Huffington Post Needs to be Challenged

The Huffington Post, a liberal blog/online newspaper, has up until recently been relatively ok.   However, as mentioned over at Bad Astronomy, it has been a haven for Antivaxxer nut jobs.   They have given room to Jim Carrey, the funny guy who’s movies suck unless he is trying not to be funny, RFK Jr, who is related to politicians, and other similarly non-medical/non-science nuts.

There most recent post, is by Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald.  Wow, a doctor, sounds scientific and medical, maybe there is something bad with vacinations…. oh, wait, Huffington Post says:

Patricia Fitzgerald is a licensed acupuncturist, certified clinical nutritionist, and a homeopath. She has a Master’s Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Doctorate in Homeopathic Medicine.

So, yeah she’s a doctor, but she’s a doctor in a bunch of crazy, made up, potentially health threatening lies. Listening to this lady is like bringing your car to a mechanic who has a doctorate in flying carpets, except she wants to kill or cripple your children.

Someone needs to call out the Huffington Post for supporting the nuts who want you and other people to not vaccinate your children.   I don’t care who it is, liberal, conservative, whatever.  I also think hosts like Keith Olberman need to stop using commentators from Huffington Post, as it has no credibility if it is willing to run this crap.  In fact, Keith should make Huffington Post, or at least these contributors the worst people in the world on an upcomming show.

Remember, these people would rather your kid had measles, mumphs, chicken pox, smallpox, polio, etc, than got a vaccine that has scientifically been shown again and again to not cause autism.

K-Cup Conundrum

This post is a bit off topic for my blog, but I thought I would throw it out there for everyone.

I recieved a Keurig K-Cup coffee maker recently as a gift.  I really love it, but have a bit of a moral dilema with it.   The K-Cups, which you use for each cup of coffee are not recyclable.   I really don’t like using them, but the coffee they make is really good and really easy.

I was hoping that someone might have suggestions for reuse of the cups.

Additionally, I would like imput on the My-K-Cup, which I have used, but am a bit iffy on buying because of price (Amazon for the info).   Or I would like to know if anyone has experience with the My-Cap, which is supposed to let you reuse your Keurig K-Cups.  Is reusing a K-Cup 10 times really that much better environmentally?

Tangled Bank Call for Submissions

If you have a submission for the next Tangled Bank, please post a link in the comments. Submissions are due Thursday by Midnight.

Begging for Articles

If anyone out there has access to Science Express from Science/AAAS and can give me the following article, please leave a comment or hit me up through contents.

Molecular and Evolutionary History of Melanism in North American Gray Wolves

Anderson et al.
Science 5 February 2009: 1165448v1
DOI: 10.1126/science.1165448

Thanks in advance

UPDATE: Someone has sent me the article.  Thanks for everyone who offered.

Contest: Win a Copy of The Real Tomb Hunters

This is your chance to win a copy of the History Channel’s The Real Tomb Hunters on DVD.   I recently reviewed this DVD here.  Included with my preview copy was an additional DVD, which I would like to send to one of my readers.   All you have to do is comment on the bottom of this page by midnight Febuary 28th.   From all of those who comment (you only have to do so once), I will randomly choose a winner and mail them their copy.

Review of History Channels The Real Tomb Hunters

The History Channel, really a publicity agency they higher, sent me this DVD in the mail to review.   It promises Snakes, Curses, and Booby Traps, which it tries to deliver on (though I don’t really see how it can deliver actual curses since they do not exist.)  The text on the DVD packaging essentially promises to compare archaeologists to their fictional counterparts, fighting, hunting, exploring, surviving, etc.

Overall, the DVD searches for the most heroic and embellished stories of archaeologies past, focusing on the Indiana Jones of our discipline.   Needless to say, this not only leaves out about 99% of archaeology, such as analysis, lab work, teaching, preservation, begging for money, and the like, but it leaves out probably 75% of the history of modern archaeology.  In short, archaeologists no longer focus on the looking, killing, fighting lifestyles of Laura Croft.   The heroes the History Channel talks about are almost all dead now, and fall into what we call Culture-Historic archaeology.   This is the pre-science discipline of archaeology.  It is also generally the period, as not really seen in this DVD, of racist colonial archaeologists exploiting and stealing from indigenous peoples.

