Rhosyfelin and Cargo Cult Science

I'm increasingly intrigued by the non-scientific aspects of the "Rhosyfelin Quarry Affair" (or shall we call it the "Rhosyfelin Quarry Scam"?), and have been doing a some browsing about on the internet.  OK -- at one level this is all about academic reputations, fame and even invited notoreity, and at another level it's all economic (the fight for research funds), at at yet another its political, as one research tribe slugs it out with another.  But there is a very strong psychological component too, as we have discussed in the past with respect to Charles Dawson and HH Thomas.  We can look at what's going on in the minds of the researchers -- what drives them to over-interpret or misinterpret things?  And we can look at what's happening in the minds of the universities and the research support organizations -- increasingly they want IMPACT, and not scholarly reputations.  Then we have the public, which continues to demonstrate an insatiable appetite for Stonehenge stories, no matter how wacky they may be -- an appetite which has to be fed by the media myth-perpetration machine, which will always clam to be just "giving readers what they want."  So now we see that the Guardian report on the latest "Antiquity" article has been looked at 54,000 times -- and across the world's media Google lists around 230 web site / press pieces which essentially regurgitate, without any scrutiny, the UCL and other press releases issued last weekend. Many of those have also featured the video clips sent out with the press releases.  Goodness knows how many TV and radio reports there have also been.

But why do archaeological teams (and other teams of people involved in research) work for years and end up producing elaborate papers that are at best insignificant and at worst filled with pseudo-science?  Well, team spirit is a part of it.  There is a huge cameraderie in an archaeological dig team.  People are living together, drinking and chatting together, and for all I know sleeping together!  Best of luck to them.  But they do tend to exist in a bubble,  and it's all too easy when you are inside a bubble to ignore everything that is going on outside, or to dismiss anything that directly challenges the central thesis which the research is purportedly testing.  Pseudo-science or "bad science" all too easily comes out of such environments.  Where there is a charismatic, self-confident and ebullient leader,  the group can become even tighter, and the sense of "belonging" becomes all-pervasive.  Loyalty is a requirement.  Anybody who does not conform to the central belief system is viewed as an outsider -- anybody who asks questions from within is branded a traitor.  So nobody rocks the boat, and the ruling hypothesis rolls on, with every scrap of "evidence" stuck onto it with sellotape, in the hope that it will at some future date withstand scrutiny.  We have all seen this sort of thing happening, in many different disciplines.  But in physics, chemistry, geophysics, glaciology, or biology if you conduct experiments they can be repeated and tested by others. And if those old experiments are faulty or even fraudulent, that will be exposed.  At Rhosyfelin, you dig a hole, tell the world what amazing discoveries you have made, and then rapidly fill the hole in again so that your "evidence" literally disappears without trace.  Interesting........ and very handy.

I found this on the web.  Really interesting:
 
On Cargo Cult Science:  "We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science". (Richard Feynman, 1974)

Definition:  Cargo cult science comprises practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method.

In most of the things I have read about Cargo Cult Science, we see rather "primitive" tribes appropriating modern or technically advanced or incomprehensible things, and building belief systems around them.  You don't see so much emphasis in the literature on the appropriation of "ancient technologies" real or imagined -- but they are used just as much in Cargo Cult Science, and in some ways the Ancient Wisdom cults involved are even more deluded and dangerous.