Anth 1001- Aliens and Atlantis

what is science

The systematic study of the natural world through observation and experiment

what is pseudoscience

A claim, belief or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not follow the scientific method

The process of reaching a general conclusion from particular pieces of data

induction

Which is characteristic of pseudoscientific claims?

-Seeks to prove rather than test claims-Ignores alternative explanations or contrary evidence-Relies on anecdotal or untestable evidence

In the Mysterious Origins of Man video the site of Tiwanaku in Bolivia was dated at 10,000 BC on the basis of:

Archaeo-astronomy

What IS NOT one of the motivations of the pseudoscientist?

eternal life

The Olympic Project was set up as an open source website to collect evidence for Bigfoot. Evidence collected was to be assessed by a team of researchers. Was this science or pseudoscience?

It depends upon how the data were collected and assessed

One of Kenneth Feder's first experiences with pseudoscience and archaeology was reading:

Morning of the Magicians

According to Kida, which IS NOT one of the six mistakes we make in our thought processes?

we are born liars

Jumping to the conclusion that mammoths still exist today, on the basis of a grainy video, is an example of how we

misperceive our world

In the Case of Childbed Fever in Feder's text, what was the outcome of Dr. Semmelweis's investigation of the mystery of the differing mortality rates?

By testing different hypotheses he eventually arrived at the correct diagnosis

What constitutes a red flag indicating possible pseudoscience at work?

-The claim will "rewrite history"-The claimant wants to "prove" their hypothesis-The claimant implies that mainstream scientists are withholding information

Conservative voters watching Fox News is an example of which Kida mistake in our thinking?

we seek to confirm

What is Occam's Razor?

The answer requiring the fewest assumptions is probably the correct one

How should one assess a fantastic claim?

-Consider the source (is it a refereed publication?)-Ask if there are any corroborating sources-Consider the claimant and other "experts" credentials

What is a Hoax?

A deliberate deception masquerading as the truth

What is epistemology?

The study of knowledge (how we know what we know)

Which is a motivation for a hoax?

-Financial gain-Make a social statement-To embarrass someone

Known as "God's hand", this hoaxer fooled the archaeological establishment in Japan with his planted finds that pushed back the earliest dates for that island's Paleolithic period

Shinichi Fujimura

The motivation(s) for the Cardiff Giant hoax was

To make a statement about the fallacy of using the Bible as literal history

According to Feder, what makes for a successful hoax?

-Give the people what they want-Learn from your mistakes-Don't be too successful

Are the Dare Stones genuine artifacts of the Lost Colony?

The first one discovered is believed by some to be genuine, the others are admitted fakes

What were some of the problems with the Alien Autopsy hoax?

-The special effects man confessed-The camera man could not be located-No original artifacts were available for study

This alleged "stone age" tribe was discovered in the Philippines and thought to be a hoax

Tasaday

The Cardiff Giant was a hoax perpetrated originally by

George Hull & Stub Newell

The Dare Stones were first exposed as a hoax by

Boyden Sparks of the Saturday Evening Post

A belief that giants once inhabited the earth can be attributed to

-the believed existence of skulls with double rows of teeth-Alleged suppressed of skeletal collections in the Smithsonian-Descriptions of the Nephilim and Watchers in the Bible

What eventually happened to the Cardiff Giant?

He is on display at a museum in Cooperstown NY

The Dare Stones were allegedly carved by

Eleanor Dare

What was the harm in Shinichi Fujimura's hoax?

It misled scholars on the early prehistory of Japan

What is NOT a concept of Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

Survival of the Strongest

Who was an influence on Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

-Thomas Malthus-Alfred Wallace-Charles Lyell

The synthetic theory of evolution is

Combining Darwin's evolutionary concepts with Mendel's genetics

was the deliberate fabrication of a fossil involving an ancient human cranium and modern ape jaw

The Piltdown hoax

The Piltdown fossil was classified by Charles Dawson as

Eoanthropus dawsoni

Who is a suspect in the Piltdown hoax?

