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Epistemology: How You Know What You Know

Knowing Things

The word epistemology means the study of knowledge-how you know what you know. Think about it. How does anybody know anything to be actual, truthful, or real? How do we differentiate fact from fantasy in archaeology or in any other field of knowledge? Everybody knows things, but how do we really know these things?

For example, suppose I were to ask you to name the "tallest mountain in the world." Most of you, I am pretty sure, would respond confidently with the answer "Mount Everest," giving the Western name for the mountain that the native people of Tibet call Chomolungma (Goddess of the Universe). Most people know that Everest is "the tallest mountain in the world," and some of you might even know that its height is about 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) above sea level (Figure 2.1). Did you also know, however, that though the peak of Everest represents the highest point on earth, it isn't really our planet's tallest mountain if, instead of "above sea level" you define a mountain's height as the distance from base to summit? That distinction belongs to Mauna Kea, a moun- tain in Hawaii whose summit is 33,476 feet (10,203 meters) higher than its base, which is located deep under water and, therefore, far below sea level. Mauna Kea is, in fact, an astonishing 4,441 feet (1,354 meters) taller than Everest.

However you define "tallest mountain," the truth is that I have never been to Tibet or even Hawaii. I certainly haven't measured Everest; I haven't climbed to its summit to confirm that, in fact, I am above every other moun- tain I can see. For that matter, I haven't measured any of the other tall peaks to compare them to Everest or Mauna Kea. So how do I know anything about mountains in the first place, much less which is tallest?

On the subject of mountains, there is a run-down stone monument on the top of Bear Mountain in the northwestern comer of Connecticut. The

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Knowing Things 19

Figure 2.1 If asked to name the tallest mountain in the world, most people would respond " Mount Everest," and some might even know that it peaks at about 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) above sea level. But how many know that, if you measure the height of a mountain from base to summit, Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, is taller (33,476 feet (10,203 meters])? And how do we know this anyway? (© Royalty-Free/ Corbis)

monument was built toward the end of the nineteenth century and marks the "highest ground" in the state (Figure 2.2). When the monument was built to memorialize this most lofty and auspicious of peaks-the mountain is all of 2,316 feet (706 meters) above sea level-people knew that it was the highest point in the state and wanted to recognize this fact with the monument.

Figure 2.2 Plaque adorning a stone monu- ment perched atop Bear Mountain in the northwest- ern corner of Connecticut. Note that the height of the mountain is given as 2,354 feet [it actually is only 2,316 feet (706 meters)] and, in either case, though memorialized as " the high- est ground" in the state, it is not. (K. Feder)

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There is only one problem. In recent times, with more accurate, sophis- ticated measuring equipment, it has been determined that Bear Mountain is not the highest point in Connecticut. The slope of Frissell Mountain, which actually peaks in Massachusetts, reaches a height of 2,380 feet (725 meters) on the Connecticut side of the border, eclipsing Bear Mountain by about 64 feet (20 meters).

So, people in the late 1800s and early 1900s "knew" that Bear Mountain was the highest point in Connecticut. Today we know that they really did not "know" that, because it was not true-even though they thought it was and built a monument saying so.

Remember my statement that the height of Everest is 29,035 feet (8,850 meters)? You will find that number in books on world geography or geology, in encyclopedias, and, in fact, in almost every published reference to the great peak-but only after November 1999. Until late in 1999, it was believed that the peak of Everest was "only" 29,028 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level. That figure was determined in 1954 using the best technology avail- able at the time. Our technology for doing such things as measuring eleva- tions has improved radically in the intervening years. In a project sponsored by the National Geographic Society, a team of climbers ascended Everest in March 1999 to remeasure the "roof of the world." Using information gleaned from Global Positioning System satellites, it was determined that Everest is actually 7 feet higher, 29 ,035 feet high, and may be growing, if only by a small fraction of an inch each year, as a result of geological forces (Roach 1999).

One of the defining characteristics of science is its pursuit of modifica- tion and refmement of what we know and how we explain things. Scientists ~lize they have to be ever vigilant and, contrary to what some people seem to think, ever open to new information that enables us to tweak, polish, over- haul, or even overturn what we think we know. Science does not grudgingly

· aamitthe need for such refinement or reassessment but rather embraces it as a fundamental part of the scientific method.

But now back to epistemology. You and I have likely never personally assessed or verified the measurements of Everest, Mauna Kea, or any other mountain. So what criteria can we use to determine if any of what we think we know about these peaks is true or accurate? It all comes back to episte- mology. How, indeed, do we know what we think we know?

Collecting Information: Seeing Isn't Necessarily Believing

In general, ~le collect information in two ways:

~ Directly through their own experiences

Indirectly through specific information sources such as friends, teach- ers, parents, books, TV, the Internet, and so forth

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People tend to think that obtaining information directly and personally by seeing it or experiencing it for themselves is always the best way. Think of the old expression, "Seeing is believing." In other words, you can believe something as long as you see it with your own eyes. But there's a problem here; our eyes aren't all that reliable. In fact, most people are pretty poor observers.

For example, the list of animals that people claim to have observed- and that turn out to be figments of their imagination-is staggering. It is fascinating to read Pliny, a first-century thinker, or Topsell, who wrote in the seventeenth century, and see detailed accounts of the nature and habits of dragons, griffins, unicorns, mermaids, and so on (Byrne 1979). People claimed to have seen these animals, gave detailed descriptions, and even drew pictures of them (Figure 2.3). Many folks read their books and believed them.

Nor are untrained observers very good at identifying known, liv- ing animals. A red or "lesser" panda escaped from the zoo in Rotterdam, Holland, in December 1978. Red pandas are very rare animals indigenous to China, Tibet, Nepal, and Burma, not Holland. They are distinctive in appearance and cannot be readily mistaken for any other sort of animal (Figure 2.4). The zoo informed the press that the panda was missing, hop- ing the publicity would alert people in the area of the zoo and aid in the

Figure 2.3 The "Lamia," depicted here in a seventeenth-century woodcut, was sup- posed to be a real creature, a hideous combination of mammal and fish and, appar- ently, male and female. People actually claimed to have seen the Lamia. They didn't: it's imaginary.

