Trying to Do Something New With It?

It seems that, whenever I encounter someone who is an advocate of some form of pseudo-archaeology, after I have exhaustively pointed out the flaws, inconsistencies, and made-up-shit that goes into their pet hypothesis, I am told something along the lines of "well, at least I (or the person who they are quoting) am trying to do something different with this information!  THAT has value!"

If you are genuinely trying to do something new and innovative with old information, and trying to do it in such a way that you are not engaging in fabricating information, using special pleading to make your case, or in some other way being a dishonest bastard, then yes, trying to do something new has value.

The people who use this as the last-line defense for their pet hypothesis, though?  Well, A) they are almost always just trying to maintain an older, stupid idea ("ancient astronauts," Biblical literalism, etc.) and aren't actually trying anything new, and B) they are pretty much always conflating "trying something new" with playing fast-and-loose with evidence and ignoring anything even vaguely approaching logic or honesty.

If you think I'm being overly harsh, then let's consider the fact that this explanation is pretty much only used in pseudo-science, and is not present in any other realm where people try to arrive at some sort of coherent explanation of events.

For example, in criminal investigations, you would rightfully dismiss someone as a nut if they insisted that a theft was committed by aliens, and then proceeded to "prove" this by making references to out-of-context information from unrelated crimes, pulling bits and pieces of conspiracy beliefs from pop culture, making up "facts", and ignoring relevant information from the actual crime scene.  They would certainly be "doing something new" with the information...but that something new would not only not get you anywhere closer to solving the crime, it would, in fact, move you farther and farther away from the real solution.  A person doing this would be immediately drummed out of the investigation and replaced with someone who was, you know, actually mentally competent.

And yet this same basic procedure - pulling out-of-context information from unrelated sites, pulling "facts" out of pop culture rather than data, making false claims about relevant sites, and often just making shit up - is the norm in pseudo-archaeology, and even people who are not directly involved in it often defend these practices by claiming that the pseudo-scholar is "trying to do something new" with the information.

Often, perhaps typically, implied under all of this is the notion that real archaeologists (or, as the pseudo-archaeologists often label us "establishment archaeologists - booo, hisssss, bad establishment!") aren't trying to find anything new.  Sometimes it is flat out stated - there are many claims from the pseudo scholars that actual scholars are just trying to maintain some sort of "status quo", which reveals the true depth of the ignorance of the pseudo scholars - but at least as often it's just sort of implied, clearly there as an accusation, but covered up enough that the accuser can deny it if called on it.

The truth, however, is that we are working far harder than any of these twits.  We are routinely trying to test and verify our methods and our results (see here for a summarized history of how archaeology has changed, or read this for a more thorough discussion).  I have opened myself up to criticism by my professional colleagues for presenting papers that were not in-line with established models of past cultures, I have also found and publicized artifacts that are out-of-keeping with established cultural chronologies, and I have long supported archaeologists who work on the frontiers of what we think we know (for example, those working on pre-Clovis archaeology in North America).  And I am not alone, some solitary warrior fighting against the "establishment" - every archaeologist that I know who presents papers or publishes their findings does similar things.  Trying to "do something new" is what archaeologists do.

Now, it could be said that we should be better at communicating this to the general public.  That is a valid criticism, and certainly one that I, and others try to address by keeping blogs, giving public lectures, appearing on podcasts, and so on.  Some of us are lucky enough to be able to participate in radio and television, which is where most people get their information.

However, while we might do a better job of communicating our work and our findings, that in no way absolves the pseudo-archaeologists who distort, lie, and obfuscate.  And, if you are someone who is going to  claim that real archaeologists aren't "doing something new" then I offer you a challenge:  When is the last time that you read an issue of National Geographic?  Smithsonian Magazine?  Or looked at professional journals such as American Antiquity?  If you haven't done so lately, then you don't know what archaeologists are up to, and you sound as ignorant as you truly are when you imply that we aren't doing anything, or are simply supporting the "status quo."

So, It's Been a While...

So, it has, indeed, been a while since last I posted an entry on this blog.  The reasons for this are simple - work and family obligations coupled with trying to complete an archaeological research project outside of work have kept me very, very busy.  And after a while, I didn't feel like posting routine posts that simply said that I would be getting back to writing soon when, as it turned out, I have not been able to.

That being said, I do enjoy writing this blog, and there are several topics that I'd like to cover, so I do intend to continuing writing...it just may be a while before I am able to get back to doing it on a regular basis.

In the meantime, I will mention that it looks like the PI on the research project with which I have been involved is getting ready to publish our results, so I will likely have another publication under my belt, soon.  I'll post here when that happens.

I would, in the meantime, like to point all y'all towards the CRM archaeology podcast Random Acts of Science.  Serr Head, of Archy Fantasies, is a panelist on the most recent episode, so it ought to be worth a listen.

Although we make up the vast majority of archaeologist, CRM archaeology is not well-represented in the media, so I support any effort to further our cause.

Archaic Undies

So, it appears that archaeologists working in Austria have uncovered several 600-year old bras.

[This space left for those who are going to crack jokes about either pervert archaeologists or rank 600-year-old laundry]

The objects look like they could have come from the sock and underwear aisle at the local CVS, and aren't exactly consistent with what most of us think that Medeival women would have been wearing.  On the other hand, you can now tell your local SCA maven that your Hanes are historically accurate, thank you very much, and she should stop yammering on about how your underclothes fail to convey the proper historical era.

Now, if you were to compare this find with information from the era concerning other aspects of clothing, you might be able to make some arguments or draw some conclusions about how these undergarments reflect on attitudes regarding the body, bodily functions, and sex.  Depending on what other information is available, that may or may not be a fruitful line of investigation.

That, or it's a reason to crack a joke about archaeologists being late to the panty raid. 

However, what I find interesting is one of the narrative lines moving through the stories on this.  And it's not the content of the narrative line that's interesting, it's the form.

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, several of the articles I have seen on this quote a scholar who states that it had long been thought that the bra developed from the corset, and that the discovery of this corset may indicate that the corset actually originally developed from the bra.

So, what is interesting about this to me is that this pretty closely parallels other lines of discussion or explanation regarding the development of artifacts.

While radiocarbon dating, obsidian hydration, dendrochronology, and other forms of determining the age of a site are extraordinarily useful, they only work when there's materials in the site that are amenable to the method being used.  And so we require the use of time-diagnostic artifacts - artifacts that are routinely found in sites dating to particular periods of history or pre-history, which can therefore tell us the age of a site, at least approximately, even when datable materials are not present.  However, when an artifact is found to change, and then change back to it's previous form, that can throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works. And so, bras apparently are an artifact type that can join a few specific others in bouncing between two different forms, making their time diagnostic properties somewhat more limited (though, given that they are made of cloth, the odds of these types of garments ever preserving to be good diagnostic artifacts is actually quite small), and while the applicability of this is probably rather limited, it's a good illustration of a basic principle.

The other way in which this is interesting is that it illustrates the challenges of attempting social interpretation based on types of artifacts, rather than common collection types.  Contemporary women's undergarments are usually explained through a combination of practicality and negotiation of personal freedoms and sexuality.  The corset of the Victorian age and early was typically viewed as both a tool and a symbol of woman's limited and subjugated role in society, while the bra was seen as a symbol of women choosing comfort over social pressure/convention, and the development of women's lingerie in general is seen as a sign of women controlling both their clothing and their own sexual behavior (though counter-arguments to the contrary have also been made).

So, to find essentially identical items 500 years earlier than the modern version appears, associated with a time and place with very, very different social norms and mores, it immediately begs the question: are we looking at similar negotiations and attitudes?  Are we looking at different ones that had a similar material manifestation?  Are we, perhaps, reading too much into the material culture of the people we study, and assuming that it tells us more than it does?

And if this is true for bras, is it perhaps also true of other artifacts to which we attribute great importance?  Do we read too much into the use of shell beads?  Are we properly considering the factors that lead to the development of milling implements?

It's essentially a "slow news day wacky story" that, if you stop and think about it, makes you ponder how we examine material culture.

Ancient Aliens - the Test!

The History Channel needs its ass kicked

So, you may have heard of the show Ancient Aliens.  It is on the History Channel and is basically the latest iteration of the old bullshit that alleges that the various ancient achievements of humanity couldn't have possibly been accomplished by, well, humans, and therefore it must have been aliens!

You can probably guess my reaction to this proposition.

However, like so much of the rot that's on allegedly educational television, I just sort of ignored it.

Until about a year ago.