-Charles Dawson-Sir Arthur Keith-Martin Hinton

Today's paleoanthropologist believe this was the first human characteristic to develop

Bipedalism

The fossil skeleton found in the Philippines, nicknamed the Hobbit, has been classified as

Homo floresiensis

This cryptid hominid is thought by some to have survived and is now known as Bigfoot

Gigantopithecus

This hominin was recently discovered in a Rising Star cave in S. Africa

Homo naledi

Known as the "Wizard of Sussex" this person was the chief suspect in the Piltdown Hoax

Charles Dawson

This relative dating technique was used to determine that the jaw was much younger than the cranium of Piltdown Man

Flourine dating

Why was Piltdown Man accepted as a genuine for so long?

-It is what scientists expected to find-It was found in England!-Most scientists vouched for it

Why did the scientific community eventually suspect that Piltdown Man was a fake?

Piltdown did not fit in with fossils found later. It was an unexplainable anomoly

What makes the Rising Star Cave find so remarkable?

-More than 1,000 bones have been recovered from there-The remains of at least 15 individuals have been identified-It appears to be only 300,000 years old even though it has a very small cranial capacity

Columbus's notable accomplishment was

he opened up the New World to European exploitation

This individual hypothesized that Admiral Zheng He took a fleet around the world and discovered America in 1421

Gavin Menzies

A 9,300 year old skeleton discovered in Washington state that exhibited Caucasoid features

Kennewick man

This hypothesis, championed by Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley of the Smithsonian, posits that the early immigrants to the Americas came across the Atlantic from Europe

Solutrean hypothesis

The earliest named culture in North America dating between 13,200 and 11,900 BP

Clovis

Genuine evidence of early European exploration in North America (coins, ceramics and chain mail armor) was recovered by your professor in Tallahassee, Florida and related to this Spanish explorer.

de Soto

Genetic material retrieved from the Anzick skeleton supports the argument that

Humans in America had their origins in Asia

What evidence has been put forward for an African discovery of America

-References by Columbus of his seeing "black Indians" in the Caribbean-Prehistoric art (e.g. Olmec heads) with African features-The presence of the African metal gua-nin reported by Columbus

This questionable artifact, found near Alexandria Minnesota, is believed by some to be evidence of a Viking presence in the area during the 14th century

Kensington rune stone

This site in New Hampshire, which Harvard marine biologist Barry Fell attributed to bronze age Iberians, actually turns out to be 19th century New England farmstead

Mystery Hill/America's Stonehenge

Who did the Europeans think the native inhabitants of the Americas were initially?

-A lost Biblical race-Followers of King Hespero-Lost merchants from Carthage

This Spanish chronicler accurately assessed that the American Indians had migrated from Asia

Oviedo

Evidence for a per-Clovis occupation of the Americas is found at this site

-Monte Verde-Cooper's Ferry-Gault

This wandering Anchorite Irish monk is believed by some to have traveled to the Americas in a leather boat

St. Brendan

This site is genuine evidence of a Norse presence in North America before Columbus

L'anse aux Meadows

The idea of a lost race of Moundbuilders in North America was put forth during which period of archaeological thought?

Speculative

What evidence was put forth to show that American Indians could not have built the mounds?

-Metal artifacts made out of silver and iron had been found in the mounds-They were too primitive and had no memory of constructing the mounds-Artifacts found in the mounds exhibited ancient writing

The Israelite hypothesis, stating that people from the Middle East had migrated to America after the fall of the Tower of Babel is a part of the history of this religion

Mormon

These artifacts, purported to have been found in mounds in Ohio, had writing on them that was deemed to be ancient Hebrew

Newark Holy Stones

The Culture History period of archaeological thought

Was characterized by a concern for artifact typologies and chronologies

This artifact purported to tell the story of how the ancient Lenape (Delaware) Indians came to the New World over the Bering Land Bridge from Asia

Wallam Olum

The conical burial mounds in the Ohio River Valley containing exotic grave goods belong to the _____ culture

Adena/Hopewell

This Mississippian site near St Louis has the largest earthen mound in North America and a population that may have exceeded 10,000 inhabitants.