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Figure 2.4 Red pandas are distinctive looking animals and not readily mistaken for any other kind of creature. Nevertheless, the case of the missing red panda in Holland, and the many false sightings of it long after it had been killed, is a cautionary tale indicating we should be skeptical about accepting eyewitness accounts too literall y. Uennifer Davis)

panda's return. Just when the newspapers came out with the panda story, it was found, quite dead, along some railroad tracks adjacent to the zoo. Nevertheless, more than one hundred sightings of the panda alive were reported to the zoo from all over the Netherlands after the animal was obvi- ously already dead. These reports did not stop until several days after the newspapers announced the discovery of the dead panda (van Kampen 1979). So much for the absolute reliability of firsthand observation. Think about that the next time you read an eyewitness account of the sighting of a Bigfoot, a Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, or a Chupacabra. Have you seen the show, Finding Bigfoot, where a group of researchers follows up on eyewitness accounts of the creature? It turns out the show ought to be called Not Finding Bigfoot. They never find it. The eyewitness accounts that inspire their search just aren't that reliable.

Collecting Information: Relying on Others

In exploring the problems of secondhand information, we run into even more complications. When we are not in place to observe something first- hand, we are forced to rely on the quality of someone else's observations, interpretations, and reports-as with the reported heights of Mount Everest and Mauna Kea.

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In assessing a report made by others, you need to ask yourself Qev- eral questions:IHow did they .. ~btain the information in the first place- revelation, intuition, science?""VVhat are their motives for providing this information~hat agend,.<y-religious, philosophical, nationalistic, or otherwise-do they have? /What is their source of information, and how expert are they in the topic?

Most people obtain information about the world and current events from established sources such as television news, books, or newspapers. Let's look at the last of these.

Not all newspapers are equally accurate and believable. The New York Times has a reputation for factual reporting and carries the following promise in its masthead: "All the News That's Fit to Print." No one, not even their publishers, would characterize tabloid papers like the Enquirer, the Star, the Examiner, the Sun (all ordinarily found in supermarket checkout lines), or the Weekly World News (now available only in an online edition) in those same terms. When asked about the accuracy of some of the more bizarre sto- ries that appear in his paper, the editor of the Weekly World News responded, "For heaven's sake, we entertain people. We make people feel better" (Johnson 1994:27). Notice there is nothing in that response that defends or maintains the accuracy of the stories.

Granted, not everything in the tabloids is utter crap. In fact, the story that presidential aspirant John Edwards had an affair that resulted in the birth of a child while his wife was enduring treatment for breast cancer (from which she ultimately died) was broken in 2007 by none other than the National Enquirer. Certainly, however, notions of objectivity and mutu- ally confirming sources is not the standard operating procedure for the tabloids.

Tabloid stories often are absurd, and few of the writers or even the readers believe them (Bird 1992). This still leaves us with a broader issue: How do we know what to believe? This is a crucial question that all ratio- nal people must ask themselves, whether talking about medicine, religion, archaeology, or anything else. Again, it comes back around to epistemology; how do we know what we think we know, and how do we know what or

Who"m to believe?

Science: Playing by the Rules

There are ways to knowledge that are both dependable and reliable. We might not be able to get to absolute truths about the meaning of existence, but we can figure out quite a bit about our world-about chemistry and biol- ogy, psychology and sociology, physics and history, and even prehistory. The techniques used to get at knowledge we can feel confident in-knowledge that is reliable, truthful, and factual-are referred to as science.

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In large part, science is a series of techniques used to maximize the probability that what we think we know really reflects the way things are, were, or will be. Science makes no claim to have all the answers or even to be right all the time. On the contrary, during the process of the growth of knowledge and understanding, science is often wrong. Remember that even as seemingly fundamental a fact as the height of the tallest mountain on earth is subject to interpretation (how do you define "tallest"), reassessment, and correction. Th~_ only claim that we do make in science is that if we hon- estly, consistentl · · · ursue knowled e using some ~asic techni~es an_Q_p.rinfiples, the truth will eventually surface and w~ truly know thin s about the nature of the world in which we find ours~

e question then is, What exactly is science? Hollywood certainly has a number of different stereotypes of scientists (Frayling 2005). The clas- sic Doctor Frankenstein (Figure 2.5) comes immediately to mind. Author Christopher Frayling (2005) maintains that movie stereotypes have, in essence, defined the public perception of science and scientists.

So much for Hollywood. Scientists are not misfits or megalomaniacs. We are just people trying to figure out how the world and the universe work. Although the application of science can be a slow, frustrating, all-consuming enterprise, the basic assumptions we scientists hold are very simple. Whether

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Figure 2.5 Gene Wilder depicted a stereotypical-and quite hilarious-mad scientist in the movie Young Frankenstein . As funny as his character was, it reflects a common, though quite mistaken, view of what real scientists are like and how they go about their research. (© Motion Picture & TV Photo Archive)

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we are physicists, biologists, or archaeologists, we all work from four under- lying principles. These principles are quite straightforward, but equally quite crucial.

l. There is a real and knowable universe.

2. The universe (which includes stars, planets, animals, and rocks, as well as people, their cultures, and their histories) operates according to certain understandable rules or laws.

3. These laws are immutable-that means they do not, in general, change depending on where you are or "when" you are.

4. These laws can be discerned, studied, and understood by people through careful observation, experimentation, and research.

Let's look at these assumptions one at a time.

There Is a Real and Knowable Universe

In science we have to agree that there is a real universe out there for us to study-a universe full of stars, animals, human history, and prehistory that exists whether we are happy with that reality or not.

Recently, it has become fashionable to deny this fundamental underpin- ning of science. A group of thinkers called deconstructionists, for example, insists that all science and history are merely artificial constructs, devoid of any objective reality or truth. As scientists Kurt Gottfried and Kenneth Wilson (1997:545) state, the deconstructionists claim that" scientific knowledge is only a communal belief system with a dubious grip on reality." Deconstructionists try to take apart common beliefs in an attempt to show that much of what we think we know is purely subjective and culturally based. On some issues, they are probably right.

Some deconstructionists go futher and describe science itself as a purely Western mode of thought, a mechanistic approach based on inequal- ity, capitalist exploitation, and patriarchy. Science, to the deconstructionists, is merely the Western "myth"; it is no more objective and no more "real" than nonscientific myths.

As Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn (2010) point out, however, if there is no such thing as objective truth, then no statements, including this

-one-or any of those made by the deconstructionists themselves-are objec- · tively true. We could know nothing because there would be noth1ng to know.

Tii:iS1SilOt a useful approach for human beings. Science simply is not the same as myth. Science demands rigorous testing and retesting, and it com- monly rejects and discards previous conclusions about the world as a result of such testing. The same cannot be said for nonscientific explanations about how things work.

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The Universe Operates According to Understandable Laws

In essence, what this means is that there are rules by which the universe works: Stars produce heat and light according to the laws of nuclear phys- ics; nothing can go faster than the speed of light; all matter in the universe is attracted to all other matter (the law of gravity).