I don't know what the hell happened, but around December 2010/January 2011, a frighteningly large number of the people that I know and encounter began to watch this damn show.  Not just watch it, but began to take it at least slightly seriously, as evidenced by the fact that I now have to routinely explain to people why producer/on-screen personality Giorgio Tsoukalos is, perhaps, not the best source for information regarding Earth's past.

On a fairly regular basis, both family members and friends contact me, by phone, or email, or just walk up and start talking to me, wanting to know about the claim that the ancient King Hamburgular of southern Podunkistan was actually a reptoid alien based on the artistic representations of him as a snake found on friezes in his palace.  I then have to explain that the friezes in question actually show King Hamburgalar's zoo, and the reason why the images look like snakes is because they are, rather clearly, images of snakes.  If the person is at my home or visiting my office, I then pull out a book on southern Podunkistan archaeology in order to prove my point.  The person with whom I am speaking will then assert that they never really believed it, but thought it was a fun idea, and wanted to ask.  But, of course, they began the conversation insinuating that they find the claim plausible, even if they didn't completely buy it.

A week later, someone, often the same person (there's a rotating cast of around seven of them) will come to me with the latest lame-brained claim from Giorgio Tsoukalos and the Ancient Aliens swarm.  And the process repeats.



             Giorgio Tsoukalos.  Gaze into the hair of madness!


I can not, for the life of me, figure out why otherwise intelligent people think that this guy has any credibility.  Leaving aside the fact that he has a surname that sounds like a Yiddish slang word for one's posterior, and that he looks like he failed to learn Don King's hair gel secrets, there's the fact that Mr. Tsoukalos never met a specious claim or false "fact" that he didn't like.  This guy has been a fixture on pseudo-science and pseudo-history shows on Discovery and the History Channel for years, and he's never made a damn lick of sense.  He always goes for whatever outrageous claim is made, no matter how clearly stupid it is, and will insist that "anyone who is open-minded" has to accept his claims, while managing to show himself to be so closed-minded that he is ready to ignore the mountains of evidence showing himself to be full of bovine feces.  On my list of trustworthy people, Tsoukalis ranks just above Biblical creationists and just below used car salesmen in plaid jackets. 

Nonetheless, I have enough interactions with people who don't know how to identify someone who's pre-frontal cortex is clearly being devoured by his own hair that I have developed something of a formula for talking to people about this show.  In fact, I think that I can convert that formula into a simple questionnaire, available for anyone to use:


1.  Is the culture depicted as influenced by aliens non-European?* 

2.  At what point in the episode did someone insist that "establishment" archaeologists are "hiding the truth" or "too cowardly to face the evidence?"  How many times was this assertion repeated after the initial statement? 

3.  Did the person making the statement also make statements indicating their ignorance of the fact that an "establishment" archaeologist can get more grant money and positive attention actually for proving a radical theory than by trying to crush it?

3.  Are the aliens said to be humanoid or reptilian?  Are they extremely tall, or quite squat? 

4.  What best describes the shape of the alien spaceship: A) Dinner Plate; B) Cigar; C) Arrowhead; D) Hamburger?

5.  How often did the presenter or "experts" on the show make unverifiable claims?  A) Once per ten minutes; B) Two-to-four times per ten minutes; C) Five or more times per ten minutes; D) No actually verifiable claim was made during the episode - or, all claims made were unverifiable.

6.  Please circle each of the following items that it is claimed in this episode was part of the ancient knowledge that is being covered up by archaeologists: 
   
    Super Technology   

    Not-so-super technology that nonetheless was too advanced
    for these primitive savages to have had without alien
    intervention
   
    Magic   
   
    The Existence of the Soul   
   
    The "True extraterrestrial" origins of humanity   
   
    Astronomical knowledge only recently re-learned by NASA   
   
    Astronomical knowledge still unknown to NASA  

    Why people ever thought that Jim Carrey was funny

    Super healing (which nonetheless somehow did not raise the average life expectancy
    above the age of 35)


7a.  How many times during the course of the episode did the "experts" compare themselves to (or compare their claims to the theories of) either Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or Galileo?

7b.  If they compared themselves to Isaac Newton, did they also compare themselves to Isaac Hayes?  If not, why not?

8a.  How many times per episode did somebody state that they would easily give up their "ancient alien" claim if only there were another explanation available?     

8b.  How much video was then given over to that individual going to a library, or even doing a Wikipedia search, to look up other possible, non-alien, explanations?

9.  Did anyone in the episode insist that "establishment" archaeologists refuse to take their claims seriously, and then appear later in the episode stating that they were unwilling to look at the work of the "establishment" archaeologists?**

10. Was quantum physics at any point mentioned as an explanation for anything in the episode?

Now, fill out this questionairre for each episode watched.  Keep the questionairres, and once you have seen ten episodes, begin looking for patterns.  If that doesn't convince you of the level of bullshit that the Ancient Aliens crew likes to produce, you may want to consider upping your medication dosages.




*This is important, as it is typically not white people who are accused of being incapable of developing civilization/technology/non-stick pan coating.  If the alien-influenced culture is European, the claim is still delusional, but at least it's not racist.

**Just pointing this out - if you insist that everyone else look at your work and take it seriously, but you refuse to look at the work of the professional and trained people who have dedicated their lives to this, then you are a tool and a hypotcrite.

At Least Oppose the Things That the President Has Actually Done!

As I have noted before, I have grown to hate election years.  What I hate about them is the tendency for politicians and pundits of all political stripes and from all parts of the political spectrum to make false claims, promote nonsense, and generally mislead, lie to, and delude the public in the name of getting votes for "my side."  Worse, it's a showcase for the way in which the public - people who really are smart enough to see through the bullshit - readily buy into all of this rather than critically examine claims made by the politicians that they support.

I hate it.  It's like an on-going demonstration and microcosm of everything that is wrong with the nation.

This time around, the Democrats are in office, and so the Republicans are spending most of their time attacking the president - remember, in 2004 and 2008 it was the other way around.  However, while there is always hyperbole and some degree of nonsense surrounding the opposition views of the sitting president and his party, this year seems to really be going off the rails and abandoning reality.

Now, for the record, I don't particularly care for Obama.  I dislike the fact that the health care reform bill that he pushed requires me, as a citizen, to buy a product from a private company.  I dislike his advocating the assassination of U.S. citizens overseas.  I dislike his continued use of dubious and intrusive intelligence gathering within the U.S.  I dislike the fact that he has not made the office of the president more transparent as promised, but has instead continued with many of the Bush administration's policies obfuscating the executive office's actions and policies.  Unlike most other people I know who voted against McCain, I'm not disillusioned - I never thought that Obama was anything but just another politician, and I am aware that his activities are just continuing the trajectory set for the presidential office as early as the 1960s.  I don't like him, but I am at least aware that he is a standard-issue politician and not some spawn-of-Satan-Jihadi-Communist hell bent on destroying the world.

But, here's the difference between me and most of the other people who don't like him - including what appears to be the bulk of the Republican party - I don't like him because of things that he has actually done.  I am not resorting to pure fantasy to find things to dislike.  I am not comparing him to Hitler or Stalin, he is clearly neither (nor were either of the Bushes, Reagan, Clinton, Carter, or Nixon before him); I am not accusing him of declaring a "war on Christianity" - such notions are absurd when you actually look at his real policy decisions and positions regarding religion (hint: if anything, he edges a little too close to state advocation of religious, and specifically Christian, beliefs); he does not advocate "death panels" (the section of the health care bill that people cite regarding these alleged "death panels" don't require anything too terribly different from the system used by health insurance companies, and in fact might require health care in situations where the current system denies it).  In short, the most common reasons people give for opposing him are not only distortions, they are often complete and utter fabrications.

Rick Perry ran campaign commercials in which he stated that he was opposed to Obama's "war on religion."  What war on religion?  If anything, Obama has been about as lenient towards religious groups as most other recent presidents.  That he is less likely to single evangelical Christianity out for special treatment doesn't mean that he has declared war on it, it means, as Jon Stewart has put it, that evangelical Christians have confused not getting their way with being persecuted (hint: persecution is completley different from not getting your way...oh, and buy a dictionary, and then look up the word "persecution").

