Nigel, you make a good point. This is not confined to archaeology -- all academic disciplines have senior figures who measure their own reputations by the extent to which their ancient theories are preserved and verified. And some -- not all, thank God -- resent the new bloods who come along and demolish the old theories and put new ones in their place. I was an academic geomorphologist long ago, and was mystified when several perfectly good research papers were turned down -- until I discovered that the journals involved had used one particular very senior referee whose ideas I was intent upon challenging and disproving. The papers got published in the end, of course, but that taught me that some academics do take "challenges" and new ideas as threats to their own self-esteem. But as somebody said the other day, the more these guys hang onto their fragile theories, in the face of lack of evidence to support them, the greater is the likelihood of an eventual catastrophic collapse.
Reply | with quote | Posted by mountainman 19th August 2009ce 09:24 |
Those enigmatic bluestones (mountainman, Aug 17, 2009, 09:00)- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones (StoneGloves, Aug 17, 2009, 11:19)
- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones (Psychostevouk, Aug 17, 2009, 21:40)
- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones (Paulus, Aug 17, 2009, 23:54)
- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones (mountainman, Aug 18, 2009, 20:53)
- Amazon in Blue (StoneGloves, Aug 19, 2009, 06:04)
- Re: Amazon in Blue (nigelswift, Aug 19, 2009, 06:46)
- Engineers' Blue (StoneGloves, Aug 19, 2009, 07:54)
- Re: Academics and self-esteem (mountainman, Aug 19, 2009, 09:24)
- Re: Amazon in Blue (Rupert Soskin, Aug 23, 2009, 12:54)
- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones (Vybik Jon, Aug 24, 2009, 18:00)
- Re: Those enigmatic bluestones: geologists join the fray (mountainman, Oct 08, 2009, 22:35)
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