SEDUCTIONS OF PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY

[pynchonoid]

<http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0305/etc/web>

SEDUCTIONS OF PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY:
PSEUDOSCIENCE IN CYBERSPACE

[...] 
While there are websites dedicated to refuting
specific pseudoarchaeological topics, such as ancient
space travel or evidence for creationism, Ma'at
attempts to be a clearinghouse for all topics. The
message board gets up to three hundred posts a day,
with ancient Egypt the most popular subject, followed
by Precolumbian America. In its first year of
operation, thousands of people visited Ma'at, and the
website recently moved to a larger server to
accommodate increasing bandwidth demands. As the
popularity of Ma'at demonstrates, the hunger for
reliable archaeological information and reasoned
historical discussion is out there. How to explain,
then, the pervasiveness of pseudoarchaeology on the
web? According to the people at Ma'at, professional
archaeologists and historians need to get more
involved.

   Heinrich became an active pseudoarchaeology
debunker after watching the 1996 television program
The Mysterious Origins of Man. "As a geologist, I
found the inability of the producers to distinguish
between natural concretions and man-made objects,
their naive acceptance of theories such as Earth
Crustal Displacement, which was refuted by geologists
long ago, and numerous other flaws in the program to
be so obvious that, given the show's popularity, I
felt someone needed to take the time to point them
out." Since then, Heinrich has shared his expertise
with the Ma'at community and addressed more specific
issues of geology and pseudoscience on his own
website, The Wild Side of Pseudoarchaeology Page.

   Heinrich wishes more archaeologists would follow
his example. "Archaeologists obviously need to take
the time to respond, in a polite and understandable
fashion, to the more popular and persistent web pages
and other media promoting alternative histories.
Instead of just dismissing them offhand, such
responses need to explain the specific logical and
factual flaws in the arguments made by many
alternative 'historians' and 'archaeologists.'
Moreover, they have to make sure the public not only
better understand what archaeology is and how it is
done, but also the significance of such research to
their own lives."

   The Internet is often heralded as the great
democratizer, providing a relatively inexpensive
medium for the seamless exchange of ideas and
information around the globe. Challenging the
scientific "establishment," a favored role for
pseudoarchaeologists, now requires little more than a
theory and an Internet connection. Still, the people
supporting In the Hall of Ma'at are optimistic that
this frontierless new cyber world will finally provide
the opportunity for scientific reason to triumph over
pseudoscientific speculation. "I still have my copy of
Chariots of the Gods," adds Holleman, "which I keep as
a reminder that sometimes even fifty cents is too much
money for a book."
[...] 

The pseudoarchaeological top five:

www.answersingenesis.org
A pro-creationist website that seeks to prove, among
other things, the presence of dinosaurs in the Bible
and the fallacy of carbon-14 dating. 

www.eridu.co.uk
"Independent researcher" Alan Alford pushes the idea
that ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Mesopotamian
religions were "exploded planet cults" and have
something to teach us regarding "eternal life in the
other world." 

www.flem-ath.com
Official website for Canadian couple Rand and Rose
Flem-Ath, authors of When the Sky Fell: In Search of
Atlantis and The Atlantis Blueprint. 

www.sitchin.com
According to ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia
Sitchin, the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah derives from a
nuclear attack in 2024 B.C. that wiped out "a
spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula." 

www.grahamhancock.com
Preeminent pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock often
makes personal appearances on the site's message
boards and offers up exclusive articles to further his
theories. 

And some of the websites that refute them: 

www.talkorigins.org
Along with FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) regarding
the veracity of biological and physical evolution,
this site offers FRAs (Frequently Rebutted Assertions)
that often surface in creationist arguments. 

www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/
A Brown University biology professor's fight against
the "intelligent design" arguments of creationism. 

www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/wildside.shtml
Paul Heinrich's case against "alternative geology,"
including the impossibility of pole shifts and the
artifact "from an advanced ancient race" that happens
to be a spark plug. 

www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
An excellent collection of links to sites that dispute
pseudoarchaeological theories. 

www.antiquityofman.com
Ma'atian Michael Brass keeps the public up to date
with the latest research in paleoanthropology and
hominid evolution.




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com