Of course, every Republican knows that Obama is a socialist.  Except, as it turns out, socialism looks pretty damn different from Obama's favored and enacted policies.  In fact, if someone calls Obama a socialist, that's a pretty damn clear indication that they don't actually know what the term Socialist means (for those who are confused, follow the link and listen to an actual socialist describe what socialism actually is, and then actually look at the public record of what the President has actually done and advocated - you will see that the two don't match up at all...oh, and, once again, buy a dictionary, but this time look up the word "socialist").  Indeed, the American Socialist Party is getting pretty damn tired of people claiming that Obama's views match theirs in any way, shape, or form.

Recently, I saw numerous people compare his rule requiring Catholic-run institutions to provide contraceptive coverage (excluding the church itself, this only applied to businesses and non-church facilities run by the Catholic Church) to Hitler's regulations requiring Jewish-owned business to pay special taxes and Jewish people to be singled out for abuse.  The mind boggles.  Hitler forced Jewish people to do something different from everyone else, they were singled out for different treatment.  The Catholic-run institutions, on the other hand, were being required to do the same thing that every other institution is required to do - they were not only not being singled out, they were being told that they were required to play by the same rules as everyone else.  It's the polar opposite of what Hitler did.  Now, you may disagree with this rule, and that's your prerogative.  But disagree with what has actually occurred rather than with fabricated bullshit.

Likewise, I keep hearing people describe Obama's election as the crowning achievement of a conspiracy of America-haters to get someone who hates the country as much as they do into office.  If you actually look into Obama's career and life, it becomes clear that, like Bush before him, and Clinton before him, and Bush Sr. before him, and Reagan before him, Obama loves the country.  I dislike his policies, I dislike his continued expansion of the executive office, I wish someone else was president (though I am not delusional enough to think that McCain would have made a big difference in most of the things that concern me), but looking at reality and ignoring stupid, ignorant, imbecilic rhetoric designed purely for manipulative political purposes leaves me with no way to deny that Obama is patriotic, just like the other occupants of the Oval Office before him.  You don't have to like him to accept this reality - hell I dislike Bush Jr., Reagan, Clinton, and Nixon, but I will accept that all of them were patriotic.  The notion that he got elected in order to destroy the country is astoundingly idiotic.  As Christina H. over at Cracked.com explains (in her reason #1 why people will never understand each other):

Most of us don't have to deal with dictators or terrorists every day, but we apply this same cartoon mentality to people in our own country. A lot of people didn't see President Bush as a guy with good intentions and stupid, wrong policies but as a vile being intentionally trying to "destroy America." Similarly, a lot of people opposed to Obama now are positive he can't really believe his policies will help America, but that he is deliberately, for some reason, trying to destroy America and make it inferior to Europe, because I guess he can't wait to be the leader of a second-rate country.


Sure, politicians might not have the purest motives, but nobody wants to fucking tank their own country while they are in charge so that everyone in the whole world can know that they screwed it up. A bad person might be motivated by greed, pride or any other deadly sin, but whatever awful thing they're after, it's supposed to benefit themselves in some way. At least the accusation about Bush starting the Iraq War just to get Halliburton some business made sense from a human nature perspective, even if it's pretty oversimplified and hyperbolic.

It's sad when an internet humor columnist demonstrates a much firmer grasp on reality than half of the nation's voters and pretty much all of the radio personalities commenting on politics.

Here's the thing - every sitting politician, no matter how good and virtuous, has done things worthy of criticism.  A run-of-the-mill politician such as the current president has done many, many things worthy of criticism.  But, if you are going to be critical of the president, be critical of what they actually have done or what the actually advocate doing.  This applies to both Democrats and Republicans, as well as every independent and third-party supporter.

However, right this moment, as demonstrated by the support gained by such reality-challenged people as Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney (as well as the now thankfully gone support once enjoyed by Bachmann, Cain, and Perry), the Republicans are most in need of an infusion of reality.  The Republican party has some very good people and some very good ideas that we all benefit from having in the political sphere, so, Republicans, please don't let the anti-reality bullshit relegate your party to nothing more than the punchline of future historian's jokes.

American Diggers?

So, Spike TV has decided to put a new show into production: American Diggers.  The show will follow a group as they travel about the country, visiting historic sites and digging up items in order to sell them.

As Spike TV's press release puts it:

"American Digger" follows the American Savage team, led by former professional wrestler-turned-modern- day relic hunter Ric Savage as they scour target-rich areas, such as battlefields and historic sites, in hopes of striking it rich by unearthing and selling rare pieces of American history. In the US, there are millions of historical relics buried in backyards just waiting to be discovered and turned into profit.

This pisses me off.

The problem with this is twofold:  1) It is, essentially, the glorification of looting.  2) It legitimizes the notion that the true value of artifacts is their sale value.

To point 1:  Looting is a problem for archaeology.  A huge problem.  Looting is the unsystematic excavation of sites in order to obtain artifacts for either collection or sale, and it occurs all over the world and has resulted in the destruction of countless archaeological sites.  It results in the destruction of artifacts and features, as items of little to no financial value but of significant research interest are destroyed in an effort to get at the big-money items; it results in the destruction of stratigraphic and horizontal relationships which are of tremendous value to archaeologists trying to make sense of past human behavior, because these relationships are not documented by looters who are interested in collecting or selling the artifacts and not keeping track of where, exactly, they come from in a site; when materials are looted, their provenance is often not sufficiently recorded to allow later assignation to actual places or contexts, largely destroying their research value.

Now, it should be noted that the show seems to be aimed to going onto private land to do this.  This is legal, and I am not accusing the production company of being criminals.  Some would object to me using the term "looting" to describe a legal activity - but as the activity in question is clearly a mercenary destruction of historic information for the generation of profit, I think that calling it looting is perfectly fine.  It is possible that the show, if it is like other "non-scripted television" that I have seen will feature talking heads from the crew discussing how they are "unearthing history."  They are not.  They are destroying history in an extremely cynical way.

And while this crew is behaving in a legal manner, glorifying the activity by making people who engage in this the heroes of a television show is likely to make people who don't have access to materials on private land feel justified (or greedy enough, as the press releases indicates that the show will focus on potential profits) in going onto public lands to engage in this activity.  And on public lands, looting is illegal under the American Antiquities Act.

and before anyone asks what the difference between a looter and an archaeologist is, I will explain: archaeologists do everything in a systematic fashion, keeping track of what we are doing, where we are doing it, and where we find what we find, allowing future researchers to piece together now destroyed parts of sites by looking at our notes and records; archaeologists do not sell the artifacts that we recover, but curate them so that they can be studied or viewed by the public (less common, but it does happen); archaeologists are increasingly inculcated with a preservation ethic - excavate only what you have to, leaving as much intact as possible, which is the polar opposite of the looter's  "dig as much as possible to get the pricey stuff" ethic.  Archaeologists publish our findings or present them in public and professional forums out of a sense of professional and intellectual responsibility, making little to no money off of such activities. 

On to point 2:  The notion that it is better to understand the past than to make money off of it is, admittedly, a philosophical position.  But it's a philosophical position that I certainly hold, as does every archaeologist and historian that I know, and if the recurring polls showing support for historic preservation are any indication, it's one that most of the American public also holds to some extent or another.

Looters, on the other hand, see profit and/or collecting as being more important than historical understanding.  Certainly, there are looters who will claim otherwise, but their activities destroying sites and selling materials found in them indicate otherwise - their actions speak much louder than their words.  The problem is that there are many people who are in favor of protecting historic sites, but seeing looters portrayed as heroes coupled with seeing looting portrayed as a profitable activity, is likely to make looting seem more legitimate than simply seeing the market for looted goods would. 

If you are bothered by this project, try writing to Spike TV.  Also, you can sign an on-line petition here.

Argument By Obfuscation

Ahh, political season again...I fucking hate political seasons.  We get to see the worst of popular idiocy and dubious political rhetoric on display, and we get to hear both our elected officials and are want-to-be-elected officials try to mislead us for their own political ends. 

There are many ways in which those involved in politics try to mislead you, but one that seems to be dominant currently is a flavor of deception that I like to call "argument by obfuscation" - that is, trying to dissuade you from checking up on facts by either burying them under thick layer of rhetorical compost, or else getting you riled up and distracted.  This is different from just flat-out lying (although tactics used to achieve this effect include flat-out lying) in one important way - the people propagating the claims are generally less concerned with getting you to believe one particular bit of misinformation than they are with getting you to ignore reality in some way.  If you believe a particular lie, that's fine, but getting you to be confused with the sheer number of lies works pretty well, too.  It also works to simply get you to dislike someone who is telling you the truth, or, even better, to get you to think that they are unreliable, whether you like them or not.

Here's a few particular types of the argument by obfuscation that I have been seeing lately:


Hi-Ho Bronco!