Though human societies are extremely complex systems and people do not operate according to rigid or unchanging rules of behavior, social scientists can nevertheless perceive patterns and regularities in how human groups react to changes in their environment and how their cultures evolve through time. For example, development of complex civilizations in Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru was not based on random processes (Chang 2002; Demarest 2004; Diehl 2004; Headrick 2007; Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff 1995; Martin 2008). Their evolution seems to reflect similar general patterns. This is not to say that all of these civilizations were identical, any more than we would say that all stars are identical. On the contrary, they existed in different physical and cultural environments, and so we should expect that they would be different. However, in each case the rise to civilization was preceded by development of an agricultural economy and socially stratified societies. In each case, civilization was also preceded by some degree of overall population increase as well as increased population density in some areas (in other words, the development of cit- ies). Again, in each case we find monumental works (pyramids, temples), evidence of long-distance trade, and development of mathematics, astron- omy, and methods of record keeping (usually, but not always, in the form of writing). The cultures in which civilization developed, though some were unrelated and independent, shared these factors because of the nonrandom patterns of cultural evolution.

The point is that everything operates according to rules. In science we believe that by understanding these rules or laws we can understand stars, organisms, and even ourselves.

The Laws Are Immutable

That the laws do not change under ordinary conditions is a crucial concept in science. A law that works here works there. A law that worked in the past will work today and will work in the future.

For example, if I go to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa today and simultaneously drop two balls of unequal mass, they will fall at the same rate and reach the ground at the same time, just as they did when Galileo performed a similar experiment in the seventeenth century. If I perform the same experiment countless times, the same thing will occur because the laws of the universe (in this case, the law of gravity) do not change through time.

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~ 'Wfl_d//?d. -J-);,,MP 7 They also do not change depending on where you are. Go anywhere on 1:Ke · ·· ' earth and perform the same experiment-you will get the same results (try not to hit any pedestrians or you will see some other "laws" in operation). This experiment was even performed by U.S. astronauts on the moon dur- ing the Apollo 15 mission. A hammer and a feather were dropped from the same height, and they hit the surface at precisely the same instant (the only reason this will not work on earth is because the feather is caught by the air and the hammer, obviously, is not). Check it out on YouTube at: http:/ /www . you tube. com/watch ?v=5C5 _ d0Ey Afk&fea ture=you tube_gda ta_pla yer. We have no reason to believe that the results would be different anywhere or "anywhen" else.

If this assumption of science, that the laws do not change through time, were false, many of the so-called historical sciences, including prehistoric archaeology, could not exist.

For example, historical geologists are interested in knowing how the various landforms we see today came into being. They recognize that they cannot go back in time to see how, for example, Bryce Canyon, in Utah was formed (Figure 2.6) . However, because the laws of geology that governed the development of Bryce Canyon have not changed through time and because these laws are still in operation, historical geologists can study the formation of geological features today and apply what they learn to the past. The same laws they can directly study operating in the present were operating in the past when geological features that interest them first formed.

In the words of nineteenth-century geologist Charles Lyell, the "pres- ent" we can observe is the "key" to understandin the ast that we can-

.E.2.-· s is true because the laws, or rules, that govern the universe are constant-those that operate today operated in the past. This is why sci- ence does not limit itself to the present but makes inferences about the past and even predictions about the future (listen to the weather report for an example of this). We can do so because we can study modern, ongoing phe- nomena that work under the same laws that existed in the past and will exist in the future.

The Laws Can Be Understood

This may be the single most important principle in science. The universe is, theoretically at least, knowable. It may be complicated, and it may take many years to understand even apparently simple phenomena. Each attempt at understanding leads us to collect more data and to test, reevaluate, and refine our proposed explanations-for how planets formed; why a group of animals became extinct while another thrived; or how a group of ancient people responded to a change in their natural environment, contact with a group of foreigners, or adoption of a new technology. We rarely get it right the first time and are continually collecting new information, abandoning

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Figure 2.6 By projecting back in time th e physical , geological processes they can investigate operating in the present, geo log ists can reconstruct how ancient landforms, like the spectacu lar spires of Bryce Canyon, developed through time . (K. Feder)

some interpretations while refining others. We constantly rethink our expla- nations. In this way, little by little, bit by bit, we expand our knowledge and understanding. Through this kind of careful observation and objective research and experimentation, we can indeed know things.

So, our assumptions are simple enough. We accept the existence of a reality independent of our own minds, and we accept that this reality works according to a series of unchanging patterns, rules, or laws. We also claim that we can recognize and understand these laws, or at least recognize the patterns that result from these universal rules. The question remains then: How do we do science-how do we explore the nature of the universe, whether our interest is planets, stars, atoms, or human prehistory?

The Workings of Science

We can know things by employing the rules of logic and rational thought. Scientists-archaeologists or otherwise-usually work through a combi- nation of the lo ical rocesses known as induction an · · he dic- tionary e mition of induction is arguing from specifics to generalities_,_'' whereas deduction is defined as thereverse, arguing_fram g@ni;iralities

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What is essential to good science is objective, unbiased observations- of planets, molecules, rock formations, archaeological sites, and so on. Often, on the basis of these specific observations, we induce explanations called hypotheses for how these things work.

For example, we may study the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (each one presents specific bits of information). We then induce gen- eral rules about how we think these inner planets in our solar system were formed. Or we might study a whole series of different kinds of molecules and then induce general rules about how molecules interact chemically. We may study different rock formations and make general conclusions about their origin. We can study a number of specific prehistoric sites and make generalizations about how cultures evolved.

Notice that we cannot directly observe planets forming, the rules of molecular interaction, rocks being made, or rehistoric cultures evolvin .

stead, we are in ucmg general conclusions and principles concerning our_: d.a:ta that fuHow log~liyfrom what we have been able to observe. - Tliis process of induction, though crucial to science, is not enough. We need to go beyond our induced hypotheses by testing them. If our induced nypotneses are indeed valid-that is, if they really represent the actual rules according to which some aspect of the universe (planets, molecules, rocks, ancient societies) works-they should be able to hold up under the rigors of scientific hypothesis testing.

Observation and the suggestion of hypotheses, therefore, are only the first steps in a scientific investigation. In science we always need to go-Deyond observation and hypothesizing. We need to set up a series of "if ... then" statements; "if" our hypothesis is true, "then" the following deduced "facts" will also be true. Our results are not always precise and clear-cut, especially in a science like archaeology, but this much should be clear-scientists are not just out there collecting a bunch of interest- ing facts. Facts are always collected within the context of trying to explain something or of trying to test a hypothesis.

