Posts tagged Science
Bookmarks for 16th of November through to 18th of November
Nov 18th
These are my links for 16th of November through 18th of November:
- The Academic Journal Racket « In the DarkTelescoper explains how academic publishing works. The only thing that would improbe the post would be the theme from 'The Naked Gun' in the background.
- A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’ – NYTimes.comYou can make arguments in favour of repatriation of antiquities. You can make arguements against. Being on either side doesn't make you inherently foolish. But when you write that the British Army took the Rosetta Stone from the French and "returned it to the British Museum" then something has gone wrong. It's probably a case of momentary brainfade rather than idiocy, but it matters because the whole question of ownership of the Rosetta Stone is about where it rightfully belongs. Using the word 'returned' builds in the assumption that all antiquities are inherently British.
- Notes & Queries; Sledges – Theoretical Structural ArchaeologyGeoff Carter concluded he didn't have evidence for a staggeringly early cart shed in Poland. Could it have been a used to house a sledge? I've just realised I know absolutely nothing at all about the history of sleds and sledges. Not only that, but I can't recall much attention More >
Strange sights in Stephenville
Jan 22nd
I don’t know what this thing in Stephenville, TX, is. Ergo it’s a Mystery. Photo (cc) Broken Piggy Bank.
If you haven’t been following the press reports, there’s been a UFO flap in Stephenville. The best write-up of it I’ve seen is by Astroprof, who’s put up a couple of entries on it. He’s of the opinion that first it’s unidentified. He also argues that the witness statements don’t add up. For instance can anyone see the problem of a UFO one mile long, half a mile wide, flying just a few hundred yards above a town of 17,000 people and only 30 people noticing? I think there’s a few difficulties in saying that people saw a UFO like that. At the same time that doesn’t mean that the people who did see something were delusional or lying.
Newsweek opens its article on the flap by placing the event in the context of evolutionary history. Humans are social animals and for most of the past we’ve also been hunted animals. We’ve needed to learn to spot intent. The psychology behind that doesn’t have to be perfect. There’s a compromise between speed and quality of judgement. Spotting intent where there isn’t may have More >
A Guided Tour of the Ghost Map
Dec 20th
An while poking around at TED following linking to Larry Lessig’s talk I found this short (10 minutes) talk on the John Snow and his map of cholera outbreaks in London.
Isn’t the Aventis Prize Wonderful?
Apr 14th
The Aventis Prize celebrates the best in science publishing. I’ve only recently seen the short-list and it looks like my card and I will be off to Amazon again. The long-list is interesting too. I’ve read Gribben’s Deep Simplicity, and life would be much more wonderful if several pseudo-mathematical archaeologists had too. I also see Brian Fagan has a new one out. I suppose with him being so prolific that was always going to be a safe bet, and he’s a consistently good communicator so that’s another book to add to the ‘to-read pile. Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball looks essential too as it tackles collective decision making, which has implications for ‘agency‘ in archaeology.
A couple of years ago I would have followed this up with a whine about how it’s a shame that archaeologists cannot communicate, but that’s thankfully totally inaccurate now. I have Steve Mithen’s After the Ice and that Cave of the Mind one by someone whose name I forget on my to read pile. As for other books, while I don’t agree with all of Francis Pryor’s Britain BC, it is nonetheless an excellent bit of work. Martin Jones’s Molecule Hunt is also fantastic.
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