People who spend time watching creationists know the Gish Gallup (named for Duane Gish, a leading nutjob in the creationist movement) - throw arguments, statements, and disingenuous questions at a debate opponent quickly, so that they don't have a chance to respond.  It's easy, someone who is ideologically motivated to argue for a position tends to also be someone who has little-to-no investment in telling the truth.  As a result, such a person (or organization, or movement) has little constraint in what they can make up, and can make crap up faster than a well-informed person can refute the nonsense. 

While this particular gambit is named for Duane Gish, it's popular in a variety of different movements.  People who are opposed to modern medicine (whether out of an admittedly reasonable dislike for the companies and/or system that produces said medicine or out of a delusional belief in new-age bullshit) will routinely either lie or accept lies told to them regarding the alleged evils of actual medications, while simultaneously accepting as legitimate all manner of nonsense regardless of how many laws of physics it violates (homeopathy, anyone?).  Likewise, we routinely hear about how the Obama administration is outlawing prayer, instituting death panels, imposing sharia law, planning to imprison priests, and so on

The basic concept of this approach is to simply drown someone in claims, so that even if they don't believe any of the ones that they have time to think about, they will be left with the impression that there are just so many claims that support a particular position that an opposing position, no matter how well supported, should be viewed with doubt.  Anyone who has dealt with pseudo-science (be it creationism, anti-vaccine nonsense, perpetual motion machines, aliens building pyramids, and so on) has encountered this time and again, but it is increasingly a popular political manuever as well.


Exaggeration as Truthiness

You know how 99% of people are protesting the top-earning 1%?  Oh, wait, that's not actually happening, is it?  No, what is happening is that a not-insignificant number of people (who, nonetheless are not the majority of people, much less the vast majority) are protesting issues surrounding the fact that there is an increasingly large gap between the nation's top-earners, and the rest of the country.  Many of the arguments for why this is a bad thing are sound, and it is a matter that, I think, should be of concern.  However, the protesters don't even necessarily speak for each other (ask five different protestors about their platform for change, you will get five different answers), much less 99% of the country.  Hell, I agree with the problem of the wealth gap, and these protestors don't speak for me.  The protestors and those who support these protests have adopted a rhetorical device (the 99%) that exaggerates the support that they claim to have from the nation at large.

This is, of course, nothing new.  In the 70s and 80s, we saw the political prominence of Jerry Fallwell's group, named the Moral Majority.  The very name of the group, much like The 99%, was intended to claim that this group spoke for most people, when, in fact, Fallwell and company really only spoke for a particularly delusional slice of the population.  More recently, we have groups such as The Million Moms, who tried (and failed) to get Ellen Degenerous fired from her position as JC Penney's Spokesperson while claiming that their numbers were far greater than they really were.  Stop and think for a few minutes, and you'll come up with many other examples.

This seems to go one of three ways: either there's an attempt at intimidation (such as the Million Moms claiming that they could stage a crippling boycott), an attempt to get a bandwagon going (you're a moral person, well, you should support the Moral Majority!), or an attempt to claim authority regarding the opinions of others (the Moral Majority did this, and the Occupy folks, with their 99% rhetoric are certainly doing this). 



That-There Well is Poisoned

We have all heard someone claim that the media is biased in favor of "liberal politics" and therefore anything that it says about a political and/or "culture war" issue shouldn't be trusted, right?  Of course, you likely have also been told that the media is controlled by the megacorporations that also own the Republican party, and therefore you shouldn't believe any of what they report regarding politics unless you want to be brainwashed by the right-wing Nazi machine.

There are, in fact, problems with media bias.  Large corporations do own most media outlets, and while they sometimes do mis-report news to the advantage of the parent corporation, my experience is that they are far more likely to mis-report it based on sensationalism and on the perceived biases of the audience.  It is good to bear this in mind when watching/listening to/reading the news, but it also has to be kept in mind that the fact that a source is biased in some way does not mean that all information that comes from it is wrong.  In fact, it's not uncommon for media bias to show up not in mis-reporting of information, but in not reporting it at all.  All of this together is the reason why you should have multiple sources from which you get news, not just to balance out the bias of whatever group you don't agree with, but also to make sure that you aren't being fooled by the echo chamber of your own side.

The problem, of course, is that most people don't do this.  They have a small number of sources from which they get their information.  And when an outside source reports facts that are not in concert with the previously held beliefs, our friend the media consumer simply says "well, of course THEY would say that!  they're biased and just want to brain wash the sheep that make up the other side" never once realizing the irony of the fact that to dismiss inconvenient facts as bias and lies without at least some investigation often leads one to becoming the mindless sheep.

Of course, this well-poisoning effect doesn't just apply to news outlets.  Scientists, clergy, university professors, southerners, Californians, major corporations, homosexuals, police officers, non-affiliated individuals, etc., etc., etc. all get labelled as untrustworthy to a person by many people.  The problem is that people will readily dismiss any and all information that they dislike that comes from a distrusted source, and give little reason (to themselves or others) for the dismissal other than that the information came from "them." 

Don't like the fact that global warming is in fact both occurring and anthropogenic?  Well, it's obvious that scientists are involved in a major conspiracy to promote this belief!  Don't like the fact that a person who you admired was convicted of a crime?  Well, clearly the police framed them and the DA and PD's offices went along to cover the asses at city hall! Don't like the fact that nuclear power is either safer or not as safe as you like to claim?  Well, the source that you hear dissenting opinion from is simply either shilling for the nuclear industry or is bowing to political pressure from radical environmentalists.

Again, the point here isn't to get you to believe anything in particular, just to doubt certain positions, and to persuade you that anyone who provides information in support of positions is doing so for ideological, political, or financial reasons, so you can safely ignore anyone who disagrees with you.


In Summary...

These aren't the only forms that this tactic takes, and these forms are not mutually exclusive - pundits and politicians will often use more than one at a time - but what binds them together is that they are less concerned with getting you to believe something in particular, and more concerned with confusing you into submission, and doubting sources that might provide you with legitimate information.  This is not a new tactic, by any means, but it seems to have become more prominent over the last few decades.  While it is currently probably most effectively used in electoral politics by the Republican Party, it is used to varying degrees by both of the two major parties, and you will see it used by groups with both left wing and right wing affiliations to get you good and confused.

The VA, Funerals, and Religion

So, a group of legislators and clergy are trying to force the families of all people who die in military service to observe Christian funeral rites, whether the dead or their families are Christians or not.

Read more here.

Of course, they are framing this as them "standing up an protecting the rights of Christian soldiers against the godless commie liberals!" But the fact of the matter is that Christian families/servicemen are free to have Christian funerals on federal land. They always have been. They have to request them, though, just as Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and members of every other religion have to request funerals that conform to their religions so that they don't have the views of another religion pushed onto them during the funeral. It is perfectly legal, and nobody is trying to stop it.

Contrary to what these people claim, religion isn't banned during military funerals. However, the families of the deceased are not forced to have the rites or rhetoric of another person's religion thrust upon the funeral of their family member.

If you look at what's going on, these legislators are actually pushing for rules that will make a religious ceremony the default for all military ceremonies, and allow VA staff and volunteers to push religion during funerals even if it is against the wishes of the deceased or their family.

This isn't an attempt to protect Christians, it's an attempt to force everyone else to accept a specific form of religion. It'll fail when it comes to court (if the legislation even passes), and the Veteran's Administration is doing the right thing in resisting it. But, as is so often the case, despite all of the rhetoric, this isn't about standing up for religion in general or Christianity in particular, it's about domination and beating down the people who are not members of the dominant religion. It's bullying, and nothing more, and if the legislators and clergy had any sort of a sense of shame or decency, they would provide and apology and back away. But, of course, that isn't going to happen.

This is dispicable, callous bullying.

Of course, it is also unlikely that any rule requiring religious funerals against the wishes of the deceased and their family will actually stand up in court, so this is also a case where those backing it who aren't purely delusional are clearly taking up time (and the tax-payers money) to grandstand and engage in divisive politics, which is, frankly, evil and destructive.


Edit: As I searched for more information on this, I kept coming across hysterical claims that the VA was banning mention of religion at military funerals. This is not true. Religious services are allowed for families who wish to have them. The VA does not allow VA staff or volunteers to push religion into funeral services where the family of the deceased does not want them. Again, the existing rules are about people having the funeral that is appropriate to their family, and NOT having a government agency push or prohibit religious rites on those who don't want them. The people wanting a change are not trying to allow religious funerals, they are already allowed, they are trying to force them on people who don't want them.