Because of the theoretical and heroic focus of this DVD, it is also really focused on elite Archaeology.  There is nothing really looking at prehistoric sites, small non-elite sites, or the post-processual ideas of the non-vocal minorities (ie women).   Instead one can expect Egyptian, Grecco-Roman, Mayan,  and Inka sites.  This is somewhat disappointing to me as an archaeologist, since so much of the really great stuff being found is ignored by the History Channel.

While this DVD doesn’t deliver very well concerning the actual nature of archaeology or the modern concerns of archaeologists, it does have one good section.  There is an extesive part of the DVD focused on explaining looting and the increasing importance of cultural heritage in determining the outcome of archaeological excavations.   For this section alone, I actually do recommend this DVD.  The stories involved are somewhat over the top, but can serve to impress the importance of the issue on non-professionals.

So, I would not suggest that anyone consider this DVD an actual view of the “real tomb hunters” as much as this can be used as a euphemism for archaeologists.  However, it does offer a somewhat entertaining look at the outdated Culture-historic period of archaeology (think of

Top Ten Pseudo-Archaeological Subjects of 2008

A lot of sites have been putting together their top tens for 2008, so I thought I would offer up the top ten pieces of news concerning pseudo-archaeology in 2008.    There has been a lot going on, and I am sure there are things I may have missed.  If you think there is something that deserves to be in the top ten list, post a comment bellow.

So here we go:

10) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Few people have done more over the years to bring pseudo-archaeology, looting, and biblical literalism to the masses than Indiana Jones.  In his latest film Indy deals with ancient astronauts, one of the most longstanding piles of horse manure in archaeology.   While Indy continues to further the inaccurate and illegal image of archaeologists to the public, this film does have a number of references to real archaeological theories and a few points where Indy’s disregard for cultural patrimony are addressed.

9)Dr. James Tabor’s Statistics

Dr. Tabor’s treatment of the Talpiot Tomb is ranked so low, because it’s really yesterday’s news.   Most archaeologists are over the subject, and realize that Biblical Archaeology is still stuck in the past.  Never the less, Tabor has spent the last year saying, “in fact it is very close to 1/2, meaning if we had two tombs to examine, one of them would be the Jesus tomb.”  This is, of course, a dramatically incorrect statement of statistics and interpretation.   Oh well, maybe next year

8 ) The Queen of Sheba’s Palace (Tie)

Bloomburg News reported that a German research group that set out to find the Ark of the Covenant had found the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Axum Ethiopia.   This might be a bit problematic for the number of scholars that don’t think Sheba was in Ethiopia.   This was a largely unreported story in the US though, circulating mostly through religious blogs.

8 ) Proof of Romulus and Remus (Tie)

Archaeologists in Rome found a cave, that was likely a ritual site.   From this, they extrapolated that Rome was actually founded by Romulus.  Don’t get the jump yourself?  Neither did P.E. Wiseman from Exeter, who proved his name appropriate when he mentioned how impossible such claims are in archaeology. (Link here)

7) 10,000 BC

This film brought a new image of the past to the public, unfortunately, it left its historical accuracy behind.   Really, there was little accurate at all in this film, and it avoided all the interesting things that were actually occurring at this point in human history.   To no one’s big surprise, it met with poor reviews and was essentially a grandiose flop.

6) Muslim Sailors in Skeptic

In the fourth issue of Skeptic for 2008, Tim Callahan put together a generally good piece on ancient super cultures.  Unfortunately, it was marred by his own personal belief in pre-Columbian contact between Arab sailors and the New World.   It’s hard to see Skeptic support such pseudo-science, which is why this event made it so high on my list.

