Science explained, pseudoscience exposed

Given different versions of the past, how can we reconcile them in the present? One way is to weigh the evidence, and attempt an interaction between past and present. This means clearly identifying the biases of both the resources and data of the past, and those among the observers in the present. Several questions can allow us to do this: what were the people in the past describing, and why? How did the archaeological material accumulate (given different conditions of preservation), and how complete is the archaeological record? What are the observers in the present selecting, and why? We are trying to see if there is any skewing of the interpretation for political correctness or academic goals and ambition, personal ego trips, etc.

Not every interpretation is biased through overt or cynical manipulation of the data. The scientific beliefs of any moment will tend to cloud interpretation of the observer since these are not fixed, and there are always changing views of how the world is organised. This is called a paradigm, and a paradigm shift occurs when new data are framed within changing social conditions.

Since the past is not neutral, this has implications for how archaeology works, because there are different ways that one can get information about the past, and this usually depends on what the individual wants from the past. As a student, you should ask yourself why you want to do archaeology. You may do a course in the subject for purely limited goals, such as filling in a convenient slot in your programme of study, or you may have heard about the subject from one of your friends. The opposite pole are people who have read about archaeology in school and are convinced they want to be archaeologists from seeing too many Indiana Jones movies or National Geographic spectaculars!

For most people, a major in archaeology is not a vocation, but comes purely from interest in the past, and is usually combined with another major which overlaps, and where job prospects are better, e.g. history, geography, etc. What a person chooses as a research area often comes out of the teaching programme, and the need to find a research "niche" to fill.

It should be apparent that there are different explanations possible in the interpretation of archaeological materials. Which explanation is chosen will depend on the theoretical position of the archaeologist. No explanation, however, exists in a vacuum. It usually depends on the archaeological paradigm, i.e. the world view of the scientific beliefs, and is built up from preceding ideas and data.

Here is where we find the problem of the 'lunatic fringe'. Because anyone can make up his or her own explanation about the past, many people think that they can do it simply based on their own experiences and beliefs. This is how ideas of extra-terrestrial involvement in creating the huge sculptures of Easter Island, or the land pictures of South America are developed. I have heard both Americans and South African express the belief that there are tunnels under the earth occupied by strange creatures which come out at night onto archaeological sites.

Such beliefs can be not only anti-intellectual, such as the refusal to acknowledge the importance of evolutionary theory in human development, but can be out-and-out racist, as was the firm belief by white colonists of Rhodesia that Great Zimbabwe was built by Phoenicians, and not the ancestors of the modern Shona.

What many people do not realize is that it takes four years to become a professional archaeologist (3 years undergraduate degree + Honours) and usually another degree to be hired by museums or universities. The reason for this is that it takes time not only to learn about the wide range of archaeological method and theory of how people in various parts of the world through time lived their lives, but also to be able to critically evaluate the data.

Acquiring a full appreciation of science is much like climbing a high, rugged mountain peak - it can only be done in steps, sweated out one by one. The beginning may be the worst part, as it is for all difficult undertakings. Where to start?

Science philosopher Mario Bunge of McGill University thinks of the various mountains of human knowledge as cognitive fields... Here is how Professor Bunge gets started on that organization: "We shall characterize a science, as well as a pseudoscience, as a cognitive field, genuine or fake. A cognitive field may be characterized as a sector of human activity aiming at gaining, diffusing, or utilizing knowledge of some kind, whether this knowledge be true or false. There are hundreds of cognitive fields in contemporary culture: logic and theology, mathematics and numerology, astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy, psychology and parapsychology, social science and humanistic sociology, and so on."

Professor Bunge has not told us what knowledge is, but he has told us something new and important, something of great substance. Notice the pairing of the cognitive fields he has listed. The first member of each pair belongs to science; the second to pseudoscience, or false science. Not all my readers will agree with the professor on the things he has put in the pseudoscience group; for if you are a believer in astrology or parapsychology, you may feel outraged.

Nevertheless, a salient point has been made here. The mountains of knowledge can be separated into two mountain ranges, between which lies a great gulf. so there are two kinds of cognitive fields. One, Bunge says, consists of belief fields, in which the knowledge rests on belief - belief in something that cannot be observed to exist. He cites religions and political ideologies as examples. He also puts pseudoscience in with the belief fields. The other, Bunge says, consists of the research fields, in which knowledge rests solely on observation of the real world. He puts science - both basic and applied varieties - in this category along with the humanities. Bunge gives us one distinguishing feature that clearly separates the two fields: "Whereas a research field changes all the time as a result of research, a belief field changes, if at all, as a result of controversy, brute force, or revelation."

To meet the special needs of science, those that are scientific statements must conform to a special standard of quality, both in the manner in which they are arrived at and in the language by which they are transmitted.