The Case of Childbed Fever

Here's an example of how this process works. In nineteenth-century Europe, the hospital could be a very dangerous place for a woman about to give birth. Death rates in some so-called lying-in wards were horrifically high, the result of what became known as "childbed fever." A seemingly healthy young woman would arrive at the hospital with an unremarkable pregnancy, expe- rience a normal labor, and give birth to a healthy baby. Over the course of the hours and days following birth, however, she might exhibit a rapid pulse, high fever, distended and painful abdomen, foul discharge, and delirium- and then would die .

30 Epistemology: How You Know What You Know

Table 2.1 N umber of Maternal D ea th s Following the Birth of a Child. (Note the incredibly and tragically high maternal d ea th rates in hospitals of th e nineteenth century. )

Modern United States

London mid-nineteenth century

Paris mid-nineteenth century

Dresden mid-nineteenth century

Home Birth

1per10,000

10 per 10,000

50 per 10,000

unknown

Hospital

1per10,000

600 per 10,000

547-880per10,000

304 per 10,000

Oddly, while childbed fever took a horrible toll in hospital deliveries, it was rare or absent in home births. In fact, as Sherwin Nuland (2003:97), physician and author of a fascinating book on childbed fever, points out, a woman was generally much safer if she gave birth on the street or in an alley on her way to the hospital than if she actually arrived there. The statistics he gathered certainly support his claim. Take a look at Table 2.1. The nineteenth- century hospital death rates (expressed as the number of maternal deaths per every 10,000 births) are astonishingly, frighteningly high-many times higher than home birth death rates in these same cities-and contrary to what many of us might have expected.

The situation was more complicated for Austria's Vienna General Hospital where there were two separate maternity divisions.

Each year between 6,000 and 7,000 women arrived at the gates of the hospital to give birth, and about half ended up in each of the two divisions. In Division 2, in a given year, on average, about 60 women died soon after giving birth, a death rate of about 2 percent (which figures out to 200 per 10,000; see Table 2.2). Astonishingly, in Division 1, in the same hospital, the number of yearly deaths was more than ten times higher, with more than 600 (2,000per10,000 births) and as many as 800 dying in a given year, a terrifying death rate as high as 27 percent (Nuland 2003:97).

Physicians were, needless to say, appalled by such statistics and patients were, understandably, terrified. Many doctors performed autopsies

Table 2.2 Number of Maternal Deaths Following th e Birth of a Child in the Vienna General Hospital. (Note the stunning decline in mortality in Division 7 after 7 848.)

Vienna mid-nineteenth- century Division 2

Vienna mid-nineteenth- century Divisidn 1

Before 1848: Before Cleaning with Chlorinated Lime

200 per 10,000

2,000 per 10,000

1848: After Cleaning with Chlorinated Lime

130 per 10,000

120 per 10,000

Table 2.3 H ypo th eses Proposed to Explain Childbed Fever Before Semmelweis

Atmospheric disturbances

Tight petticoats

Foul hospital air

Blocked milk ducts

Female modesty

Fear of childbed fever

on women who had died of childbed fever and found them ravaged by an aggressive infection and filled with an intensely foul smelling whitish fluid. Many of these physicians were more than willing to propose hypotheses sug- gesting possible causes of the condition (Table 2.3). Some doctors proposed the ironic and circular explanation that childbed fever had a psychological origin, the result of the great fear many women had of the hospital because of the possibility of contracting childbed fever!

Back in Vienna at the General Hospital, Ignaz Semmelweis, a young Hungarian doctor who had been turned down for a couple of plum assign- ments, ended up, by default, in obstetrics. Determined to solve the childbed fever riddle, Semmelweis realized that the General Hospital, with its two divisions having very different mortality rates, presented a unique opportu- nity to experimentally test the various hypotheses proposed to explain child- bed fever.

Semmelweis and some of his colleagues at the hospital recognized a handful of potentially important differences between the two obstetrical divisions in the hospital and induced a series of possible explanations for the drastic difference in their mortality rates. They suggested:

1. Division 1 tended to be more crowded than Division 2. The over- crowding in Division 1 was a possible cause of the higher mortality rate there.

2. Women in Division 2 were assisted by midwives who d irected the women to deliver on their sides, while those in Division 1 were attended to by physicians and medical students who kept women on their backs during delivery. Birth position was a possible cause of the higher mortality rate.

3. There was a psychological factor involved; the hospital priest had to walk through Division 1 to administer the last rites to dying patients in other wards. Perhaps this sight so upset some women already weakened by the ordeal of childbirth that it contributed to their deaths.

32 Epistemology: How You Know What You Know

4. Unlike the women in Division 2, who were assisted by experienced midwives using far less invasive techniques, the women in Division 1 were attended to by medical students being trained in obstetrics. Perhaps all of the additional poking and prodding conducted during this training was harmful and contributed to the higher death rate of women in Division 1.

These induced hypotheses all sounded good. Each marked a genuine dif- ference between Divisions 1 and 2 that might have caused the difference in the death rate. Semmelweis was doing what most scientists do in such a situation; he was relying on creativity and imagination in seeking out an explanation.

Creativity and imagination are just as important to science as good observation. But being creative and imaginative was not enough. It did not help the women who were still dying at an alarming rate. Semmelweis had to go beyond producing possible explanations; he had to test each one of them. So, he deduced the necessary implications of each:

1. If hypothesis 1 were correct, then alleviating the crowding in Division 1 should reduce the mortality rate. The result: no change. So the first hypothesis was rejected. It had failed the scientific test; it did not explain the difference in mortality rates and it simply could not be correct.

2. Semmelweis went on to test hypothesis 2 by changing the birth posi- tions of the women in Division 1 to match those of the women in Division 2. Again, there was no change, and another hypothesis was rejected.

3. Next, to test hypothesis 3, the priest was rerouted. Women in Division 1 continued to die of childbed fever at about five times the rate of those in Division 2. This hypothesis was also rejected.

4. To test hypothesis 4, it was decided to limit the number of invasive procedures used on the women to train the students in their examina- tion techniques. The statistics showed that this had no impact on the death rate in Division l; 10 or 11 percent of the women continued to die even when fewer students were allowed to examine them internally.

Then, as so often happens in science, Semmelweis had a stroke of luck. An acquaintance-also a doctor-died, and the manner of his death provided Semmelweis with another possible explanation for the problem in Division 1. Though Semmelweis's friend was not a woman who had recently given birth, he did have precisely the same symptoms as did the women who were dying of childbed fever. Most important, this doctor had died of a disease similar to childbed fever soon after accidentally cutting himself dur- ing an autopsy.

