The citizen scientist efforts are the best that internet has to offer , crowdsource scientific work by breaking it down into basics that can be quickly learned by the interested lay person and yet keep it interesting enough to get repeat engagement. I participated in this program and it was fun, though i enjoyed other such programs more like galaxy identification on Galaxy Zoo.
Not really. There's a whole lot of ancient alien conspiracies out there that openly state that.
And of course there's the point that the only artifacts that are "out of place" and "too advanced" are those produced by non-white cultures. The bias is pretty clear, though I suspect a lot of it is not conscious racism.
Actually, this is the first time I ever hear this argument being made, which makes it sound a bit like a straw man argument to me. But I won't pretend to be an expert in ancient alien theories.
Do you know of any examples of artefacts produced by "white" cultures that could be considered "out of place" or "too advanced" but are generally not, indicating any such bias?
It also seems a bit tricky to apply modern US-centric supposed racial categories (white/non-white, for whatever vague definition of white) to millennia old Mediterranean civilisations. How could we even really know for sure what the racial makeup of ancient Egypt precisely was and how it would relate to any modern notions?
I'd expect a professional archeologist to have more nuanced scientific mindset about things like that instead of just crying racist pseudoscience to whatever she disagrees with.
You're misunderstanding the context. They're not talking about an actual theory, they're saying that "aliens built the pyramids" is a popular pseudoscientific belief by people today as a result of underlying racist beliefs/perceptions. No one's talking about racial categories in ancient Egypt.
There are very common patterns, which are virtually always present in pseudo archaeological theories, which give credence to the conclusions made in the article.
> Do you know of any examples of artefacts produced by "white" cultures that could be considered "out of place" or "too advanced" but are generally not, indicating any such bias?
The point you’re missing here is that comparison on a scale of ‘level of advancement’ is entirely misleading. The things that have traditionally been used to discern ‘advancement’ (ie permanent monumental architecture, steep social and political hierarchy, market-oriented models of goods distribution, etc) are all features of European ways of life at the time of the archaeology’s anthropology’s origins. These disciplines originally served to structure a view of the world that put Europeans at the pinnacle of human potential, and indigenous people more towards the base, not yet having caught up to the Europeans. The common racist associations of indigenous people from colonial outposts with cavemen demonstrates how archaeological evidence has been selectively slotted into racist ideologies, and vice versa. It allowed a rigged scale to be made that justified, and continues to justify, colonial pursuits (unless they are called out and countered).
It is fairly simple to define advancement in an objective manner. The 'level of advancement' of a tech depends on number previously invented techs that enable it to work. The highest of high-tech, the integrated circuit, sits at the top of a huge pyramid of enabling technologies that make it possible.
As an example, a terra cotta pot has low advancement, since it requires perhaps a half dozen enabling technologies to make it work.
A non-stick aluminum fry pan is high advancement, requiring hundreds of previous inventions for it to be possible.
This is known as the “grand narrative” approach to history, which is notorious for selectively accounting for certain examples that fit a preconceived conceptual framework, such as the one I described in my previous post, while dismissing dead ends and examples that run counter to the framework. Because you’re looking for a series of preceding things that lead to the frying pan, you will find them. And if you’re not looking for the series of decisions and experiences that go into making a stone biface, such as knowing what raw materials to use, where they are located, how to collect it, what properties the materials have, the experience of fucking up enough times and persisting despite cutting your hands up with a hammer stone countless times, etc, you will ignore them and dismiss the biface as a “simple” tool.
Alternatively, consider a more pragmatic perspective. From where I stand as an archaeologist, technology is only as good as the experience and know-how of the people who use it and it’s suitability in relation to particular goals. I dare you to try and open a can of beans using your laptop. From a pragmatic perspective, advancement doesn’t exist, just the relations between the actor, the tool, the goal and the prior knowledge and experience that animates the activity.
I will admit that flint knapping does take a bit of practice, but to equate the tech level of a stone tool, no matter how finely made, with an integrated circuit is just silly. A troop of boy scouts can learn to generate a usable stone cutting edge from natural materials in an afternoon. Try making a CMOS nor gate from natural materials in an afternoon, you won't get very far.
You’re missing the point. “Tech levels” are completely meaningless.
And by the way, it takes way longer than an afternoon to learn how to make a useable stone tool. You are clearly very misinformed about that, which reinforces my argument regarding selective ignorance’s role in grand narratives thinking.
>> I'd expect a professional archeologist to have more nuanced scientific mindset about things like that instead of just crying racist pseudoscience to whatever she disagrees with.
She is an expert calling bullshit on non-experts who think they know what they’re talking about. She disagrees with pseudoscience because pseudoscience is wrong. How is that scientifically unprofessional? It seems that having a “more nuanced scientific mindset” translates to accepting wrong ideas as right just because you’re mad.
She _labels_ whatever she disagrees with as racist pseudoscience, there's no argument made why those labels would apply. I'd prefer to hear arguments and a meaningful debate, I wouldn't want anyone to blindly accept wrong ideas.
>> It also seems a bit tricky to apply modern US-centric supposed racial categories (white/non-white, for whatever vague definition of white) to millennia old Mediterranean civilisations. How could we even really know for sure what the racial makeup of ancient Egypt precisely was and how it would relate to any modern notions?
It’s almost as though racial differences are socially constructed based on arbitrary criteria derived from outward-facing physical appearances and the foisting of tropes and stereotypes upon those socially constructed categories, thus perpetuating the false notion that those categories are natural in origin.
