science, policy, political present (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Pyburn.

Contemporary trends in mass media communication indicate serious confusion in the public consciousness about the nature of science and the status of evidential reasoning. Archaeologists, in an effort to make esoteric research programs interesting to the public have contributed to this problem by providing over-simplified stories and "lessons from the past" based on sketchy evidence and mystified analysis. We have allowed public intellectuals from other disciplines to speak for us, and we have...