Science and Nonscience: Th e Essential Differences 33

Viruses and bacteria were unknown in the 1840s. Surgical instruments were not sterilized, no special effort was made b y doctors to clean their hands, and doctors did not wear gloves during operations and autopsies. Supposing that there was something bad in dead bodies and this something had entered Semmelweis's friend's system through his wound-could the same bad "stuff" (Semmelweis called it "cadaveric material") get onto the hands of the physicians and medical students, who then might, without washing, go on to help a woman give birth? Then, if this cadaveric mate- rial were transmitted into the woman's body during the birth of her baby, it might lead to her death.

This possibility inspired Semmelweis' s final hypothesis: The presence of physicians and medical students in Division 1 was at the root of the mystery. Students who attended the women in Division 1 regularly conducted autop- sies as part of their training and so would be in contact with dead bodies on the same days they were assisting women giving birth. Furthermore, physi- cians would frequently perform autopsies on the bodies of women who had already died of childbed fever, often going directly from the autopsy room to the birthing rooms to assist other women giving birth. Herein was a grimly ironic twist to this new hypothesis; the attempt by physicians to solve the mystery of childbed fever by performing autopsies on its victims was one of the most important factors in transmitting the disease to additional women.

To test this hypothesis, Semmelweis instituted new policies in Division 1, including the requirement that all attending physicians and students cleanse their hands with chlorinated lime, a bleaching agent, before entering. The result: the death rates in both divisions dropped (see Table 2.2). Division 2, always the safer one, came down from a rate of 200 to a rate of 130 maternal deaths for every 10,000 births . Division 1 declined far more dramatically, from the previously cited maternal death rate of 2,000 to a rate of 120 per 10,000 births. Semmelweis had both solved a mystery and halted an epidemic.

Science and Nonscience: The Essential Differences

Through objective observation and analysis, a scientist, whether a physi- cist, chemist, biologist, psychologist, or archaeologist, sees things that need explaining. Through creativity and imagination, the scientist suggests pos- sible hypotheses to explain these "mysteries." The scientist then sets up a rigorous method through experimentation or subsequent research to deduc- tively test the validity of a given hypothesis. If the implications of a hypoth- esis are shown not to be true, the hypothesis must be rejected and then it's back to the drawing board. If the implications are found to be true, we can Uphold or support our hypothesis.

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Testing a hypothesis is crucial. If there are no specific implications of a hypothesis that can be analyzed as a test of the validity or usefulness of that hypothesis, then you simply are not doing and cannot do "science."

For example, suppose you observe a person who appears to be able to "gu ess" the value of a playing card picked from a deck. Next, assume that someone hypothesizes that "psychic" ability is involved. Finally, suppose the claim is made that the psychic ability goes away as soon as you try to test it (actually named the "shyness effect" by some researchers of the paranormal). This assertion renders the claim of psychic power untestable and therefore not scientific.

Beyond the issue of testability, another lesson is involved in determin- ing w hether an approach to a problem is scientific. Semmelweis induced four different hypotheses to explain the difference in mortality rates between Divisions 1 and 2. These "competing" explanations are called multiple work- ing hypotheses. Notice that Semmelweis did not simply proceed by a process of elimination. He did not, for example, test the first three hypotheses and- after finding them invalid-declare that the fourth was necessarily correct becau se it was the only one left that he had thought of.

Some people try to work that way. A light is seen in the sky. Someone h yp othesizes it was a meteor. We find out that it was not. Someone else hypothesizes that it was a military rocket. Again this turns out to be incor- rect. Someone else suggests that it was the Goodyear blimp, but that turns out to have been somewhere else. Finally, someone suggests that it was the spacecraft of beings from another planet. Some will say that this must be correct because none of the other explanations panned out. This is nonsense. There are plenty of other possible explanations. Eliminating all of the expla- nations we have been able to think of except one (which, perhaps, has no testable implications) in no way allows us to uphold that final hypothesis. You will see just such an error in logic with regard to the Shroud of Turin discussed in Chapter 12.

A Rule in Assessing Explanations

Finally, there is another rule to hypothesis making and testing. It is called Occam's razor or Occam's rule. In thinking, in trying to solve a problem, or in attempting to explain some phenomenon, ~,!.l_l:ities are not to be multi- plied beyond necessit ."In other words, the explanation or hypothesis that exl? ams a series of observations with the fewest other assumptions or leaps- the hypothesis that does not multiply these entities beyond necessity-~ best explanaticm..-

.~· -- Here's an example. My archaeology class was to begin in about ten minutes, and the previous class was just dispersing from what had obvi- ously been a raucous session. As I entered the room, I noticed the three- dimensional, geometric shapes made of heavy stock paper suspended by string from the seminar room ceiling. I caught the attention of the profes- sor, a truly gentle soul and one of the nicest people I had met in my first year of teaching, and I asked the obvious question: "What's the deal with the shapes?" She smiled and launched into a passionate discourse about the exercise just conducted by the class-an experiment in "psychokinesis," the ostensible ability to move or otherwise affect objects simply by the power of thought. Perhaps my jaw dropped a little too obviously, and my colleague asked, "Would you like to see me do it?" Without waiting for a response, she gazed up at the shape directly above her head and closed her eyes; when she opened them we both looked up to see the suspended object swaying back and forth. "See?" she said.

Before you get too terribly excited about this demonstration, perhaps I should add that it was a rather breezy day and the windows in the seminar room were wide open. The object toward which my colleague had directed her ostensibly paranormal talents indeed was moving, but so were all of the other suspended objects, as were papers on the desk at the front of the class and just about anything else that wasn't nailed down. I pointed out that, just perhaps, the suspended object was moving simply because of the wind. My colleague just smiled broadly, patted me on the shoulder, and said, "Oh Kenny, you're such a skeptic." Indeed I am, and in this story rests the essence of Occam's razor. Could the object have been moving as the result of my colleague's psychokinetic prowess? Well, yes. But it also could have been moving as a result of open windows and wind. Which explanation- psychokinesis or wind-requires the least violence to our understanding of reality? Which requires the fewest logical leaps or as yet unsupported assumptions about how the universe operates? Occam's razor directs the gambler in reality's casino to bet on the sure thing or, at least, the surer thing, until a preponderance of evidence convinces one otherwise. In this particu- lar case, I'm betting on the wind.

