Subtitle

The Not Quite Adventures of a Professional Archaeologist and Aspiring Curmudgeon

Friday, May 1, 2009

Some things you might find interesting...

A couple of links that may be of interest.

A few years back, the BBC broadcast a documentary on the history of people questioning religion. Whether you are a believer or not, it does a good deal to explain the historical and social settings in qhich people questioned the existence of a spiritual component to the universe. The Documentary, titled A Rough History of Disbelief is available on Google video. Click the link to see it. Unfortunately, those who might most benefit from actually comprehending what non-believers think (such as one individual who used to post comments here claiming all sorts of non-existent moral failings on the part of non-believers) are the ones least likely to actually bother watching. So it goes.

On a related note, Greta Christina has a post up that well articulates what I have often seen as the problemw ith claiming to be "spiritual but not religious." It's a good read, check it out.

On the subject of archaeology, the Mythbusters have a two articles up on their site discussing myths and public misconceptions about archaeology. They're both informative and fun to read. Check them out, if you have the opportunity. My favorite quote from them is one in which they actually discuss my own industry:

Actually, there are far more qualified archaeologists than there are academic positions. In the 1970s and 1980s, archaeology students were advised to go to grad school so they'd be ready to replace their profs as said profs retired. This turned out to be one of the biggest archaeology myths ever.

Why? Because many academic departments just phased out those positions instead of restaffing them. Fortunately, legislation enacted in the mid 1970s to protect cultural resources on federal property provided thousands of new jobs for field archaeologists, in both private industry and the government.

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