Scientific knowledge: the best picture of the real world that humans can devise, given the present state of our collective investigative capability. By "best" we mean (a) observe), (b) the most satisfactory explanation of what is observed in terms of interrelatedness to other phenomena and to basic or universal laws, and (c) description and explanation that carry the greatest probability of being a true picture of the real world. Scientific knowledge represents the harvest of human endeavor; it is an artifact and its makers are fallible. Therefore, scientific knowledge is imperfect and must be continually restudied, modified, and corrected; it will never achieve static perfection.

Scientific method: the method or system by which scientific knowledge is secured. It is designed to minimise the commission of observational errors and errors of interpretation. The method uses a complex system of checks and balances to offset many expressions of human weakness, including self-deception, narrowness of vision, defective logic, and selfish motivation.

[Science is comprised of four pillars.] First, the value attached to a scientific statement must in no way be connected with the personal characteristics of the scientist who makes that statement... The strength or weakness of a hypothesis must be considered strictly on its scientific content and supporting evidence. It should make no difference whatsoever that the scientist is of a certain race, religion, sex, age, political affiliation, and so forth.

Second, findings made by one scientist must be shared freely and openly with the entire scientific community. Publication of such findings is thus a moral obligation. This is the principle of communality. It doesn't help us to distinguish scientists from the practioners of pseudo-science; the latter publish compulsively and could not be restrained from doing so - verbal diarrhoea is their chronic disease.

Third, scientists must practice organised scepticism. Each scientist must scrutinize the publications of others in the same area of specialization and express his or her criticism in print, in journal articles, reviews, and letters, as well as orally from the floor of a meeting room or a seat on the debating stage. This activity is a form of mutual policing needed to sustain a high quality of published scientific information. Perhaps the most important part of the policing action occurs through peer reviews of articles submitted to scientific journals. Reviewers must take their job seriously; they must search closely for errors in observations and weaknesses in arguments. They receive no monetary reward for this service, which draws time from their own research programs, but it is to the mutual benefit of all.

The scrutiny of one's work by colleagues is a feature wholly lacking in the publication of pseudoscience literature. Velikovsky, von Daniken and their publishers' editors never sort critical reviews from scientists familiar with those areas of astronomy, geology, and archaeology that form the skeletal structure of their scenarios. If those authors had submitted their manuscripts to scientific journals, rejection notices would have been swift in coming. It looks, then, as if authors of pseudoscientific material shy away from the scientific community. Instead, they seek support in the nonscience community, and particularly from those persons having little higher education in any field of knowledge. Prima facie evidence of this audience selection lies in the fact that pseudoscience is published by those same publishing houses (or divisions within a publishing house) that handle fiction, science fiction, and the more sensational forms of biography and autobiography. You would not find a Worlds in Collision or a Chariots of the Gods? on a publisher's list of scientific textbooks and monographs.

A fourth norm [is] disinterestedness, meaning that a scientist's research should not be guided by desire for personal rewards. He refers to such rewards as private economic gain, glory in the eyes of the nonscientific public, and even the honors and medals awarded by scientists to each other. We must be careful here to emphasize that such personal rewards are essentially excrescences or trappings that do not always accurately measure the quality of the scientific work of the individual. We of university experience know former that nearly every senior professor has a following of former students who conspire to get the "old prof" a medal or prize. Award committees rely mostly on the number of nominating letters received in support of a candidate for the honor.

Of the four norms presented here, this last one is least likely to be observed within the scientific community, and is often flagrantly violated that it is perhaps little more than a sham. I can assure my readers unfamiliar with the academic profession that nearly every scientist seeks to maximise private economic gain in one way or another, and many try to get public exposure through the news media. Many (with thinly veiled understandings of reciprocity) encourage colleagues to come through with an honor.

As for the pseudoscientists, the norm of disinterestedness is simply not there, and no shame is to be incurred from violating such a norm. emphasis is on rolling up the royalty earnings and fees from book sales, TV/motion picture adaptations, and lectures to lay audiences, on public exposures through media interviews, and on receiving expressions of adulation from fan clubs within the cult. Pseudoscience is big business and very little else!

Professional recognition has a meaning here quite distinct from the personal rewards listed above. Recognition is judged primarily in terms of acceptance of one's scientific reports for publication in journals operated by peers in one's own field of specialization. Peer-reviews serve to let pass only the highest quality products, while the excess in number of submitted manuscripts makes competition severe. Journals that can be the most chosey confer the highest value upon the papers they publish. Thus, faculty committees who must evaluate a colleague for tenure appointment tend to place higher value on the candidate's articles that have appeared in the more prestigious journals. another source of professional recognition comes from the citation of a scientist's published works in the texts and bibliographies of other scientists' works. A high frequency of citation is equated to high value of the product.

As to the producers of pseudoscience, professional recognition within the scientific community is nonexistent. They are excluded in a very form manner. Exclusion is then seized upon by the pseudoscientist and attached cult as an opportunity to indulge in paranoia.

[My note: Readers will do well to also note that the "lunatic fringe", pseudoscience in all its variants, ignore the standard scientific concept of "Occam's Razor". In other words, this guiding principle warns us against constructing elaborate ideas based on flimsy grounds when a more simplified, stronger hypothesis is either available or can be constructed. "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity."]