What is the point of Archaeology

[Dinosaur]

String Theory's only made a comeback as a cheap-and-cheerful way to explain the faster-than-light thingy, am sure it'll recede back into obscurity soon enough

[Jack]

'Although archaeology uses these same methods, there is obviously no corresponding existent (historical) "reality" against which models could be tested. '

I diasgree.
Archaeology can be measured against 'reality' as much as any other science can be.

There is plenty of stuff in other sciences that mirrors this, for instance where a particle, force or astronomical body cannot be directly measured or observed, but is done so through its effect son other things.

Look at electricity.....we think of it as a flow of electrons from one terminal in a circuit to another? This is not the case, its just an analogy. Even the 'reality' of electron probability clouds moving charge from atom to atom migrating 'holes' in the direction of the 'electricity' is still an analogy. The effects can still be modeled, measured and used. The reality still eludes us. How can it be any other way as to observe the system at work changes it.

In archaeology the 'reality' to test the models against is the same as in any other science......its called evidence.

Weight of evidence has 'proved' the theory of evolution as much as anything can be proved.....what is the 'reality' that this can be measured against other than observed evidence? Darwin didn't go back in time and watch apes evolving into hominids. He used evidence to construct a theory, which was tested....although I contest that eventually someone observed survival of the fittest at work in the case of the peppered moth.

scientific fact - an observation that has been confirmed repeatedly and is accepted as true (although its truth is never final).

Like for example comparing a 'pit' apparently dug in antiquity to tree-throws, natural fissures etc. Using experimental evidence, other excavated examples, the artefactual contents, the nature of the fills to scientifically 'prove' that someone dug the feature and it wasn't naturally formed.

That theory can then be tested and re-tested by others looking at the primary record, or even the original feature.

As in, say quantum physics, each 'measurement' has its own inherent errors that must be considered in reaching the most likely explanation.

It boggles my mind sometimes how archaeologists think they are not performing a science somehow. I blame their science teachers. Or maybe science is so embedded into our mind s that we don't notice it at work?

[Jack]

String Theory's only made a comeback as a cheap-and-cheerful way to explain the faster-than-light thingy, am sure it'll recede back into obscurity soon enough

Unless someone uses the folded dimensions to make a 'travel faster than light machine'

[RedEarth]

Jack - you've now managed to convince me that science doesn't exist.

[Jack]

Jack - you've now managed to convince me that science doesn't exist.

Nearly true, Science, as proposed by the media; a field that provides the Truth about the universe, doesn't exist.

But science, a multitude of fields asking questions of the universe and considering the evidence to postulate probable answers does.

The proof the latter exists is all the wonderful toys they have produced.........like this computer I am typing words in to.

[Dinosaur]

...unless you are dreaming it.... :face-thinks:

[Wax]

...unless you are dreaming it.... :face-thinks:

Welcome to the Matrix}

[CARTOON REALITY]

Welcome to the Matrix

I think I prefer a Philip K.Dick novel. More literary doncha kno.

[Jack]

...unless you are dreaming it.... :face-thinks:

Yeah i often wonder if i was dead, living out the last few seconds before brain death in a fantasy world of my own making, how could i tell?

[Dinosaur]

Take your headphones off? }