Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

>It should go without saying that a single scholar’s un-peer-reviewed claim does not truth make.

What about a single scholar's un-peer reviewed rebuttal? One of the fun things of social media is that something like this goes viral and everyone says "see I knew it" and the skeptics get shot down for "you're not an academic" but then another academic is skeptical and then we're back to "see, see I knew it." I don't see a solution here buts an amusing pattern.

Not sure who the authority here is, if anyone. I imagine this is the kind of thing that will need to be debated and 'solved' at a later time, regardless if Prof Mulder's skepticism is correct. There could be more to this story that she doesn't know, for example, but I'm personally leaning towards her thesis, but I'm naturally skeptical so I'm fairly biased.

> Not sure who the authority here is

Original claim: Annika Larsson, researcher at Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University http://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N1-483

This rebuttal: Stephennie Mulder, Associate Professor, Art History (Islamic Art and Architecture), University of Texas at Austin https://art.utexas.edu/about/people/stephennie-mulder

For all the bashing about twitter, in the not-too-distant past this exchange would have played out over a year or so, assuming the original claim didn't just languish in some obscure journal somewhere.

Well, that's the big issue isn't it? Pre-twitter, pre-out of control social media, etc a claim from a Jr level person like this would have been met with skepticism and gone through an academic filter that would has squashed it. Nowadays its all over the world before there's a sane response to it. Sadly, many who have memorized this little factoid will never see the rebuttal.

It's hard to tell how much filter was applied since the BBC article only cites the team themselves- I don't see any indication that Larsson is a 'Jr level person' in their field. This could have easily have been published in a specialized journal and not have been refuted until someone with the right background came across it.

I guess in American universities, "researcher" is only an early career position. Later, you either get a professorship, or they kick you out. But this case is about a Swedish university, and there people can be "researchers" their whole careers.

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