Cahokia

This fraudulent artifact from Tennessee was first thought to have Cherokee writing on it, but later interpretation claimed it was ancient Hebrew

Bat Creek stone

This mtDNA lineage has been used to (unsuccessfully) tie Native Americans with Near Eastern populations

Haplogroup X

The Moundbuilders have been identified archaeologically as

A number of different prehistoric Native American cultures who over time built mounds for different purposes

This Portuguese explorer claimed he heard tribes practicing Jewish rituals in the Andes mountains

Antonio Montezinos

Originally an entomologist, this man was hired to direct the Division of Mound Exploration and eventually solved the Moundbuilder mystery.

Cyrus Thomas

18th and 19th century scholars thought this group built the mounds.

-Phoenicians-Egyptians-Vikings

This engineer and doctor surveyed the mounds in the Ohio River Valley creating an accurate and lasting record, but misinterpreted their function and creators

Squier & Davis

Former Minnesota Congressman, Ignatius Donnelly, wrote

Atlantis: The Antediluvian World

The destruction of this ancient civilization by a volcanic eruption may have been the inspiration for the myth of Atlantis

Minoan

According to Feder and your professor, the most likely location for Atlantis is

In Plato's mind

According to Graham Hancock's book, Magicians of the Gods, what was the cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis

A comet hitting the earth causing the Younger Dryas little ice age

This individual, known as the "sleeping prophet" claimed that he had lived in Atlantis during a past life

Edgar Cayce

Plato published a description of Atlantis in the dialogues of

Timaeus & Critias

The eruption of this volcano is thought by some to have brought about the end of Atlantis

Thera/Santorini

This Theosophist felt that the Atlanteans were a "root race" who possessed psychic powers

Madame Helena Blavatsky

The Bimini Wall of tabular limestone blocks, that seemed to confirm Edgar Cayce's predictions of the location of Atlantis, is actually

a natural formation of beach rock eroded by tidal forces

Graham Hancock feels this megalithic site(s) was influenced by survivors of Atlantis who spread out around the world after its destruction

-Göbekli Tepe--Gunung Padang-Baalbek

Researchers, like Donnelly and Hancock, who feel that a single, mother culture gave rise to all subsequent civilizations are known as

Diffusionists

the action of a person using bent rods, forked stick or other device to locate buried resources (e.g. water, artifacts, structures, etc)

dowsing

A technique psychic archaeologists use to be able to tell the story of an artifact by holding to establish a psychic link with it

psychometrizing

Which is a method of scientific, geophysical prospecting

-ground penetrating radar-resistivity-magnetometry

A test or experiment in which information about the test that might lead to bias in the results is concealed from both the tester and the subject until after the test.

double-blind

Erich von Daniken interprets the long, straight Nazca lines as

Landing strips for alien aircraft

An unusual inspiration for von Daniken's ideas appears to be

H. P. Lovecraft

The "Mars face" first photographed by Viking Orbiter 1 in 1976 is

later shown to be natural feature

Interpretations of anomalous rock formations as alien constructions can be best attributed to as examples of

Pareidolia

Erich von Daniken's hypothesis concerning space aliens visiting earth involve

-depictions of ancient astronauts on archaeological sites around the world-alien intervention in human evolution-the idea that advanced alien technology had to be used to create the marvels of the ancient world

Von Daniken seeing representations of ancient astronauts in past artwork is what Kida might call "seeking to confirm" Feder calls it

the Inkblot hypothesis

Von Daniken interprets a carving on the cover of the sarcophagus of Mayan ruler, Lord Pacal, as

an astronaut in the cockpit of a spaceship

Why is von Daniken's Amorous Alien hypothesis unlikely?

the human genome shows no evidence of anomalous DNA

This respected scientist, who said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", published in 1963 that there was a strong likelihood that the earth had been visited by extraterrestrials - though he had seen no evidence of it.

Carl Sagan

The so-called Baghdad battery

-was an artifact found in Iraq in 1936-consisted of a clay jar containing copper and iron rods and sealed with asphalt-produced less electrical power than a single modern AA battery