5) Oldest Hebrew Writing Discovered

… or was it?  There are a number of problems with the text.  First, it may not be Hebrew at all.  Second, the dating is still not as exact as needed.  Finally, the claims that go with it concern proving the bible.   However, it says nothing about the bible (presumably, since it hasn’t been desciphered yet), and is instead used as evidence that stories could be passed down.   Niditch has repeatedly made the point that texts aren’t even necessary for this, and I would add that even if they existed, they don’t prove the stories true. (Link here)

4) Looting Archaeologists

I just recently posted on this topic.   Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review called for museums to fund archaeological research by buying artifacts.  However, this throws out ethics and science turning archaeologists into treasure hunters.  Instead of entertaining us with Indy, Mr. Shanks would turn us all into him.

3) Cable Television

Cable television has continued its downward slide with respect to archaeology.  Nova, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and other media have grown much more interested in discussing the bible code, historical realities of the bible, or aliens at Tunguska.  On top of this, they have added adventurers and actors, like Simcha Jacobovici, who remove the context of archaeology from the shows by a further step.   While this is a major problem with the public portrayal of archaeology, the presence of Turin Shrine shows and secret society histories on this channels is so long running that it has become numbing.

2) Creationist Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo

The Cincinnati Zoo decided that it would offer a special ticked allowing reduced prices for those who also attended a Christmas event at the Kentucky Creationist House of Lies… er Museum.  This would have been an even bigger event, had the museum not folded like a map when the remainder of the nation found out about it and inundated them with angry calls and emails.

1) Kofels Impact

Jeff Medkeff, who’s passing the skeptics of the world mourned this year, covered this topic quite well here.  Essentially, a clay tablet with no current translation was stated as representing an impact at the site of Kofels by a meteorite.  Well, as Jeff noted, there was no impact, no crator, and no meteorite.  So why make this all up?   To sell a book of course.    This piece of pseudo-archaeology makes it to number 1 for 2008, because it is perhaps the greatest intellectual fraud of the year in archaeology, as every single noteworthy part of the work is basically a fairy tale.

So that’s it for 2008, I hope everyone had a good year, and that next year is even better.   I am sure I will be back with ten more stories in 2009, so get ready.

Archaeologists as Looters

Kent Flannery once likened the archaeological process to ethnographic work where the informant is killed after fieldwork so that no one else could get to the information.   It is because of this that archaeologists are so protective of the material record to which they have access.   In recent years, perhaps because of the current condition of Iraq, the issue of looting has come to the forefront of these concerns.

Scholarly groups like the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Schools of Oriental Research have offered a number of ethical and scholarly guidelines meant to stem the tide of looting, or at least limit the archaeological impetus for it.   Among these points is not to ever buy, authenticate, or publish artifacts that do not originate with archaeological proveniences.  Alternatively, when looting appears imminent, governments or other groups can initiate Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects. Finally, when necessary and possible, guards are placed on important archaeological sites in order to monitor and protect material remains. This can come in the form of military guards, armed locals, or park rangers. All of these approaches have the benefit of protecting artifacts and allowing for ethical and scientific archaeology.

In a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Editor Hershel Shanks offers an approach to looting that he favors, turn archaeologists into looters. Instead of supporting the various efforts of site protection and looting mitigation, Shanks suggests that scholars dig sites and sell their artifacts to museums for funding. On the surface this may seem like a reasonable idea, but it is quite problematic, and is more likely an attempt by Shanks to sidestep the efforts of major scholarly organizations to stem looting. This should come as no surprise as Shanks has effectively staked his name and made a point of supporting, authenticating, publishing, and purchasing looted artifacts. If the attempts by credible archaeologists to stem looting took hold across the spectrum of scholars, his publication would largely be out in the cold, and he would have to face the music behind the number forged artifacts he had supported in recent years.

Perhaps the greatest problem, as far as I see it, is the focus that this funding strategy will force on scholars. Effectively, archaeologists will be forced to produce objects with museum draw in order to get funding. This would shut down scholars who work with things like faunal analysis or paleoethnobotany. Generally, museum goers do not want to see a bunch of seeds or some gnawed bones (though I think they rock). Instead, well preserved ritual objects and rare items will be the greatest target for archaeologists. This may be a bit of a problem at present, anyway, but this funding plan will certainly exacerbate the problem. Of course, Shanks will likely not be too concerned with this, since he works largely in the culture-historic archaeology of the Iron Age Levant, and has a history of publishing fantastic items without context, authenticity, or un-forged inscriptions.

