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Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - Jack - 30th January 2012
P Prentice Wrote:you seem to be confused about what constitutes evidence and what is scientific reasoning jack
surely reasoning includes perspective, modelling, theorising and conjecture
fixating on reactionary doctrine alone is unlikely to advance the state of anyones knowledge
Nah. I meant both.
And yes you are correct, reasoning does include all of those things.
But 'not going beyond the evidence' is neither fixating on reactionary doctrine or limiting in anyway........in fact its far more liberating. Often the actual minutia of the evidence is what disproves a sloppily constructed theory.
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - Jack - 30th January 2012
kevin wooldridge Wrote:They maybe don't explicitly use the P-word, but I would suggest that all of the following are pretty mainstream and phenomenonological in nature:
The English Heritage document: Heritage Counts - A Sense of Place,
The PPS5 document references to planners to consider not just monuments or sites but the setting and public perception of local heritage,
Most historical re-enactment groups,
Most experiential archaeology projects,
Museums and heritage 'attractions such as the Yorvik Viking Centre where visitors are encouraged to 'see, hear and smell' the past,
Any archaeological reference to a 'ritual' landscape,
Most digital reconstructions or computer 'visualisations' based on heritage subjects,
etc etc etc
Just beacuse its 'mainstream' or written down does not make it true.
But yes I was querying if 'phenomenology in archaeology has been 'accepted as legitimate' by anyone except the loons'
However, I'd argue that anyone would thinks that the way phenomenology is used by archaeologists is a legitimate way of data retrieval is a loon.
But I could be wrong, I often am, but remain unconvinced.
The evidence against such wooly thinking mounts up everyday..........
Is it just another idea/theory/technique from another subject that archaeologists have mis-understood and misused?
Just like maths was misunderstood and misused by the processualists? I mean thiessen polygons to predict settlement patterns........or punctuated equilibrium applied to the three age system......please!
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - quintaine - 30th January 2012
My dissertation was about how archaeologists appear in the visual media. It is interesting to wonder why archaeologists feel so threatened by so-called pseudo archaeologists and it is also a great irony that most pseudo archaeologists- the ones in the media anyway, make a good deal more money than the mainstream ones. I have two degrees in archaeology but I would not consider myself any more of an archaeologist than any other person on the street simply by attending university. If any person wishes to bring anything to an ongoing archaeological argument then they should be free to do so, unfettered by the crusty tut-tuts of university bound profs unwilling to move with the times.
I used to have a great deal more respect for so-called mainstream archaeologists until I met them and found that, when they are not disemboweling each other in journals, they are to be found ripping the opinions of "lesser mortals" to bits simply because their objects of ridicule did not reference them in any publication. Take for example the work of Roger Stalley. He layed into American Professor Philip Callahan for daring to stray outside his field and suggest that the base of Irish Round Towers were used to heal people. Even though some of the ideas may have been a little out there, surely everyone is entitled to an opinion. In four years of university courses I have seen nothing to suggest that an archaeologist's assessment is any more reliable than that of any other person.
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - P Prentice - 31st January 2012
two degrees you say? - where from pray tell? four years of university courses - but did you go to any?
there is a world of difference between fanciful speculation and considered archaeological discourse expressed in a peer reviewed publication (i expressly exclude inteligent designers in this classification)
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - BAJR - 31st January 2012
This is where I agree with PP there is a world of difference. and although I also agree that feuding professors clinging tenaciously to their theory, at least (one hopes) the basis of the theory was founded in some sort of data collected in a semblance of order.
This is opposed to the wild statement...
ie... Bronze Age Phonecians went to America to collect copper.....
Do you have evidence for this? No, but I will find it.
Sorry... go away, come back and try again once you have something better than a dream guide told you or you have some belief in Michigan Tablets
We can only invest so much time and energy, and as with cranks (I know only too well) this is never-ending, as they never, ever ,back down - no matter how great the weight of evidence. (like a desperate academic as well I grant you)
So to the crank and the left-fielder. I salute your efforts, but do please try and collect evidence first before bothering the rest of the world - hard factual, tested evidence in a hard factual and verifiable way:
and no, that egg shaped cobble is not good enough - it is not a dragon egg, neither is that poor forgery of some ancient script nor that mistranslation of a Sumerian tablet that mention Merica (no seriously! America) Yes I am fully aware that although you may want to believe there are 14 crystal skulls placed around the world - I know it is a film. No there was no hyper civilisation 10,500 years ago, (think about it) and for the love of all that is holy, the Templars were not keepers of a great secret that only you (Mr T. Pindlewink of 43 Tinkywink Avenue, Nilsden ) have been given the location of the answer. Just by saying the words just imagine or just suppose, does not give a person a right to this. People can have their own opinions, that is fine. But if you want to - then be prepared to be torn apart by academic rigour (that goes for us all) and come out bloody battered and better for it.
