23rd October 2013, 12:05 PM
P Prentice Wrote:archaeology is not a science primarily because the intrepetation starts contentiously before you retrieve the data and certainly whilst you are retrieving it. the record is de facto intrepretation so lets stop pretending otherwise.
As it does in other sciences. For instance............
Chemistry when applying tests to identify compounds.
Forensic crime scene investigation
Fire investigation
Ecology/Biology e.g. species surveys, animal behavior studies
Climatology - for instance surveying for and coring mossbanks in the arctic circle
etc etc ad nauseum.
Really I don't know where this idea that 'science' involves no interpretation or cold hard facts comes from?
And to Dino........yeah, so what. The methodology changes with respect to the available data, don't see a problem with that one, as long as their is evidence and the change in methodology is stated and taken into account with respect to distribution plots/ stats etc.