A second problem is the lack of scientific concern in the buy-artifacts funding plan. Currently, funding applications compete on a basis of wide applicability, potential of publications, and scientific value. Under the museum oriented plan Shanks proposes, this disappears, leaving behind one of the checks that shapes scholarly work today. Instead of peer review on projects and possibilities choosing funding, it will be the possibility of aesthetically pleasing finds. Of course, if buying finds is a source of funding, publication could become a moot concern for many archaeologists. For many in the biblical field this is enough of a problem already, and anything that can be done to prevent backsliding should be done.

An additional concern is the ownership of artifacts. If museums are buying artifacts, they own them. This takes them out of the public sphere and away from the groups that have cultural rights to them. Archaeologists should by now be familiar with these issues, and recognize the failure required by Shanks’ proposal. Either archaeologists must sell heritages, or never actually dig sites that would fall under NAGPRA or similar legal or ethical forces. This is interesting, considering Shanks works primarily with archaeology that occurs in Israel, which owns all of the artifacts in the country. If scholars started working under the museum funded model proposed in BAR, Israelite scholarship would grind to a halt.

The proposal put forth by Shanks is not new, and it is as much a failure today as it ever was. In fact, the growing understanding of ethics that has appeared in archaeology should let scholars recognize it as an even larger failure than it ever was. The model of archaeological funding proposed in BAR is an ethical terror and a complete abandonment of the scientific method in favor of antiquated antiquarian looting and the murder of informants without any interviews.

Shanks, Hersehl (2008) “First Person” in Biblical Archaeology Review 34 (6)

Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets

Tonight, Nova has an episode on called “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”.   I had to walk in halfway through due to class, but I thought I would blog a bit as I watch.

1) Speakers are very much textualists and believers.  This is not all true, they do have Dever, an agnostic who is largely an archaeologist, but by and large these are not archaeologists (buried secrets?) or skeptics.   This bothers me quite a bit, but also follows the unfortunate trend in studies of this region and time period.

2) There are some clear biases.  Saying that commoners in ancient Israel were not faithful because they worshiped Asherah is a complete anachronism.  This worship would have been just as much a part of the religion as Yhwh.   Additionally, calling Asherah a pagan goddess is implying modern and at the very least postexilic interpretations on it.

Calling polytheism a folly is also an implication that there is a correct god or religion.

I would also like to step back from the number of claims being made at present that monotheism became complete after the Exile.   Polytheistic beliefs were still there, the book of Jeremiah is pretty clear on this. The claims being made are a rewriting of history.

3) “Transforms an ancient cult to a modern religion” is a painfuly biased statement.  Can we step away from the word cult finally please?  Religious scholars have a specific use for the term cult, this is not it.    Additionally, it seems to imply that Judaism was born in the Exile in its modern form.  This negelects centuries of development and change.

4) Stop calling ancient Israelites Jews!!  This conflicts both with the terms I comment on in point 3 and actual history.  The religion was very different than Judaism, it was polytheistic, it was a henotheistic faith, it held countless practices and beliefs not in common with Judaism.

I wish I has seen the first hour, but I really don’t know if there was anything great.  In general this show seems to have followed the general pattern of science television in archaeology and in religion, ignoring science, fact, and interpretations that do not fit common hopes for the results.

Muslim Sailors, a Skeptical Redux

A couple months ago, I wrote a post in response to a Skeptic article about ancient super societies that had a bit of pseudoarchaeology all on its own.  The following is a revision of the post, with some new sources and new points, which I submitted to Skeptic, but never heard back on.

In a recent issue of Skeptic, Tim Callahan discusses the issue of ancient astronauts and lost civilizations.(1) This is perhaps one of the most frequent and popular theories of pseudo-archaeology, and certainly an area of concern ripe for a skeptical assessment.(2) Overall, Callahan does an admirable job in addressing the common theories of hidden secret civilizations, and it is good to see the inclusion of more recent Raelian ideas, which are generally seen as too off base for archaeologists to even bother discussing them. However, Callahan’s discussion of pseudo-archaeology takes a long diversion into another popular area of fictitious history, using it as an argument against lost civilizations. I refer to his theory that Muslim cultures were in direct contact with the Americas before Columbus, only one of many unsupported propositions of Pre-Columbian exploration of the New World.