:face-approve:
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - Unitof1 - 31st January 2012
talking of eggs
http://ukpmc.ac.uk/articles/PMC1965514//reload=0;jsessionid=JABkpB0NWIyZPTJj59iG.8
thing is was it the chickhen who helped the polynesians or the polynesians who helped the chikhens reach the south americans before christopher
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - quintaine - 31st January 2012
P Prentice Wrote:two degrees you say? - where from pray tell? four years of university courses - but did you go to any?Unfortunately I attended all of them in both NUIG and The University of York, yes four years of courses, three field projects and two dissertations.
P Prentice Wrote:there is a world of difference between fanciful speculation and considered archaeological discourse expressed in a peer reviewed publication (i expressly exclude inteligent designers in this classification)That's only because "archaeological discourse expressed in peer reviewed publication" means more to you, but you cannot speak for everyone. I have often seen unpopular ideas deliberately surpressed at source simply because they didn't borrow from previous "accepted ideas" and conversely I have seen some utterly ridiculous theories accepted just because they came from mainstream archaeologists. Take for example Eric Deetz's assertion that just because there was more than one pot used in meal preparation it made the homestead more civilised. Now that's what I would call subjective nonsense.
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - quintaine - 31st January 2012
BAJR Wrote:ie... Bronze Age Phonecians went to America to collect copper.....
Do you have evidence for this? No, but I will find it.
Sorry... go away, come back and try again once you have something better than a dream guide told you or you have some belief in Michigan Tablets
You see this is the type of knee-jerk sarcastic put-down which often is used as a reply to so-called "cranks". 100% of theories hammered out in the battlefield of journals today have their origin in "beliefs", unless one is a nihilist. As a group I found archaeologists to be unbelievably narrow minded. We, because I am one, are created in an institution, that fosters the behaviour that, even if one does not have a viable hypothesis regarding the, say, migratory patterns of ancient cultures, it is perfectly acceptible to lower, debase and ridicule the opinions of others, others who through no fault of their own may not have had the wealth to attend an institution of "learning" but who might want to be a part of the current debate. In archaeologists' eyes these cranks are always hippies, free thinkers, radicals, lefties and gullible. No wonder archaeologists often seen as right wing, militaristic anal retentive and elitist. No kidding this was just some of the answers I received in a survey of 100 Irish, British and American archaeology students studying in Ireland in 2008. Academic discourse should consist of reasoned argument reasonably put and not the verbal equivalent of wet towel slappings! And as for being "torn apart by academic rigour" you were bitten by a hippy as a child weren't you?
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - BAJR - 31st January 2012
Quote:Take for example Eric Deetz's assertion that just because there was more than one pot used in meal preparation it made the homestead more civilised. Now that's what I would call subjective nonsense.I like that one
but to be fair it is based on evidence - or should we say interpretation of evidence... rather than making an assertion and then hunting proofand don't worry about PP... they get grouchy
:face-approve:I have just had too much pseudo recently and am quite irked by being asked to listen to any more unsupported drivel. same goes for theoretical mental onanisim
Quote:Academic discourse should consist of reasoned argument reasonably put and not the verbal equivalent of wet towel slappings!
Discourse yes, but if you are asked to find Camelot for example, because a psychic knows were it is... then how much time do you spend doing that?
I was bitten by a need for evidence first. theory second.
Can you name any pseudo theory which was proved to be true. that would be a start.
Archaeologist Johan Normark fights back against cranks - quintaine - 31st January 2012
BAJR Wrote:Can you name any pseudo theory which was proved to be true. that would be a start.But that is the difference, if you prove a so-called 'pseudo' theory true it dies, loses its value and mystique and is no more.
It is much better to have a theory dangling with the the possibility of many sexy answers. Television loves you, sets up an archaeologist PhD to rebuff you, your name becomes synonymous with your area of study practically overnight and you can name your price when it comes to publications... and of course buy an ivory back scratcher for every day in the week and two for Sunday like that other Erich ( von Daeniken).
From my perspective they are just two different ways of dealing with the same matter, however they are not all that different as they first appear, for instance...
can you name any archaeological theory which was proved to be true?