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I'm just listening to my voicemails. Let's give one a listen.
Hi, Dr. Miano. Louis from Germany here. So I just wanted to say I love your videos, and
it's been a great pleasure watching all of them, and it's really expanded my
view of some parts of ancient history a lot, and yeah, I'm very grateful for that.
But also my question is that, you know, I study archaeology at the University of Frankfurt myself,
in the second semester now, and one thing I've struggled a bit with is to explain the value of
history and archaeology to people outside of the field and, you know, kind of why we do all this.
Of course, I understand that intuitively myself. I love that. But many people see that as unnecessary
or wasteful or, you know, the history of something way in the past that is disconnected from our
own present reality, and I'm kind of thinking as, you know, how do I best explain and communicate
why this is such a beautiful profession, why these or those things are important.
Okay, thank you for your question.
And I can just tell by the way you are talking about your field that you love it. You're exuding enthusiasm for it,
calling it beautiful and everything, and I think that in itself
goes a long way. Yeah, when it comes to the choice of a career, we all have different
interests, right? And there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, I suppose there are people who would
argue that we should choose a career that is going to have a direct positive impact - it must do good
in this world, it must help our society somehow - that’s what’s important. Maybe they’re right. Most
people don’t even have the option to choose their own career. They take what they can get. For those
who do have a choice - who get to pick a major and try to start a career in that subject, are they
obligated to opt for something altruistic? Some say the top priority is choosing what you love.
And if you love archaeology or ancient history, so be it. They don’t need to help the world.
Now, I realize I am not answering your question in the way you probably were
hoping. I expect you want me to say something about how ancient history or archaeology are
important, that they do contribute in a positive way to our society. And
then you know what you can say to other people.
I believe they do, and I will tell you why in a second, but I’m not so sure it’s a requirement.
After all, if we want to help people, we can do it outside of our regular job, can’t we?
And the study of history and the study of archaeology produce strong analytical thinkers,
so just from the point of view of personal growth and development, that’s a positive.
But yes, I do think that archaeology and ancient history
provide significant value and do contribute to our society. I won’t go so far as to say they are
more important than other matters are. No. But they are important, and somebody has to do it.
Much of this I have laid out in my little e-booklet,
Why Ancient History Matters. If you haven't
gotten a copy yet, I will leave a link below the video.
It's free. Now, I'm not going to repeat everything I said
in the booklet. But let me just say in a nutshell
how I think ancient history and archaeology
are valuable. Well, the goal of historical and archaeological research
is not only to find out what happened in the past and when, but also to understand why it happened.
Why did civilizations emerge or collapse? Why did new technologies develop? These disciplines
give us the tools to examine and explain human behavior. With this understanding,
we not only learn where we came from, and how we lived and interacted with others,
but we can gain greater insight into cultural changes in the present and the future,
and this knowledge may allow us to better prepare for and respond to challenges that we face.
Now some people say that history and archaeology are soft sciences, not hard sciences like
mathematics, physics, and chemistry. They say this as a way to deride history and archaeology, with
the connotation that softness indicates something negative, or at least less significant. “Hard”
science is often misinterpreted to mean that it is more stringent and difficult than soft science, or
that it is real science. They see “soft” science as more imaginative, wishy-washy, or ideological.
But the first thing we should remember is that the social sciences or any other so-called
“soft” sciences are still sciences. According to the Science Council, "Science is the pursuit
and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a
systematic methodology based on evidence." This scientific method includes: objective observation,
evidence, experiment, induction, repetition, critical analysis, verification and testing.
Now yes, sometimes using the scientific method is a relatively straightforward process that can
be easily replicated. The sciences that find the scientific method fairly easy are often
called hard sciences. In other cases, objective observation and replication can be difficult,
if not impossible. The sciences that experience this difficulty more often are called soft
sciences. But this does not make them less legitimate or less of a science. Science
isn’t defined by how controlled experiments are or how many decimal places you can go. Science
is the enterprise of explaining and predicting phenomena by continually testing a theory against
empirical evidence. All the sciences promote objective practice, and they all are relevant and
important in understanding how the world works. But some phenomena simply cannot be measured in
labs mathematically. The variables are harder to control. The so-called hard sciences do not have
to deal with the ambiguity of human behavior. This makes the so-called soft sciences more difficult
to study, and people who do research in these kinds of science have to be highly disciplined.
The field of history has been around for a while now, so its
philosophy is well-established. As an academic discipline, it is considered a social science
in the humanities. But how archaeology sees itself was really only worked out in the 1960s. At that
time, it became a central tenet of the field that archaeology is to be considered first and foremost
a science and practiced as a hard science wherever possible, though it is acknowledged that parts of
it require subjective evaluations, as in history. But both history and archaeology involve
the systematic collection of information in the most objective way possible. This
is usually followed by analysis according to the logical frameworks developed by the disciplines.
Archaeologists have developed and applied many scientific techniques to the analysis
of material remains. I am sure you know about radiometric dating, but there are many other
techniques they employ in laboratory-based physical, chemical and biological analyses.
They compare data numerically. Even archaeological drawing is primarily
conducted as part of systematic recording, seeking objectivity, or as part of the analysis of
shared traits, or patterns, as mentioned above. And there are so many specializations
within the field of archaeology. Climatology, geology, geography, statistics, chemistry,
physics, osteology, human health and diseases, 3D modeling, computer programming, and many others
are used as tools in the field. Instead of judging the reliability of whole scientific fields on some
vague notion of being either hard or soft, I think it would be wiser to make those judgments about
individual studies, applications, and methods employed in any and all of the sciences.
Those who suppose that so-called hard sciences are better than so-called soft sciences
seem to be judging their value from the perspective of factual reliability.
But is this the only way to judge value? If we were to judge value by what it contributes
to society, would the hard sciences always come out on top. I’m not so sure about that.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question. And if you, dear viewer,
would like to leave a question on my voicemail too, you can do so at speakpipe.com/DavidMiano.
If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. Or if you really liked it, a Super Thanks.
But those who want to support me can best do so over at patreon.com/worldofantiquity,
where you can often see my videos well before they come out here on Youtube. Thank you for watching.
The Save Ancient Studies Alliance's virtual “Opening the Ancient World” conference is
returning for its second year running this August. Our theme this year is “Who Has the Power: Leaders
in Leadership in the Ancient World.” Visitors will hear from lots of researchers who have taken
an unorthodox approach to studying ancient history outside of or adjacent to academia,
and we are putting on presentations about cultures spanning all of the ancient world, such as the
Persians, the ancient Chinese, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Vikings, and the Mesoamericans.
“The Save Ancient Studies Alliance 2021 virtual conference was intellectually exhilarating,
based on the diverse perspectives in the papers presented, but it was a great help to me in
getting comments and questions based on my paper, which I would eventually publish.”
The conference will be live streamed on Sunday the 14th to Monday the 15th of August 2022 on the SASA
Youtube and Facebook channels, and via the pages of our partners. Head to our website to RSVP now.
You might like my little e-booklet, “Why Ancient History Matters.” It's designed to persuade people
that the subject is important even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it
to help spread the word. So feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who
wants it. I've left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy.
Catch you later.