Category Archives: Culture theory

Soaring with the Eagles or Eating Crow? You Decide

Posted on by
I’ll leave it up to the inevitable critics of criticism to decide whether or not my musings are up to snuff. I want everyone to know that while I am unalterably opinionated and my discourse vitriolic, I hate having to say bad things about the work of good people. I hope the reader will forgive me for hoping for and for trying to eke out a broader readership of the Subversive Archaeologist than the already very gratifying couple of hundred that visit this blog daily. And so, despite my predisposition to wall-flowerdom, I pimp my blurts on facebook, twitter, academia.edu and linkedin. And, today, I made an acidic comment or two on the Human Evolutionary Studies Program facebook page in response to Mark Collard’s announcements of a couple of recent PLOS ONE articles that have spiked my interest, ‘The Pace of Human Evolution,’ by Charles Perreault, and ‘Birds of a Feather,’ by Clive Finlayson, et al., and on Mark’s attempt to throw cold water on my point of view about both articles and the journal itself.
     I. Simply. Hate. Having. To. Be. Such. A. Dick. To. Good. People. But no one listens if you’re all smiley-faced in this business. Believe me.
     And so, just now I want to lay down the cudgels and indulge myself. Many of you who’ve known me for very long will know that I’m no stranger to booze. Thanks to a lifetime of experiences most people would kill for [in a suicidal sense, I mean], I’ve always felt that a drink was like a hug. In fact, I’ve applied for a trademark on the phrase, ‘A Drink is Like a Hug.’ I think it’s apt [unless you’re someone who can’t do without it, or someone who’s suffered because of it–I happen to think it’s the right medicine for me, as does, oddly enough, my analyst]. Tonight, against habit, I’m turning to an apple brew. One of the best bottled ciders you’ll get anywhere outside of British Columbia, Magners Original Irish Cider.

Chimo! 
   

Thanks for dropping by! If you like what you see, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, check out my publications at Academia, or connect on Linkedin. You can also subscribe to receive new posts by email or RSS [scroll to the top and look on the left]. I get a small commission for anything you purchase from Amazon.com if you go there using any link on this site. 

PlosOne Does It Again! ‘The Pace Of Cultural Evolution’, by Charles Perreault is superfluous

Posted on by
I’ve just posted this comment at PlosOne, in relation to ‘The Pace of Cultural Evolution,’ by Charles Perreault, published yesterday.

PlosOne should take note that some might wonder whether or not this paper’s referees were ‘asleep at the switch’ for allowing the author’s definition of ‘culture’ to justify its publication. Socially learned ‘information’ amongst humans is not a unique behavioural or cognitive trait. It’s present in most mammals, such as dogs, cats, bats, and rats. It’s also a characteristic of bees and other social insects. As such I fear that your readers may wonder at your purpose in publishing this paper–if it was to advance scholarship and knowledge of the human past, your readers will wonder at how low you have set the bar in this case. Stating the obvious has, I have to point out, never been a significant contribution to any discipline–much less that of our own evolution. Surely PlosOne can do better than this. Competing interests declared: My ‘competing interest’ is simply the hope that archaeological and evolutionary ‘narratives’ are premised on well-warranted assumptions, as opposed to ‘just-so stories’ and fallacious arguments.

Need I say more?

Thanks for dropping by! If you like what you see, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, check out my publications at Academia, or connect on Linkedin. You can also subscribe to receive new posts by email or RSS [scroll to the top and look on the left]. I get a small commission for anything you purchase from Amazon.com if you go there using any link on this site.