when members of the board of Directors of Macalpine were on trial in the states on Corporate manslaughter charges (under a class action taken against them by families who have lost relatives in the workplace), there has been a growing paranoia in the construction industry. Many of the resulting new introductions in H&S practice can definitely be seen as a good thing. However, the real safety issues in this instance are not being addressed by random testing. Indeed it is expressive of the bad side of the H&S paranoia, where things are just seen to be done rather than real changes made to working practices. Busting a few stoners may seem to give results and indeed probably some nice statistics, but not I feel make the workplace any safer. Nuff said.

GnomeKing Wrote:have you actually read any of this thread 'doodle'?