Television, Hope, and a Doctor

I think that television gets a bad rap. Now, don't get me wrong, I do agree with those who hold that the average American (and likely the average person from many industrialized nations) watches far more television than is healthy, but this does not mean that television itself is a great evil.

Thinking back to my childhood, there was one show that was very important to me. It was a science fiction/fantasy show, and it was fun, but that's not what made it important to me. What made it important was that it's lead character was one that I could identify with, and it gave me a sense of hope that was extremely important given where I was living and who I grew up around. The show was Doctor Who. The original run of the series was aired in the United States on PBS stations during the 1980s, and it wasn't the slickly produced show that people viewing the current run of the series would know, but it was (like many BBC productions) a low-budget affair (at least as compared to the American equivalents) with abundant over-acting, silly costumes, laughable sets, and special effects that, as I once read somewhere, inspire the sort of affection that one might have for a three-legged dog.

Here's a couple of images to give you a taste:




So, why did a show that, when compared to the production values and acting of most American Science Fiction shows truly was lacking, become so important to a kid growing up in California in the 1980s? The answer to that question lies in two places: who I was as a child, and the lead character of the show.

I grew up in Salida, California. It's a small town that is now essentially a suburb of the city of Modesto, but was a bit more isolated when I was a kid. California's Central Valley, in which Salida is situated, was and remains one of the world's agricultural powerhouses. Local industries were largely based around agriculture and the transport of agricultural products, and Salida had a very blue collar and rural character when I was a kid*. There was nothing wrong with this, in and of itself, but it meant that I didn't fit in.

I was a brainy kid who enjoyed reading and enjoyed imagination, but who lacked coordination or muscle strength. I was the definition of unathletic, and was disinterested in sports. Given that sports were important to many of the people - adult and child alike - where I lived, this marked me as an outsider. Worse was the fact that the community in which I lived didn't much value education past the high school level (I have written about this before) and so my interest in reading, and the fact that I was just as interested in reading non-fiction as fiction, was one factor that led to me being branded a "nerd."

Another factor was the fact that I just didn't get how to socialize. I found it difficult to understand subjects that were popular (football, professional wrestling, pop music) which made it difficult to talk about them. I had, and often exercised, the potential to be very boring by talking about topics that interested me and none of my peers. I couldn't comprehend many of the more subtle social cues that the other kids were learning and employing, and therefore any attempt that I made to relate to them fell flat, and often led to ridicule. Even something as seemingly simple as dressing to fit in failed, as I failed to grasp the often small differences that made one article of clothing popular and another undesirable. There are alot of potential explanations for this, but I'm not interested in getting into them here. The end result, though, is that I was the oddball, and in the neighborhood in which I lived, this meant that I was constantly tormented by bullies, and was even bullied and tormented by the kids who were known for being kind and gentle to pretty much everybody else. In the town in which I lived, few adults noticed this, and most of the few who did (including many school personnel) ignored it and a few even approved of and encouraged it (I remember one occasion when the father of one of the worst bullies - one who actually made death threats to me - informed my father that if I was incapable of fighting off six other kids at once, then I deserved to get beaten up).

At least once a week I came home from school with bruises and cuts from getting beaten up by a group of kids, having objects including metal shards, rocks, and broken glass thrown at me as I walked home from school was not uncommon. Even trying to isolate myself didn't help, as I would be sought out by kids wanting to cause me grief - to the point that I could be sitting in my yard at home and have someone walk up and start throwing punches at me. With the exception of two kids who were genuinely my friends, most of those I called friends were just the kids who let me hang out with them so that they would have someone to pick on. It got to the point that, by the time I was 13, I assumed that all friendly gestures were simply a set-up for me to be embarrassed.

My parents did what they could, but their help alternated between simply being a sympathetic ear, to trying to get uninterested school administrators to do something, to encouraging me to "try to fit in" while not listening when I tried to explain that that was precisely what I had been doing.

And so when I discovered Doctor Who, it was a validation.

You see, the lead character, known only as The Doctor, was a time-traveling scientist-adventurer from another world given to weird eccentricities. His eccentricities weren't due solely to his being an alien, he was a definite oddball even when he met with members of his own species. But the Doctor was never a "fish out of water." He always know what he was doing, and how he was doing it, and if other people took issue with his general weirdness, well, that was their problem, not his. The Doctor had all of the traits of the nerd or geek - strong intellect, esoteric interests, an aversion to violence, a tendency to monologue on matters of interest to nobody but him, and fashion sense so atrocious as to become weirdly brilliant (see the photo below) - and yet he was neither a nerd or a geek. He had transcended such labels. And unlike the brainy characters of so many television shows, the Doctor was not the sidekick or technical support to an action hero, he was the hero and he often put a stop to the violence and chaos caused by "action hero" type characters when they appeared. He used his intellect, sense of compassion, and strong sense of justice to put an end to the villains, and he did so while never carrying a weapon and only occasionally resorting to doing so much as hitting anyone (and most of that during the time that the character was in his third incarnation - oh yeah, the Doctor could change bodies rather than dying, which allowed the production staff to hire a new actor when the old one decided to go).



All of this stood in contrast to the rest of the pop culture to which I was exposed. The Doctor was usually played by a middle-aged actor in fairly average physical condition, quite the contrast to the stars of the action movies that were popular at the time. The Doctor always solved problems via his intellect and eschewed violence (the only time in the original series that I can recall him picking up a gun with an intention to fire it, it was made very clear that he was disgusted with himself for doing so and that he couldn't bring himself to use it in the end), in contrast to most of the other media role-models offered up to boys. Although the Doctor was willing to work with a team, he was just as willing to go it alone, unlike most other oddball fictional characters (contrast this with another geek culture icon, Mr. Spock, who longs to fit in and reaches his apex as a member of a team following Captain Kirk).

This was the message that I needed to hear: "don't worry about not fitting in, the problem isn't you, and just because you are the outsider doesn't mean that you can't be brilliant." Seeing this on a television show made for a broad audience (albeit a British rather than American audience), and a television show that I quickly learned had been running for several decades, meant that enough actors, producers, television executives, etc. etc. - and most importantly, enough of an audience - found the notion of the heroic eccentric outsider plausible or compelling enough for the show to have been successful. This meant, I reasoned, that as alone as I usually felt, I really wasn't - there were plenty of other people out there like me, and I would find them eventually.

So, really, television did one very positive thing for me. It introduced me to the concept that I was not alone, that I was not doomed to be the butt of ridicule and a literal punching bag forever, and I might even come into my own and become someone of importance, however small and lonely I often felt. I needed that as a child, and so when I hear that television is somehow inherently bad for children, I often think that the person making the claim is cherry-picking their evidence. Yes, alot of kids watch too much television to the exclusion of other things. But even the silliest of shows can be a window into a wider world that a child may need to see.






*This began to change in the late 80s, and is only somewhat true now. Lower land costs in the Central Valley during the 80s and 90s led to many Silicon Valley professionals buying houses and commuting form between 4 and 6 hours on their daily round trip. This changed alot of things about the area, including the general character of the cities and towns, and they have become rather "yuppified" as compared to what they were when I was a kid.

Mosques, Community Centers, and Book Burnings

So, tomorrow is September 11, 2010. The pastor of a small church in Florida is threatening to burn Korans, and everyone is fighting over whether the Islamic equivalent to a YMCA (and yes, that's what it is, if you're going to start screaming that it's an "Extremist Mosque" then go look it up...somewhere other than Sean Hannity's website) should be built in New York.

There is one similarity between them: in both cases, people are doing something perfectly legal, and in both cases we have to worry about how ideologues, the frightened, and the angry are going to act. In New York, we have to worry about whether people who don't grasp that Al Qeada is a fringe group within Islam will commit acts of violence and/or vandalism, and the Florida pastor is running the risk of giving yet more cause to uninformed people in the Middle East who - through the manipulations of their own media and political figures - may think that the Koran burning is a normal part of American and/or Christian life and not the act of a half-wit fringe group.

The reality is that both of these events would have passed by completely un-noticed were it not for media and political attention. In getting worked up over either of them, people are allowing themselves to be manipulated or else giving in to a gut-level emotional reaction without stopping to consider what being a citizen of this country actually means. To be fair, the manipulators (politicians, ideologues, and media fixtures) are very good at it, and most folks don't realize that it's happening not because of a lack of their own intelligence but because the manipulators are very good at their jobs.