Callahan is quite right in discounting Charles Hapgood’s theories concerning the Piri Reis map as evidence of ancient lost civilizations. This map, drawn around 1513 CE, shows South America connected to Antarctica. Hapgood states that the only way the Muslim Turks could have found out this information was through hidden past knowledge, since they had bad blood with the Christians of Portugal and Spain. Callahan states that this is insufficient evidence of a past society, because the Muslims were in fact travelers who had reached the new world before Columbus. Such a dramatic theory is sufficient to not only shock most archaeologists and historians, but to outright require a rewrite of history and a significant shift in paradigm. However, as in the case of all paradigm shifts, there remains a burden of proof, both of necessity and more obviously the theory behind the change.

Within “A New Mythology”, there are two strains of evidence presented for the theory that Muslims reached the New World before Columbus and explored the shores of South America. First, is a cache of coins found off of Venezuela’s coast, two of which Dr. Cyrus Gordon identified as ninth century Muslim coins. One might wonder why Callahan chooses these coins as possible evidence, when even he is willing to recognize the problems of their authenticity. Without provenance, it is impossible to give context to these finds, or prove that they are not outright frauds.(3)

Perhaps, the largest problem is the source of information concerning these coins, Cyrus Gordon’s Before Columbus: Links between the Old World and Ancient America.(4) Dr. Gordon may have been a credible scholar in the field of linguistics, but his work concerning Pre-Columbian contacts has in the past put him into comparison with Eric Von Daniken, recognized as a pseudo-historian.(5) It is quite likely that Gordon’s acceptance of these ninth century coins may be similar to his work with the so called “Bat Creek Stone” which is widely recognized by scholars as a forgery, but was in his eyes a Canaanite inscription proving pre-Columbian travels to Tennessee from ancient Syria-Palestine.(6) Since this is the only source available for Callahan’s coins, it is perhaps wise of him to be wary of using them exclusively for evidence of his theory.

The second line of support provided by Callahan for pre-Columbian Muslim visits to America comes from the work of Dr. M. D. W. Jefferies, in his 1973 article “Pre-Columbian Maize in Asia”.(7) According to Jefferies, Maize, a new world domesticate, reached Asia Minor around 1320 CE. This in conjunction with the European names given it, “Turkish corn” and “Saracen corn” is said by Callahan and Jefferies to be evidence of an earlier Muslim import of maize to the Old World.(8) However, we again are left with a question of sources for this theory of trade and exploration. An early reviewer of the volume that included Jefferies’ article wrote

The botanical papers (which look at the dispersal of maize, beans, squash, cotton, sweet potato, bottle gourd and coconut) add up to a cautious ‘not proven’, with no unambiguous proof of contacts across the oceans in the pre-European period.(9)

Only a few years later, the idea of pre-Columbian corn in the Old World was under attack from scholars

The question that must be raised in response to Callahan is how maize spread to Asia and Europe if not for Muslim traders bringing it from the Americas. Simply put, the corn could have moved through the Portuguese explorers to the Muslims. This theory was recognized as early as 1955, when it was proposed to have either come through Spain, over the Strait of Gibraltar, or through the various Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.(10) From there, it could easily have passed both into Asia Minor and the wrest of Eurasia through various trade routes, possibly including the Silk Road.(11) As a result it is now accepted that maize entered the region in the early to middle sixteenth century and spread quickly, reaching China in roughly one hundred years. The names given by Europeans to corn may reflect Muslim origins, but only from the fact that trade with such groups was prevalent and Europeans associated the new grain with some of its sources. In short, Callahan appears to utilize an outdated source of questionable value, ignoring much more epistemologically pleasing theories.