Here's another example of the application of Occam's razor. Consider the case of the symmetrical, axe-shaped pieces of chipped stone found in the

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seventeenth century in apparently ancient soil layers in Europe (Figure 2.7). Today, anyone looking at these objects would immediately conclude that they were artificial, the product of human ingenuity and labor, "Stone Age" artifacts made by our prehistoric ancestors.

This commonsense interpretation that the objects had been made by a past people was problematic for many thinkers in past centuries. Based on a common interpretation of the Bible, there could have been no "Stone Age", no period in antiquity when people made tools of stone, so the objects in question, in this view, could not have been made by ancient human beings. Thinkers who denied that the stone axes had been made by ancient peo- ple had to come up with alternate explanations. Some were rather fanciful. Perhaps these "hand axes" were not the handiwork of ancient human beings, but had been made recently by elves or fairies; some went so far as to call the stone tools "fairy stones." Seriously. Other scientists disagreed, suggest- ing, instead, a more natural-but also implausible-explanation: Perhaps bolts of lightning struck the earth and produced such objects. These think- ers called the stone objects "thunderstones." Of course, there was no evi- dence that elves or fairies actually existed, much less that they occupied their time making stone axes. Similarly, no researcher had found symmetrically

Figure 2.7 Symmetrical, flaked stone objects like this hand axe were found in Europe at least as far back as the seventeenth century. Though they clearly are the result of human handiwork, abandoning Occam's razor, many thinkers dis- puted this and suggested that these objects had been made by fairies or bolts of lightning. (K. Feder)

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chipped stone objects at the location of lightning strikes. Apply Occam's razor here; chipped stone objects that looked like tools should be assumed to be the product of human labor unless and until substantial evidence in sup- port of an alternative explanation is forthcoming. Other explanations raised more questions-about elves, fairies, and lightning's capacity to make useful tools-than they answered.

The Art of Science

Don't get the impression that science is a mechanical enterprise. Science is at least partially an art. It takes great creativity to recognize a "mystery" in the first place. You've probably heard the story of how Sir Isaac Newton "dis- covered" gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree. Certainly, countless apples had fallen from countless trees and undoubtedly conked the noggins of multitudes of stunned individuals who never thought much about it. It took a fabulously creative individual to even recognize that herein lay a mys- tery. As recorded by his friend, William Stukeley, in 1752, Newton wondered "why should the apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground ... why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earth's centre? assuredly, the reason is that the earth draws it. There must be a draw- ing power in matter" (Stukeley 1752). It took great imagination to recognize that in this simple observation of an apple falling to the ground rested the eloquence of a fundamental law of the universe.

Where Do Hypotheses Come From?

Coming up with hypotheses is not a simple or mechanical procedure. The scientific process requires creativity. Hypotheses arrive as often in flashes of insight as through plodding, methodical observation. Consider this example.

My field crew and I had just finished excavating the 2,000-year-old Loomis II archaeological site in Connecticut where a broad array of different kinds of stones had been used for making tools. Some of the "lithics" came from sources close to the site. Other sources were located at quite a distance, as much as a few hundred miles away. These nonnative "exotic" lithics were universally superior; tools could be made more easily from the nonlocal materials, and the edges produced were much sharper.

At the time the site was being excavated, I noticed that there seemed to be a pattern in terms of the size of the individual tools we were recover- ing. Tools made from the locally available and generally inferior materi- als of quartz and basalt were relatively large, and the pieces of rock that showed no evidence of use-archaeologists call these discarded pieces

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debitage-were also relatively large. In contrast, the tools made from the superior materials-a black flint and two kinds of jasper-that origi- nated at a great distance from the site were much smaller. Even inconse- quential flakes of exotic stone-pieces you could barely hold between two fingers-showed evidence of use, and only the tiniest of flakes were dis- carded without either further modification for use or evidence of use, such as for scraping, cutting, or piercing.

I thought it was an interesting pattern but didn't think much of it until about a year later when I was cleaning up the floor of my lab after a class in experimental archaeology where students were replicating stone tools. We used a number of different raw materials in the class, and just as was the case for the 2,000-year-old site, stone of inferior quality was readily avail- able a few miles away, whereas more desirable material was from more dis- tant sources.

As I cleaned up, I noticed that the discarded stone chips left b y the students included perfectly serviceable pieces of the locally available, easy- to-obtain stone, and only the tiniest fragments of flint and obsidian. We obtained flint in New York State from a source about 80 miles from campus, and we received obsidian from Wyoming from a source more than twenty times farther away (more than 1,600 miles) . Suddenly it was clear to me that the pattern apparent at the archaeological site was repeating itself nearly two thousand years later among my students. More "valuable" stone- functionally superior and difficult to obtain-was used more efficiently, and there was far less waste than in stone that was easy to obtain and more difficult to work. I could now phrase this insight as a h ypothesis and test it using the site data: More valuable lithic materials were used more efficiently at the Loomis II archaeological site (Feder 1981b). In fact, by a number of measurements, this turned out to be precisely the case. The hypothesis itself came to me when I wasn't thinking of anything in particular; I was simply sweeping the floor.

It may take great skill and imagination to invent a hypothesis in the attempt to understand why things seem to work the way they do. Remember, Division 1 at the Vienna General Hospital did not have written over its doors "Overcrowded Division" or "Division with Student Doctors Who Don't Wash Their Hands After Autopsies." It took imagination, first, to recognize that there were differences between the divisions and, second, to hypothesize that some of the differences might logically be at the root of the mystery. After all, there were many differences between the divisions: their compass orien- tations, the names of the nurses, the precise alignment of the windows, the astrological signs of the doctors who worked in the divisions, and so on. If a scientist were to attempt to test all of these differences as hypothetical causes of a m ystery, nothing would ever be solved. Occam's razor must be applied. We need to focus our intellectual energies on those possible explanations that require few other assumptions. Only after all of these have been eliminated

can we legitimately consider others. As summarized by that great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes in the story The Reigate Puzzle:

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recog- nize, out of a number of facts, w hich are incidental and which are vital. Otherwise, your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated. (Doyle 1891-1902:275)

Semmelweis concentrated his attention on first four, then a fifth pos- sible explanation. Like all good scientists he had to u se some amount of what we can call "intuition" to sort out the potentially vital from the probably incidental. Even in the initial sorting we may be wrong. Overcrowding, birth position, and psychological trauma seemed like very plausible explanations to Semmelweis, but they were wrong nonetheless.