Let's start with the "Ground Zero Mosque." It's not at Ground Zero - now some folks will point out that it is in a location where the building was damaged by debris from the attacks, which is true. However, Ground Zero is a specifically designated place, and this falls outside of it. You could call it "the Building Damaged by Aircraft Debris Mosque", but that doesn't have the same ring, and more importantly for the people who are making hay with it, it doesn't have the same "shut off thinking by getting people angry" emotional charge. It's also not a Mosque, but that's true on a technical distinction between what is and what is not a mosque that many Christians don't make regarding what is and what is not a church, so while it's technically not a mosque, I'm not going to argue too much about that, as it's close enough.

There are alot of other claims going around - "They're going to let a mosque be built, but not a church be rebuilt", "the Imam refused offers to buy him out and give addition financial incentives if he just re-locates somewhere else", "the Imam receives money from the Kingdom Foundation, which is run by a guy who funds extremist groups around the world!" And so on. For the first two points - as someone who has been involved in building planning for several years now, neither of these things seems sinister. In New York, there are different authorities who have control over the permits in different areas (the same is true in many cities in my own state) - the area where the Islamic Center/Mosque is going to be built is not under the Port authority, who actually does have permitting responsibilities for the area where an Eastern Orthodox Church once stood, and with different agencies comes different permitting processes, regulations to follow, etc., which means that something that would be permitted by one agency may not be permitted by another. This is perfectly normal, if frustrating if you happen to be the person trying to get permits. Also, once the permitting process has been started, it's normal for the project proponent, regardless of the project, to not accept offers to be bought out - I have seen it many, many times, and they tend to dig their heels in more when project get political. So, these things that people seem to think are suspicious are actually a normal part of getting things built - sad, but true.

The guy, often referred to as "the Extremist" (not Joe Satriani) who is behind the Kingdom Foundation who funds some of this Imam's activities is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. He is also one of the major shareholders of Newscorp, the organization that owns FOX News. So, if you are going to claim that this Imam must be an evil anti-American extremist because he accepts funding from Al-Waleed bin Talal, then it follows that Bill O'Reilly is also an evil Anti-American extremist*.

There are numerous other things that people have brought up to try to show the alleged evils of the Imam behind the construction, but following them up routinely brings me to the same sorts of things once I find the source: either the statements are misconstruals of perfectly normal practices that all construction projects have the potential to entail, or they are distortions of statements actually made (sometimes through quote-mining, sometimes through very loose paraphrasing), or they are statements made by people with a political agenda that don't actually accuse the Imam of anything but are clearly intended to get people thinking that he's done something (in other words, they're lies carefully worked to avoid a libel suit). In other words, every time I have actually followed anything to the source, it turns out to either be mundane, or insulting but normal within the context of American life. The same is true for those who wish to paint him as the most wonderful guy in the world. In other words, whether you regard this Imam as a demon or an angel, you are looking at a media image and not what the guy has actually said or done.

Now, does this guy hold views that I, personally, would find abhorrent regarding issues of individual rights, women's rights, social roles, etc.? Probably. He is an Imam, after all. You know who else holds views that I find abhorrent? The Pope. The Prophet of the Mormon Church. Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son). Pat Robertson. And the list could go on for many pages. Would I object to them building a church near Ground Zero, or in any other location? Not if they obtained permits and went about it in a legal manner.

Some people are going to be upset with of this construction because it's an Islamic center, and Al Qeada is an Islamic group. But the simple fact of the matter is that there is a very real distinction between Al Qaeda - an organization - and Islam - a religion**. Al Qaeda is an Islamic organization, to be certain. I'm not going to be one of those people who claims that they're not true Muslims, because as far as an honest assessment can be made, they are. But it should be kept in mind that in the 1930s, and possibly still today (I find alot of contradictory information) the Ku Klux Klan was a Christian organization, but it wasn't Christianity. In the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan used political rhetoric and Biblical citations to justify it's agenda, and it's leadership was definitely Christian, and it was accepted, applauded, or at best ignored by many Protestant Christian churches in the United States in pretty much precisely the same way that Al Qeada is by many Middle Eastern mosques today. And yet we all know that the KKK is not and never was the face of mainstream Christianity, it was a fringe group (if a widely accepted or even supported one).

If you bother to do some reading outside of the headlines and more sensationalistic outlets, it quickly becomes apparent that much the same can be said of Al Qeada. Indeed, Al Qeada, for all of their "anti-Imperialist" rhetoric, has shown itself to be just as (or perhaps even more) interested in killing other Muslims as in striking Europe and the United States - hardly the actions of the mainstream of a religion. Hell, the justification for suicide bombing had to be developed by Ayman al-Zawahiri using references to Medieval Christian martyrologies and then quote-mining the Koran***.

So, really, I see no legitimate reason to oppose the construction of this Islamic center if I'm not also going to oppose the construction of any other religious structure. I would not oppose the construction of a Catholic church next to an elementary school, or a Southern Baptist church in a Selma, Alabama, or a synagogue near a Palestinian-American neighborhood either.

I have, however, heard one legitimate reason for not building it, and this is where it ties back to our friend in Florida. The reason is this: given that there has been such a furor whipped up over it, constructing it will likely result in further conflict, probably result in vandalism, and may result in violence. But let's be clear - this is a concern about the actions of people other than those who want to build the place. This is a concern about the actions of people who are able and willing to commit criminal acts because they fail to grasp that living in a society where both speech and religion are free means that you don't have a right to not be offended. This is a concern about the actions of people who fail to make a distinction between a religion and individuals within that religion.

By the same token, I don't really care if some imbecile in Florida wants to burn books. If the media wasn't paying him so much attention, just as with the Islamic Center/Mosque, then this wouldn't be any more noteworthy than any of the huge number of other things that imbeciles do every single day. I don't consider the Koran holy - that would require me believing that there was some mystical being who decreed things holy - and so when I first heard of this guy, I gave it the same eye roll that I gave when I heard that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that there were no homosexuals in Iran. It was an idiot spouting off, something that everyone has the right to do when within the borders of the United States.

Since then, though, this has gathered so much media attention that it has become a legitimate concern that groups such as Al Qeada can use it as a recruiting tool ("evidence that 'the West' is against Islam, and not terrorism!") and that others with an axe to grind or media to sell in the Middle East may use it as a way to raise emotions and fan the ol' flames o' hatred, creating volatility where non exist.

But, again, let's be clear. The problem isn't that somebody has decided to legally burn something that he legally obtained. His actions and words show him to be a bigot and an idiot, but in the United States, we have the right to be bigots and idiots (even if I wish my fellow countrymen would exercise that right less often). The problem is that other people will use this to their advantage, and yet another group of people will fail to grasp that this guy is not representative of the U.S.A., the West in general, or even Christianity, and will engage in violent acts in response. What's more, this is a problem that arises from the fact that there are people in the world who fail to see the difference between the destruction of a symbol, and a violent attack against a religion's believers (a problem that is in no way unique to Islam).

"Gee, Mr. Armstrong, is there a point to this rant?"


Yeah. Over the past month, I have watched people, many of whom I respect and who are generally very smart and articulate people, reduce themselves to ranting madmen over the alleged evil of either the construction of the Islamic Center/Mosque, or the idiot with the book burning. But in both cases, this has been little more than giving in to emotion without reflection, or worse, allowing one's self to be manipulated by those with an agenda at worst.

We have the ability to be better than this. If you oppose the Islamic Center, then think about why you oppose it. If it's simply because the 9/11 hijackers were Muslim, then you are being inconsistent if you don't also oppose Catholic churches having daycare centers - let's face it, most priests don't abuse children, and most Muslims don't care for ramming airplanes into buildings. If you have some other reason for opposing it, then you may have a good point, or you may not, but at least you're not just giving in to a knee-jerk reaction.

If you are going to oppose the guy burning the Koran, then stop and consider that he now has power only because you have paid attention to him.

I can't fault anyone for having an immediate emotional response. But I can fault many people for not considering their position carefully and acting in accordance with their own stated principles.




*Wait a minute...this is starting to make some sense...

**This also holds for those who argue that being in favor of or opposed to the actions of the Israeli government means being in favor of or opposed to Judaism. There is a great distinction between Israel - a nation state - and Judaism - a religion and ethnic group.

***It should, of course, be noted that suicide attacks have occurred throughout history. They are usually justified via legalistic interpretations of either religion or tradition after the fact.