One might now ask, if corn was traded between Christians and Muslims, why not ideas and maps? Clearly this is a much more parsimonious theory behind the Piri Reis map, and one that Callahan eventually comes to. The close of his section on this chart reads

…Thus, the Piri Reis map may not be the great enigma theorists of the new paradigm claim it to be. Finally, it turns out that a notation of the “Portuguese Infidels” indicating that Muslims had access to Western information after all.

Even Callahan, after spending almost an entire page worth of text on the idea of Muslim seamen reaching the Americas before Columbus, is willing to accept this theory. It is obviously somewhat of an after thought for him, as it is simply tacked on to the end of a section of his paper, without citation, and blatantly missing from his E-Skeptic version of this publication, which does include his Muslim explorers theory.(12) It is difficult to say why the article did not simply focus on obvious trade and contact across the Christian-Muslim divide, instead offering an “alternative history”, but in doing so, its argument is severely weakened.

There are three reasons that I bring this to the attention of skeptics and archaeologists. First, to correct a pseudo-historical theory based on outdated and unprovenanced evidence, second, to hopefully offer a more robust rebuttal of the theories of ancient super civilizations, and finally, to illustrate that as skeptics we must look at all sources of information, even if they appear in otherwise wonderful articles or friendly publications such as Skeptic.

(1) Tim. Callahan, “A New Mythology: Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations, and the New Age Paradigm,” Skeptic 13, no. 4 (2008).

(2) Garrett G. Fagan, ed., Archaeological Fantasies (New York NY: Routledge, 2006). 23

(3) Callahan. 34

(4) Published 1971 by Crown Publishers Inc., New York.

(5) Pat ed Linse, “Junior Skeptic,” Skeptic 13, no. 3 (2007). 82-85, Callahan. 36, Eugene J. and Marshall McKusick Fisher, “East and West,” The Biblical Archaeologist 43, no. 2 (1980)., Marshall McKusick, “Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone?,” The Biblical Archaeologist 42, no. 3 (1979).

(6) Robert C. and Mary L. Kwas Mainfort, “The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Revealed,” American Antiquity 69 no. 4 (2004). 763-769

(7) in Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts, 1973 University of Texas Press, Austin TX.

(8) Callahan. 35

(9) Carroll and Warwick Bray Riley, “Man Accross the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts,” Man 7, no. 4 (1972). 649

(10) Conway Zirkle, “Indian Corn in Old America,” Isis 46, no. 1 (1955).

(11) Anne E. Desjardins and Susan A. McCarthy Desjardins, Milho, Makka and Ya Mai: Early Journeys of Zea Mays in Asia(2008, accessed February 13 2008); available from http://nal.usda.gov/research/maize/index.shtml.

(12) Tim. Callahan, Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations, and a New Paradigm(2007, accessed February 13 2008); available from http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-04-25.html.

Selected Bibliography

Callahan, Tim. Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations, and a New Paradigm 2007, accessed February 13 2008; Available from http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-04-25.html.

________. “A New Mythology: Ancient Astronauts, Lost Civilizations, and the New Age Paradigm.” Skeptic 13, no. 4 (2008): 32-41.

Desjardins, Anne E. Desjardins and Susan A. McCarthy. Milho, Makka and Ya Mai: Early Journeys of Zea Mays in Asia 2008, accessed February 13 2008; Available from http://nal.usda.gov/research/maize/index.shtml.

Fagan, Garrett G., ed. Archaeological Fantasies. New York NY: Routledge, 2006.

Fisher, Eugene J. and Marshall McKusick. “East and West.” The Biblical Archaeologist 43, no. 2 (1980): 71-73.

Linse, Pat ed. “Junior Skeptic.” Skeptic 13, no. 3 (2007): 80-89.

Mainfort, Robert C. and Mary L. Kwas. “The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Revealed.” American Antiquity 69 no. 4 (2004): 761-769.

McKusick, Marshall. “Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone?” The Biblical Archaeologist 42, no. 3 (1979): 137-140.

Riley, Carroll and Warwick Bray “Man Accross the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts.” Man 7, no. 4 (1972): 649-650.

Zirkle, Conway. “Indian Corn in Old America.” Isis 46, no. 1 (1955): 64-65.

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