There are lots of razors about, and sadly, instead of being sharpened and used in normal life, they are for the most part ignored, especially in the field of something called "archaeological science."
I made the above list some time ago, and did a post on something I referred to as "John's Razor", for want of a better term. It is enunciated thus:
Any claim made in a press release or in the media may be ignored unless the original research upon which it is based is freely (ie without limitation) accessible to all who may wish to scrutinize it knowledgeably.
This Razor is normally shut away in the bathroom cabinet, but right now we have need of it, since during the past week the media outlets have been flooded with wildy enthusiastic nonsense about sarsens and bluestones in general and the Altar Stone in partcular demonstrating that the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge were involved in a great political unification project. Apparently tribes from all four quarters of the land brought tribute stones to Stonehenge from a multitude of different locations, as a sign of their loyalty and obediance.............
MPP has of course been playing with this idea for some time, but -- wait for it -- this flood of press coverage is based upon nothing more substantial than a press release connected to a hyperlink that does not work.
There is NO journal article or published research that we can scrutinize. This is an appalling state of affairs, which should have caused journalists across the world to ask some serious questions about the reliability of the material which they so readily published and celebrated. Shame on all of them. And shame on all of the authors of the said article which some of us have seen in rough draft form but which has still not been published in either a digital or printed form, more than a week after the press embargo ended............
According to John's Razor, we have every right to ignore everything contained in the press release and in the flood of media articles and to question the integrity and the expertise of all those involved in the fiasco. For all we know, the article has been rejected by the editor of "Archaeology International" on the basis of serious criticisms from the peer reviewers. Or maybe it has not even been submitted for consideration?
What a shambles.
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