Friday, September 12, 2014

Science

Given that it is the beginning of the semester and I am teaching World Prehistory, a relatively speaking “introductory” class on archaeology, I spend some time talking about science, how science works and why scientific understandings of the world have the properties that they do. I generally want students to understand how to distinguish between pseudo-scientific statements (and much of what passes for archaeology) from scientific explanations of the archaeological record.  Richard Feynman, of course, has said all of this previously and with a much snappier suit. 

Here’s his lecture on the topic of science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EYPapE-3FRw Feynman