Sex, Cheating, and Radio Morning Shows

Several years ago while I was a graduate student, I was an archaeological intern with the environmental conservation office at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I lived in Goleta, which is immediately north of Santa Barbara, meaning that, on the days when I had to be on base (3-4 days a week, depending on what was happening) I would listen to the radio on my drive in (this was in the days before I owned an iPod or had discovered podcasts).

The only radio station that I could reliably listen to for the entire drive was the Santa Barbara pop station, and they had a predictable morning show - the allegedly wacky DJs would play music and jabber on about whatever wacky thing that they could think of, while inviting callers to call in and voice their own opinions.

On one particular morning, the DJs had brought up the subject of a recently published paper that was getting a lot of press. The radionistas were stating that the paper reported a study in which researchers found that sexual infidelity was caused by genes. They asked their callers to talk about whether or not they thought that infidelity was caused by genetics, and the calls that came in were every flavor of over-generalization. There were the people who were absolutely convinced that infidelity was genetic because they knew one person who was a cheater who had a parent who was also a cheater (yeah, must be genetic, couldn't possibly be a learned behavior, nope, not at all), or who were absolutely convinced that that it wasn't genetic because they knew one person who was not a cheater, but who had a parent that was. And then there were the usual parade of clowns who assured everyone who would listen that it wasn't genes but rather people "moving away" from amorphous and ill-defined "old fashioned family values" of the past*. All the while, the DJs kept announcing that "science has proving that infidelity is caused by genes."

What the DJs were attempting to discuss was this study which looked at the sex lives of both identical and non-identical twins in an effort to identify whether or not there was a genetic component to sexual infidelity. There have since been other studies on the same subject and they have found what appears to be a genetic component to infidelity, though in each study, including the 2004 one, the findings have been rather more complicated than was being reported in the mass media.

What the early study actually found was that there was a correlation between people's genetic similarities and their sexual behavior. Identical twins (twins with identical DNA) had the most similarity as regards cheating, while non-identical twins (twins who have no more DNA in common than any other set of siblings) had less in common. Subsequent studies have found similar results, and researchers are working on identifying whether or not particular sets of genes provide a causal mechanism that increases the likelihood of infidelity**. So, the study indicated a genetic element to infidelity, but did not prove one, which is typical of science, where complex issues take a long time to work out.

The study also did not rule out social causes and learned behavior as the triggers to infidelity. This is a point that many people don't get - there is an assumption that genes are just on/off switches, and that if someone has a particular set of genes then they will have a particular set of physical and psychological traits. This is simply not true. Genes code for traits, yes, but the way in which traits are expressed is often influenced by the environment. This is true of physical traits, but seems to be especially true of psychological traits due to the sheer complexity of the human brain***. So, even if one has genes that code for infidelity, that doesn't mean that infidelity is inevitable, or even likely. It means that there is a higher percentage chance of cheating, but so many factors influence such behavior that there is no reason to assume that someone with these genes is a cheater - individuals will express the genes in individual ways, but these may not include infidelity but may indicate some other form of behavior that isn't damaging to a relationship.

Before I even saw the study or any of the reporting on the study I immediately started thinking that the study probably reported something similar to what is, in fact, what the study actually did conclude, and which is radcially different from what was being said by the DJs. Simply understanding how science works immediately caused me to question what was being said on the radio, and following-through with looking up the study indicated that my skepticism of the "genes cause infidelity" claim were well-founded.

Now, many people will say "hey, it was a dumb morning show, don't worry about it." The problem is that, yes it was a dumb morning show, but the listeners now have been informed that infidelity is caused by genetics, and have had the notion that genes are destiny (rather than one of several causal factors in behavior) reinforced. And the research shows pretty strongly that new information, provided that it doesn't conflict with existing beliefs, tends to simply become part of the background noise in a person's memory that will be called on whenever the subject comes up, but never evaluated to closely for its validity. And here was the most-listened to radio show in Santa Barbara County announcing that scientists had "proven" that infidelity is genetic. For most people listening this was probably the first that they had heard about a link between genetics and sexual behavior, and as such it is the (mis)information on which they were likely to base their future opinions on this matter.

Worse, people who heard this show might start to be prejudiced in their opinions of people based on the activities of those people's relatives. In short, this sort of claim is likely to provoke what might be termed a "genetic bigotry" where the sins of the parent, or sibling, or cousin, etc. might be held against someone innocent of any wrong-doing.

When I arrived home that evening, I sent an email to the radio station expressing my disappointment in the show. I explained that the study in question didn't actually reach the conclusions that they were claiming that it did, and that by handling this the way that they did, they not only failed to inform their audience about the real science, they actually mis-informed their audience and increased their audience's ignorance of the issue.

There was some email back-and-forth between myself and the DJs, with them saying "hey, we were trying to educate" and me trying to explain that they did the exact opposite. In the end I asked them to consider that, if they felt that they were unable to accurately discuss the science, then perhaps it was best to not bring it up at all. After all, there's no end of oddball news stories for a morning show to cover.

I don't know if my response to them would have had an effect. Shortly after this incident, the radio station changed formats and the DJs found themselves out of a job.

However, this has long been a frustration of mine when listening to any media reports, whether from a news or an entertainment show, about research. The conclusions are pretty much always mis-reported, the methods rarely described, and the underlying issues (in this case, do genes cause behavior or merely make it statistically more likely) rarely are discussed.






*This "old fashioned family values" line has always bothered me for a very basic reason. Many of the things that people who trumpet this claim are new, such as infidelity, are not new at all. The simple fact of the matter is that we talk about these things more, giving the impression that they are now more common, but there is in fact very little reason to believe that they are any more prevalent now than they were 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago. In fact, because they are spoken of more nowadays, they may be easier to spot, and might actually become less prevalent as a result - but that's just speculation on my part.

**This is important as there are a few different reasons why identical twins might share behavioral traits that are not related to their genetics, as identical twins are often socialized somewhat differently than those of us who do not have an identical twin. The fact that non-identical twins do not share this trait as often as identicals does suggest a genetic cause, but social causes can not be ruled-out until a definite causal mechanism can be determined.

***And, really, as psychological traits spring from the brain, which is a physical entity, these are also physical traits, just very subtle, complex ones.

Storycorps, Archaeology, and History

Stick with me, this will get around to archaeology and history.

As I drove out to Porterville this morning, I listened to a BBC radio documentary on the StoryCorps project. for those unfamaliar with it and uninterested in listening to the documentary (though I recommend that you do, it's quite good), StoryCorps is described by it's promoters as an oral history project, people arrive in pairs, sit for 45 minutes in the Storycorps booths, and just talk, usually with one interviewing the other. There is no set agenda or particular topic that Storycorps requires, just that two people have a 45-minute conversation. If both members consent, then the recording goes to the Library of Congress.

Most of the people familiar with StoryCorps have gained their information about it from excerpts of the recordings broadcast on the NPR show Morning Edition. Frankly, I never much cared for these broadcast excerpts, usually finding them uninteresting at best and painfully shmaltzy at worst. In fact, my disinterest in StoryCorps is such that I had thought I'd deleted the BBC documentary from my iPod before heading out this morning. I'm glad I didn't, as the documentary on StoryCorps is far more interesting than the broadcast excerpts.

I had previously been unaware of the fact that the sessions were 45 minutes long and that NPR's broadcasts included only a very small segment (which would explain why they are often so befuddling and annoyingly incomplete). I had also been unaware of the sheer volume of sessions recorded, with multiple permanent booths and several travelling booths.

Which brings me to archaeology and history.

One of our recurring problems is that we miss the full context in which to make our data make sense. For example, my colleagues and I often find ourselves baffled by enigmatic historic artifacts because the people who used them found the artifacts so dull and commonplace that they never bothered to write anything about it down - if you assume it's always going to be there and that its purpose is obvious, why bother to describe it?

But, of course, when technology changes, the use of the old tools is often forgotten. The same is true for minor social customs, settlement patterns, and pretty much any other common, every-day thing that is likely to end up in the archaeological record.

Likewise, historians tend to skew their work towards the people who were able to and/or bothered to write things down. So, historians of Rome or Medieval Europe, for example, will often focus on the wealthy or the rare lower-class rabble-rouser because these are the people who either left their own writings or about whom things were written. Much of the day-to-day minutae, almost all of the lives of the lower classes, and things that might be considered embarrasing to the authors tend to not make it into the historical record.