Testing Hypotheses

Finally, it takes skill and inventiveness to suggest ways for testing the hypothesis in question. We must, out of our own heads, be able to invent the "then" part of our "if ... then" statements. We n eed to be able to suggest those things that must be true if our hypothesis is to be supported. There really is an art to that. Anyone can claim there were giant human beings in antiquity (Chapter 3), a mysterious race of ancient "mound builders" in North America (Chapter 7), or a Lost Continent of Atlantis (Chapter 8), but often it takes a truly inventive mind to suggest precisely what archaeologists must find if the hypothesis of their existence is indeed to be validated.

It might seem obvious that medical researchers, physicists, or chemists working in labs can perform experiments, observe the results, and come to reasonable conclusions about what transpired. But how about the historical disciplines, including historical geology, history, and prehistoric archaeol- ogy? Researchers in these fields cannot go back in time to be there when the events they are attempting to describe and explain took place. Can they really know what happened in the past?

Yes, they can, by what historians Michael Shermer and Alex Grohman (2000:32) call a" convergence of evidence." For example, in their book Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? they respond to those who deny that the Germans attempted to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. After all, even though that era isn't ancient history, we still can't return to observe it for ourselves, so how do we know what really happened? Shermer and Grohman marshal multiple sources of evidence, including documents like letters, speeches, blueprints, and articles where Germans discussed their plans; eyewitness accounts of individual atrocities; photographs showing the horror of the camps; the physical remains of the camps themselves; inferential evidence

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like demographic data showing that approximately 6 million European Jews disappeared during this period. Though we cannot travel back in time to the 1940s, these different and independent lines of evidence converge, allowing us to conclude with absolute certainty that a particular historical event- in this case, the Holocaust-actually happened. Indeed, we can know what happened in history-and prehistory.

Ultimately, whether a science is experimentally based or not makes little logical difference in testing hypotheses. Instead of predicting what the results of a given experiment must be if our induced hypothesis is useful or ~new data we must be able to find if a given hy..E_otfjesi?

~- < For instance, we may hypothesize that long-distance trade is a key ele-

ment in the development of civilization. We deduce that if this is correct-if this is, in fact, a general pattern of cultural evolution-then we expect to find large quantities of trade items in the locations where civilization developed. We might further deduce that these items should be found in contexts that denote their value and importance to the society (for example, in the burials of leaders). We must then determine the validity of our predictions and, indi- rectly, our hypothesis by going out and conducting more research.

Testing of hypotheses takes a great deal of thought, and we can make mistakes. We must remember: We have a hypothesis, we have the deduced implications, and we have the test. We can make errors at any step in the process-the hypothesis may be incorrect, the implications may be wrong, or the way we test them may be incorrect. Certainty in science is a scarce commodity. There are always new hypotheses, alternative explanations, and more deductive implications to test. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is set in concrete, nothing is ever defined or raised to the level of religious truth.

The Human Enterprise of Science

Science is a human endeavor practiced by imperfect human beings. It can be difficult for a scientist not to "fall in love" with a hypothesis-because it seems interesting or clever, because it's new and exciting, and, mostly, because he or she came up with it-but it's a trap that must be avoided. Unfortunately, scientists do not always succeed in steering clear of this kind of attachment to an idea; in fact, they are sometimes unsuccessful to the point of ignoring contradictory data or even fudging results to better fit a preconceived notion. In a shocking survey of more than 3,200 American scientists, though very few (0.3 percent) admitted that they had actively falsified research data, 6 percent acknowledged omitting in their presenta- tions to colleagues data that contradicted their previous work, and a remark- able 15.3 percent confessed that they had ignored specific pieces of data or observations "based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate" (Martinson, Anderson, and de Vries 2005:737).

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I think those scientists who revealed that they had omitted or ignored data that contradicted their previous work had fallen into the trap of being in love with their own ideas. People fall in love with other people and learn to overlook their imperfections and inconsistencies, and that's probably a good thing. But it's not so good with scientific explanations. We don't want to overlook the imperfections, inadequacies, and errors in a hypothesis; we want to explore them and, in this way, find ways toward better explanations. In essence, and to extend the analogy far beyond where I should, we need always to be ready to file for divorce from those mistakes, blunders, and dead ends, prepared to move on and not look back.

Beyond this, scientists are not isolated from the cultures and times in which they live. They share many of the same prejudices and biases of other members of their societies. Scientists learn from mentors at universities and inherit their perspectives. It often is quite difficult to go against the scientific grain, to question accumulated wisdom, and to suggest a new approach or perspective.

Beyond this, it isn't easy for any scientist to question the validity of claims made by well-respected authorities. For example, today we take it for granted that sometimes quite large, extraterrestrial, natural objects go streak- ing across the sky and sometimes even strike the ground (then they are called meteorites; see Figure 2.8). You may even be aware that major meteor showers can be seen twice a year: the Perseid shower in August and the Leonid shower in November. Perhaps you have been lucky enough to see a major meteor or "bolide," an awesome example of nature's fireworks. But until about two hundred years ago the notion that solid stone or metallic objects originating in space regularly enter the earth's atmosphere and sometimes strike the ground was controversial and, in fact, rejected by most scientists. In 1704 Sir Isaac Newton categorically rejected the notion that there could be meteors because he did not believe there could be any cosmological source for them.

The quality of an argument and the evidence marshalled in its support should be all that matters in science. The authority or reputation of the sci- entist should not matter, at least not all that much. Nevertheless, not many scientists were willing to go against the considered opinion of as bright a scientific luminary as Isaac Newton. Even so, a few brave thinkers risked their reputations by concluding that meteors really did originate in outer space. Their work was roundly criticized, at least for a time. But science is "self-corrective." Hypotheses are constantly being refined and retested as new data are collected.

In 1794, over the skies of Siena, Italy, there was a spectacular shower of about three thousand meteors, seen by tens of thousands of people (Cowen 1995). Even then, a nonmeteoric explanation was suggested. By coincidence, Mount Vesuvius had erupted just eighteen hours before the shower, and some tried to blame the volcano for being the source of the objects flaming across the Italian skies.

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42 Ep istemol ogy: How Yo u Know What You Know

Figure 2.8 Anyone look in g up at night ca n't help but notice that occas iona ll y, bri ght strea ks of li ght cro ss the sky. Many scientific lumin ari es, includin g Sir Isaac Newton, rejected th e hypothes is that this co uld be explained by bits of extraterrestri al stone and metal burn ing up in th e ea rth 's atmosph ere. Today, we know that this is precise ly w hat these fl as hes are, and we cal I them meteors. (© Chad Baker/ Photodisc/Getty Images)

Critics did what they could to dispel the "myth" of an extraterrestrial source for the streaks of light over Siena, but they could not succeed. Further investigation of subsequent major meteor falls in the late 1700s and early 1800s, as well as examination of the chemical makeup of some of the objects that had actually fallen from the sky (an iron and nickel alloy not found on earth), convinced most by the early nineteenth century that meteors are what we now know them to be-extraterrestrial chunks of stone or metal that flame b rightly w h en they enter our planet's atmosphere .

