Believing in pseudoscientific and non-scientific claims about the human past can cause many harmful effects to society; pseudoscience has the ability to alter the public perception of the legitimacy of science and to the perception of human ability and human history. Pseudoscientist intend to dismantle the authority of scholars by legitimizing themselves while simultaneously delegitimizing genuine science. Archaeology is often targeted by pseudoscientists because they do not believe an archaeologist has more authority than them to make an inference about a population. By criticizing every aspect of science, especially the longevity of a scientific claim and its legitimacy, pseudoscientists try to show that no scientific statement is true. Although this tactic may be intended in a harmless way to further their idea of aliens influencing societies, it can easily be used to further ethnocentric ideas like those of nationalist groups. Groups can easily transition from believing one scientific claim is false, to all scientific claims are false and their views as a group are correct. Ethnocentric ideas are propelled when the anthropological idea of cultures varying based on the historical adaptation of the society environment is ignored. Ethnocentric mentalities work alongside the belief that past societies could not have developed certain large structures or create such small details in artifacts. This belief that past humans could not have been intelligent enough to make discoveries like these portrays these populations to be less civilized than current human populations. When ethnocentrism is combined with this idea of societies not being civilized based on a certain perspective of what civilized means, genocides occur. If mass populations believe the pseudo archaeological claims that certain societies are not developed enough to have advancements of today, those societies will be viewed as a lesser, and if there is a violent enough group who believes this, the ‘lesser’ may be eliminated.
2 thoughts on “The Harm of Believing Pseudoscientific Claims”
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Hello!
I liked your comment about how pseudo archeologists can compromise the validity of real scholars. If the general public learns about pseudo archeology, there is a chance they can mistake this for real facts. Sometimes people can be very naive and believe these claims. Before taking this class, I had not heard of Pseudo archeology and therefore did not know that it was used to further ethnocentric agendas. I knew somewhat about nazi archeology, but I had no idea the whole nazi agenda was fueled by pseudo archeology. This is scary to me because some of these ideals still exist today with neo nazis. I hate that pseudoscientists are trying to pull history into their claims as well. As you and Professor Watrall mentioned, some of these people just look at artifacts or structures and make random claims about why they think they are that way. None of these are backed up by facts, and can cause many issues. I think psuedoscience is really harmful to younger generations especially. The public is taking this information in and if they are uneducated about how to see through pseudo archeology, they could be pulled into believing it. Just like the example we saw in class about the Obelisk, and how some pseudo archeologists say that there is no way humans could build it so aliens had to intervene. With a little bit of research we can see that many of these exist around many countries and that it is in fact possible for humans to have created these many years ago.
While pseudoarchaeologists are certainly keen to discredit “mainstream” scientists, I don’t think it’s their authority or knowledge necessarily that they are seeking to discredit. At least not as the main goal, I think most main pseudoarchaeologists main complaint is that mainstream scientists and academia are trying to actively keep them, and their claims out of more accepted and reputable circles. And it is hardly the first time that such a mindset has taken hold. While there are certainly enough scientists whose theories were not initially accepted, but later found their way into the fold, much like Copernicus, or Galileo. These scientists’ work was grounded in evidence and data collected using the fundamental principals of the scientific method.
While it is certainly not a leap that pseudoarchaeologists, as they do not adhere to commonly accepted and established archaeology theories, might begin to deny other general scientific theories. As mentioned in class people who are members of one pseudoscientific group often belong to more than one. But there is a difference in the amount of suspension of disbelief necessary to believe that Atlantis is a real place and to believe that the Earth is flat. They both involve a lack of understanding, some of it is willful, but one has to wonder how much of it is a product of education or environment. What about someone’s education that might encourage pseudoarchaeological beliefs? Also, how are children in the education system now being affected by pseudoarchaeological beliefs being popularized. Especially by T.V. shows like Ancient Aliens?