“They are not mad. They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”~Dune Messiah, Herbert, Pg. 24

As we’ve seen in lecture and our readings, Pseudoarchaeology is an ever present problem that has permeated and continues to permeate the scientific establishment. While much has been made of things like ancient astronaut dogma in the form of internet memes and popular jokes, when one steps back and really looks at it, they can see the dangers such baseless ideas can pose to not only archaeology, but to science as a whole. Pseudoscience is more often than not a tool used to advance the ideological or personal goals of those peddling it. Science is an approach to attain knowledge, not a tool to reinforce one’s own point-of-view. It is based on observed and recorded evidence, and when these come into conflict with pseudoscience believers, the stratagem changes from one of defense to offense. Scientists become “the establishment”, “the elites”, “the mainstream” who seek only to be correct and force a certain world view. In a two fold way, Pseudoscience dilutes the potency of scientific inquiry, but also diminishes its legitimacy when in conflict. If science is so democratized that fact can be subject to opinion, then it is no longer fact at all.

In the realm of Archaeology, pseudoscientific thought is dangerous because it can be used to manipulate the past. Not only does archaeology help us understand human culture of the past through material remains, it also is a method by which history can be examined with physical evidence. Famously “written by the victors”, history was once almost universally polluted with the biases, manipulations, and agendas of its writers and patrons. Thankfully, while some of the issues still remain, it has become a discipline of academic integrity, and Archaeology has aided in that by providing data and research to either prove or discount the assertions of past and present historians. Yet, with the advent and growth of pseudoarchaeological thought, archaeology can and does suffer from that dilution and diminishment, thus allowing people to manipulate history for their own gains.