Jan 3, 2022 08:13 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 3, 2022 10:51 PM by C C.)
Shouldn't be surprising. When the policies of science and academic administrations start giving credence to cultural studies and the systemic conspiracies of postmodern offshoots, then the door is incrementally opened to the beliefs, customs, and influences of pre-Enlightenment societies. Which includes not just the Abrahamic traditions of the ME borrowed by Europe, but the mythoi of indigenous and non-Western population groups. (Why Is the Society for American Archaeology promoting indigenous creationism?)
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https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/tall-el-hamman/
INTRO: For myriad reasons, and like many other scholars working in Southwest Asia, we were profoundly disappointed when Scientific Reports, a peer-reviewed journal operating under one of the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature, published pseudoscientific research about a supposed ancient cosmic airburst destroying the Tall el-Hammam site in what is today Jordan. The authors speculate that this putative event may have been the basis for the biblical story of Sodom, in which a city was allegedly destroyed by stones and fire sent from the sky.
As of today, the original Scientific Reports story has been accessed 348,000 times and has generated nearly 20,000 tweets (including a retweet by astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has more than 2 million followers). It has been covered in 176 news outlets (including major scientific outlets, such as Smithsonian magazine) and was ranked 55th of the over 300,000 tracked articles of a similar age in all academic journals.
Much of the media attention seemed to us to be pushed by clickbait (sensationalistic text designed to entice readers to an article’s often dubious claims). For example, The Conversation article written by some of the study’s authors featured the enticing title “A Giant Space Rock Demolished an Ancient Middle Eastern City and Everyone in It—Possibly Inspiring the Biblical Story of Sodom.” The piece was widely republished, including in SAPIENS as “Did an Asteroid Shape This Famous Biblical Story?”—a clear tease.
What’s at stake when pseudoscience becomes clickbait? Many things, but we have time and space here to address only two repercussions: the erosion of scientific integrity and the destruction of archaeological sites.
First, this case exemplifies poor archaeological knowledge production. After the Scientific Reports article was published, the Twitter world caught fire. Scholars dissected the shoddy science, poor analyses of biological remains, edited images, overt religious agenda, and misinterpretations of stratigraphic contexts, particularly those exhibiting evidence of burning. This caused many to wonder about the vetting process and how such a flawed paper made it through peer review... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Giant space rock demolished ancient Middle Eastern city: inspiring Biblical stories?
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https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/tall-el-hamman/
INTRO: For myriad reasons, and like many other scholars working in Southwest Asia, we were profoundly disappointed when Scientific Reports, a peer-reviewed journal operating under one of the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature, published pseudoscientific research about a supposed ancient cosmic airburst destroying the Tall el-Hammam site in what is today Jordan. The authors speculate that this putative event may have been the basis for the biblical story of Sodom, in which a city was allegedly destroyed by stones and fire sent from the sky.
As of today, the original Scientific Reports story has been accessed 348,000 times and has generated nearly 20,000 tweets (including a retweet by astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has more than 2 million followers). It has been covered in 176 news outlets (including major scientific outlets, such as Smithsonian magazine) and was ranked 55th of the over 300,000 tracked articles of a similar age in all academic journals.
Much of the media attention seemed to us to be pushed by clickbait (sensationalistic text designed to entice readers to an article’s often dubious claims). For example, The Conversation article written by some of the study’s authors featured the enticing title “A Giant Space Rock Demolished an Ancient Middle Eastern City and Everyone in It—Possibly Inspiring the Biblical Story of Sodom.” The piece was widely republished, including in SAPIENS as “Did an Asteroid Shape This Famous Biblical Story?”—a clear tease.
What’s at stake when pseudoscience becomes clickbait? Many things, but we have time and space here to address only two repercussions: the erosion of scientific integrity and the destruction of archaeological sites.
First, this case exemplifies poor archaeological knowledge production. After the Scientific Reports article was published, the Twitter world caught fire. Scholars dissected the shoddy science, poor analyses of biological remains, edited images, overt religious agenda, and misinterpretations of stratigraphic contexts, particularly those exhibiting evidence of burning. This caused many to wonder about the vetting process and how such a flawed paper made it through peer review... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Giant space rock demolished ancient Middle Eastern city: inspiring Biblical stories?