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That's a fine skeptical attitude, but to put it into practice you'd have to be familiar with the relevant scholarship, read the paper, independently verify its
by Veen 3y ago
That's a fine skeptical attitude, but to put it into practice you'd have to be familiar with the relevant scholarship, read the paper, independently verify its arguments and claims, and come to an informed conclusion. You'd also have to be familiar with the standards of evidence used in the relevant fields, which aren't the same as the standards of evidence used in the hard sciences—they can't be because it's largely impossible to carry out experiments and there is a paucity of available evidence.
It's mostly abduction—the best explanation for the available evidence—which wouldn't fly in the hard sciences, but it's all that's available to archeologists and ancient historians. If your heuristic is "hard proof or bullshit," you'll inevitably reject everything that comes out of these fields. (also, history isn't any sort of science, soft or otherwise; it's a branch of the humanities).
- easytiger 3y ago[flagged]
- Veen 3y agoIt's usually to promote the academics, their paper, and their institutions. Is there a goal I am missing here?
- easytiger 3y agoThe author credited is Josephine Quinn, a subscriber to intersectionality who wishes to provide an assumption for easy consumption that it wasn't just Africans and Aborigines who subscribed to barbarism (her assumption). Her assertion is that as the western world is based on the ancient Greek and Roman world (again her assumption) and that they were barbaric and that therefore we in the west are not better than them (again her assumption, not mine).
- Veen 3y agoThat may well be true, but it doesn't absolve us of the need to look at her evidence and arguments in the context of the wider scholarship. If she's right, then she's right, regardless of her political motivations. Anyway, if that is what she's up to, it's less irritating than the usual approach of pretending non-Western ancient societies were enlightened communitarian paradises.
- easytiger 3y ago[flagged]
- jgilias 3y agoCarthaginians were neither Roman nor Greek. In fact, for a long time it was assumed that Carthaginian child sacrifice practice was just Roman propaganda about their enemies. I fail to see how acknowledging that Berber ancestors likely practiced child sacrifice says anything about modern Western world. I mean, there was plenty of objectionable (by modern standards) behaviour practiced in both Rome and Ancient Greece that there’s really no reason to somehow try and pull Carthage into it.
- easytiger 3y agoShe has no more or less evidence than anyone previous when this was published. It's a directed attempt to create a history based entirely on speculation. The language treatment on the linked page screams it out > And the practice of child sacrifice could even hold the key to why the civilisation was founded in the first place. and > 'But in the 20th century, people increasingly took the view that this was racist propaganda on the part of the Greeks and Romans against their political enemy, and that Carthage should be saved from this terrible slander. and > 'Dismissing the idea of child sacrifice stops us seeing the bigger picture' It's not history (and certainly not science as other people here say) - it's polemic reinterpretation to meet a narrative from someone who's pet interests are "colonialism", "postcolonialism" and how evil it is.
- Veen 3y agoYou’re probably right, but nothing you’ve said will convince anyone that you are. If you want people to take your argument seriously, you have to do more than point out the author’s biases. You have to engage with her arguments and say why they are flawed.
- easytiger 3y agoThat she has the same source material as has been available for a millenia and came to a different conclusion to anyone else should be the first hint.
- Xylakant 3y agoScience? That would be my first guess unless there's reason to suspect otherwise. The underlying paper was published in an academic journal with at least some history, so that speaks for the authors intend. The fact that there's a press release about it stems from the need for marketing on the university side and it's correct to be skeptical, but I can't see any indication that they misrepresent the papers findings.
- easytiger 3y agoI replied elsewhere https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36225919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36225919 And reinterpretation of history is not remotely "science"