The value of a project like StoryCorps is, if the recordings are indexed in such a way as to allow proper research, they can provide information on the day-to-day minutae, the common and unremarkable habits, embarrasing incidents, and all other aspects of life that tend to not be written down, but do come out in conversations, and, whether we're aware of it or not, do tend to influence human behavior in some very profound ways. Some of the stories already detail aspects of family history that are of great interest to historians and historic archaeologists. Others are likely to provide a treasure trove to our future colleagues.

So, while I may not be so interested in hearing the schmaltz that tends to get played on the radio, I am rather excited to know that a potential tool such as this is going to be available to future generations of my own profession. It's a wonderful idea.

Vaccines, Science, Anti-Science, and Critical Thinking

As often happens, today I came across an internet discussion on the evils of a particular piece of technology. In this case, the evil technology is the vaccine for the H1N1 virus. I have started looking for information on this, and have found very little that isn't big on hysteria or propaganda, so I can not at this time take a stand on this one particular vaccine. However, in the internet thread that I saw quickly turned into a series of posts in which it was clear that the participants had no real knowledge of the subject, but had simply heard scare stories that confirmed their existing worldview:

Corporations are bad.
Vaccines are made by corporations.
Therefore, vaccines are bad.

Nature is good.
Herbs, juices, vitamins, etc. come from nature.
Therefore these things are good.

Even if one were to concede that corporations are bad (and, believe me, I am well aware of the many problems associated with the fact that so much of the world's money is tied up in large multi-national corporations), it still doesn't follow that all things produced by them are inherently bad. Indeed, for the harm that they can do, no major corporation would have been able to rise unless they also offered some advantages.

Moreover, nature is not inherently good. Certainly, there is something to be said for eating simpler, less processed foods. Likewise, many medications, such as anti-biotics, are overused. However, there are plenty of things in nature that can kill you, ranging from naturally occurring hydrogen sulfide to all manner of uninhabitable environments. The truth is that humans are suited for a fairly narrow range of places within the vastness of nature, and the rest is hostile towards us.

Moreover, the various herbs, vitamins, supplements, etc. that are championed by most people inclined towards such things are themselves produced by for-profit companies with a definite financial stake in keeping and gaining customers. So, the profit motive that drives the major pharmaceutical companies also drives the major companies selling naturopathic goods (in some cases, they're even the same company).

In other words, it's not a case of good naturopaths vs. evil corporations. the naturopaths are just as capable of doing harm as the corporations are, and corporations can do some good despite their reputation. It's not black-and-white. The world is a much more complicated place than that.

I have written about vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement before and in general my views remain the same now. Of course, each new vaccine is essentially a new variation on an old procedure, and as such should be examined carefully for the potential side-effects that the new variation may bring. I do not currently know whether the H1N1 vaccine has unnecessary risks associated with it. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the people who are going on about its dangers don't know either, they are simply repeating stories that they have heard which seem to jive with their pre-existing beliefs about the evils of pharmaceutical companies. That sensationalistic right-wing media outlets are blasting some of the same thing doesn't make these claims true, it simply demonstrates that they are good for ratings (as the fact that I keep seeing a FOx News clip about it in my email and on social networking sites demonstrates).

As a Time magazine article that I recently linked to summarizes it:

while the far right gets a lot of crap about not believing in science, the left isn't crazy about it either. Only instead of rejecting facts that conflict with the Bible, it ignores anything that conflicts with hippie myths about the perfection of nature. That's why my neighborhood is full of places you can go to detoxify with colonics, get healed with crystals and magnets and buy non--genetically engineered food.

It's worth noting that the anti-vaccine movement has gone from particular worries over one particular (and no longer used) vaccine preservative, and has now adopted the entire vague and empty naturopathic lingo of fear of never-specified toxins, appeals to the "superiority" of "natural cures" (nevermind that there is nothing natural about an herb that has been processed for consumption), and has increasingly hijacked the publics well-warranted skepticism of the powerful (major corporations, governments, etc.) to create fears over what is generally one of the safest medical procedures around (there is, of course, some variation among specific vaccines). In other words, as the claims have been increasingly proven to be false, they have become increasingly nebulous and hard to nail down, much less test - the truest signs of psuedo science.

The fact is that the anti-vaccine movement (which itself was jump-started by Andrew Wakefield, a doctor who produced a long-since debunked paper in which he used an overly-small data set to falsely conclude that vaccines cause autism while never disclosing that he had two financial stakes in reaching that finding) is based on hysteria, not reason. However, these folks have managed to capitalize on the confirmation bias and the creation of the confirmation bias's cousin the echo chamber in order to create a spreading worldview in which vaccines are to be viewed with suspicion at bets and hostility at worst. Even those who are not necessarily opposed to the childhood vaccines are being caught up on the wave of hysteria as an increasingly sensationalistic media takes advantage of the wealth of anti-science lunacy supplied by the anti-vaccination crowd to whip fear into the masses who are only too ready to buy the magazine or tune in to hear what they should be afraid of.

And there is the problem. Contrary to what many of these people claim, many of the diseases that we vaccinate against are painful at best and in many cases deadly. They can be prevented by stimulating our bodies immune systems via a vaccine*. Some newer vaccines may require further testing, and some may have risks that outweigh the benefitsm but you won't know that if you simply accept what those who are pushing psuedo-science and lunacy in the name of a false notion of nature or out of a sense of anger towards corporations. You will only know that if you push past that, push past anecdotes, and look at actual data, actual statistical analysis something that none of these people ever seem to be willing to do. The question of whether or not a vaccine is safe is an empirical question that can be answered with empirical data.

Which brings us back to the H1N1 vaccine. Is it safe? Well, to find out, you'll need to look for real and responsible research. Nutjobs on television or the internet screaming about the evils of vaccines will do nothing but scare you and/or confirm your existing biases - they are no more likely to be unbiased and honest than an advertisement**. Try asking a scientist, instead.




* It's worth noting that many of the nuttier of these people advocate not having children vaccinated, but instead exposing them to the diseases to stimulate their immune system. You know, stimulate it kind of like a vaccine does without putting your child, or the children with whom your child comes into contact, at risk. It's the same fucking immune system working in the same fucking way, folks!

** Some people will say "well, if there's so much pro-vaccination talk out there, then some anti-vaccination talk will balance it out!" this is only true when the anti-vaccination talk is based on reality, something that is excedingly rare. If there is a real case against vaccines, then yes, that is important. So far, though, we just keep seeing the same nonsense put forth without any reason or fact behind it.

Grains, Archaeology, and Scientific American

One of the podcasts that I frequently listen to is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. Most days, the podcast features a short clip of audio detailing some a discovery, novel approach to problem solving, or some similar type of science-based issue. A recent episode described the find of a granary in a hunter/gatherer site in Jordan. The find is deemed important because it provides information on the antiquity of the storage of edible seeds in the Middle East. This, in turn, is important because the storage of seeds likely was a necessary step in the eventual development of agriculture as we know it today - simply put, the storage of seeds led to the ability to have seeds on hand for planting, and therefore the development of intentional crops*.

This is, without a doubt, interesting stuff. One of my own personal research interests is the lives of Late Period (ca 1000 AD to 1750 AD) hunter/gatherers in California, and the question of the possible development of proto-agriculture is an active topic of discussion in this field.

What bothered me, however, is that, as it was presented by Scientific American, a generally reliable source for science information, it sounds as if the discovery of a granary at a hunter-gatherer site is a completely new thing, and fills in some missing link between hunter-gatherers and farmers that otherwise might never have been known.

Well, that's not the case at all. I am not an expert in Middle Eastern archaeology, but I do know that in the Americas, Australia, and Africa, granaries are not uncommon features in hunter/gatherer sites. So, the notion that this discovery was new, revolutionary, and mind-blowing is false. It is, in fact, exactly the sort of thing that one would expect to find based on the archaeological records of every other location where hunter gatherers began farming or came close to farming.

At the same time, from a public relations standpoint, perhaps this is a good approach. Many people will be excited if they hear about something like this as if it is cutting-edge research rather than more of the same thing that archaeologists have been finding. In this way, perhaps not correcting Scientific American would have a beneficial effect on public interst in archaeology.

I don't know. It's another one of those places where the public perception and the reality of archaeology are not in agreement. However, unlike some of the other such instances, here, at least, the sensationalism leads people directly into the real archaeology rather than away from it. I have to wonder whether my immediate response of "hey! That's not right, they've ignored all of these other important matters" might actually be wrong-headed. I simply don't know.





*There are other things that likely influenced the development of agriculture which were likely as important, if not more important than the storage of seeds. These include the management of natural plants, sometimes to the point that it is open to debate whether they are natural or domesticated.