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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of camera crews, I have a perpetual skepticism of entire disciplines, partly because of my own ignorance, I'm sure. But also partly because I have a BS detector and it goes off a lot.

Largely about all these inferences made about history using so few data points and a brilliant imagination. Really? You could tell all these things about this specific household because of a pot you found?

I'm not sure I have a beef with the scientists themselves. There is value in guesstimating what dinosaurs looked like. But at some point these guesstimates get sold as scientific discovery.

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I agree with you on skepticism. But there’s a lot more than just a pot behind theories. The pot is just something they can hold in front of the camera. It’s also the ashy layers in the fireplace, the bone pile outside the building, the greater findings at other digs of the same age and culture.

Exactly, the context in which the object is found is more informative that the object itself. The moment this context is disturbed, e.g. artifacts being pillaged from the site and sold on the black market, the object loses almost all archeological scientific value.

So it's not just some cracked pot theory?

But at some point these guesstimates get sold as scientific discovery.

First example from TFA:

Prof Pearson said the remains of a cow, which was found at the site, suggested animals may have helped to pull the stones to their resting spot in England

What, they didn't use trucks? A much better indication than "we found a skeleton" for these ancients having used oxen to move stones would be any remains at all of the sorts of yokes and related equipment that allow oxen to pull heavy loads. Cattle are primarily of value for their meat and dairy, so the fact that humans and cattle were merely associated at any particular site certainly doesn't mean what the good professor seems to claim.

I kinda feel like they have to, because who funds archeology? If they can earn a living or more money by sensationalizing their discovery and making a documentary about it, more power to them I guess.

For me it is primarily fields that deal with humans. Psychology, Sociology, History, Archeology, Anthropology, etc. I take the findings of all of these with a grain of salt. The problem with all of these fields are the people. It is so very hard to know the motivations of people. It is not at all like studying mathematics, physics, etc. where particles don't have any sort of agency, motivation, etc.

> You could tell all these things about this specific household because of a pot you found?

There's a lot of story in history. Construct a narrative stitched together from different sources. Orators in Greece would do the same thing, remember a few lines and improvise the gaps.

> partly because of my own ignorance, I'm sure. But also partly because I have a BS detector and it goes off a lot.

I'm not sure how accurate a bullshit detector can be if you know literally nothing about the field in question.

Reminds me of the complete skeletons produced using things like jaw fragments. Especially for popular species like dinosaurs and ancient hominids.

Like 20 years ago we didn't even know that most dinosaurs had feathers. Most reconstructions are just wishful thinking IMO

> Most reconstructions are just wishful thinking IMO

It's true, but you have to start somewhere. That's the beauty of it. It's fine as long as you do it to the best of the current knowledge and tell it.

For fragments of history that are so old, visualization helps put things in context. And if it means you have to erase every reenactment and start over every other year, so be it.

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