Archaeology has had its biases and misconceptions as well. Unlike today where surveys show that about half of the students entering the dis- cipline are w omen, in the past the vast majority of archaeologists were men w ho tended to focus on the role of men in past societies . Even until fairly recently, in reconstructions of life in Ice Age Europe, ancient men seemed to be having all the fun: hunting big game animals, making tools, conducting ceremonies, traveling far and wide, even painting the beautiful images seen on cave walls in France and Spain (see Chapter 13). If the role of women in ancient societies was discussed at all, it was in the context of child bearing and rearing and maybe, if they were lucky in this biased reconstruction of prehistory, making clothing (Gifford-Gonzalez 1993). These archaeologists

Th e Art of Science 43

considered themselves to be scientists but were largely unaware of their implicit bias. They simply took it for granted that men's roles, in past and present, were more active and important and that women did the grunt work and were hardly worth mentioning. There is little in the archaeological record to support this assumption, but it was believed nonetheless.

In science we propose, test, tentatively accept, but never prove a hypoth- esis. We keep only those -hypotheses that cannot be disproved. As long as a hypothesis holds up under the scrutiny of additional testing through experi- ment and is not contradicted by new data, we accept it as the best explana- tion so far. ~?.?1.: .~otheses sound good,__pass the rigors of ~l test~g, ~t are later shown to be inadequ~!~9.Li..DY.alid..-0~s-for example, the hypothesis of biological evolution-have held up so well (all new data either were or could have been deduced from it) that they will probably always be ~d. We usually call these ve_~y-~Lsupp . . . es€lS- :ee·ne5.- HOwever;-IT is in the nature of science that no matter how well an explana- tion of some aspect of reality has held up, we must always be prepared to consider new tests and better explanations.

We are interested in knowledge and explanations of the universe that work. As long as these explanations work, we keep them. As soon as they cease being effective because new data and tests show them to be incomplete or misguided, we discard them and seek new ones. See Table 2.4 for a num- ber of works that discuss the scientific method.

Table 2.4 Books Th at Explain the Scientific Method

Author Book Title Year Publisher

Carl Sagan The Demon-Haunted World 1996 Random House Michael Shermer Why People Believe Weird 1997 W.H. Freeman

Things

Robert Park Voodoo Science: The Road 2000 Oxford University from Foolishness to Fraud Press

Charles Wynn and Quantum Leaps in the 2001 Joseph Henry Arthur Wiggins Wrong Direction Press Steph en Carey A Beginner 's Guide to 2003 Wadsworth

Scientific Method

Robert Bartholomew Hoaxes, Myt hs, and 2003 Prometheus and Benjamin Radford Manias: Why We Need Books

Critical Thinking

Howard Kahane and Logic and Contemporary 2005 Wad sworth Nancy Cavender Rhetoric: The Use of Reason

in Everyday Life

Continued

44 Epistemology: How You Know What You Know

Table 2.4 continued

Author

Michael Shermer

Jamie Whyte

Thomas Kida

Susan Haack

Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn

Massimo Pigliucci

Richard Dawkins

Book Title

Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown

Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Pries ts, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders

Don't Believe Everything You Think

Defending Science-Within Reason

How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking fora New Age

Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk

The Magic of Reality

Year

2005

2005

2006

2007

2010

2010

2011

Science and Archaeology

Publisher

Henry Holt

McGraw-Hill

Prometheus Books

Prometheus Books

McGraw-Hill

University of Chicago Press

Free Press

The study of the human past is a science and relies on the same general logical processes that all sciences do. Unfortunately, perhaps as a result of its popularity, the data of archaeology have often been used by people to attempt to prove some idea or claim. Too often, these attempts have been bereft of science.

Archaeology has attracted frauds and fakes. Myths about the human past have been created and popularized. Misunderstandings of how archae- ologists go about their tasks and what we have discovered about the human story have too often been promulgated. As I stated in Chapter 1, my purpose is to describe the misuse of archaeology and the nonscientific application of the data from this field. In the chapters that follow, the perspective of science will be applied to frauds, myths, and mysteries concerning the human past.

$ ~ ~ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS $ $ . ..

1. Can science answer all of our questions?

No, but it never promised to. Science is a process, a way to approach questions about the physical world (including people and their cultures),

Best of the Web 45

not the metaphysical world. Scientists endeavor to understand how the universe works. The search for meaning is valuable and we all do it: Why are we here in this universe? What is the point of our existence? How should we behave toward one another? How should we treat the planet on which we live? Though science can provide the framework for a worldview or philosophy, the answers to these philosophical questions are not discov- ered through science.

2. Doesn 't scientific truth change in every generation?

In a sense, this is true. But our understanding of the world is not sim- ply cyclical. We do not build an edifice of knowledge today only to tear it down tomorrow. The knowledge accumulated by each generation of scien- tists is refined and built upon by each subsequent generation. We really do know more today about how the solar system formed, the constituents of atoms, earth history, the etiology of disease, and the evolution of our spe- cies than we knew a century, a decade, or even a year ago.

'$$$ BEST OF THE WEB ~$ "<i-

For an in-depth discussion of the etiology and history of childbed fever, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088248/

Pod casts

There are some terrific podcasts produced by various organizations and individuals in which a skeptical approach is applied to topics such as UFQs, ESP, Atlantis, ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, and other such phenomena on the fringes of science. Some have an extensive backlog of interviews with experts in various related fields of science and they're a wonderful resource. For a detailed listing of them, check out the article "A Skeptic's Guide to Podcasts" by D. J. Groth in the November / December 2009 issue of the journal Skeptical Inquirer. Among my favorites are "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" (http:// www.theskepticsguide.org, produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation and hosted by Steve, Bob, and Jay Novella), "Monstertalk" (http://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/, hosted by Blake Smith), and "Skepticality" (http: // www.skeptic.com / podcasts / skepticality I, hosted by Derek and Swoopy). "Skepticality" and "Mon~tertalk" are affili- ated with Michael Shermer and the Skeptical Society. In the spirit of full dis- closure, I've done interviews for the "Skeptic's Guide" and "Monstertalk"; you can check them out online. The podcasts are available through iTunes and directions for accessing them are available on the podcast websites.