Pseudoscience and Anthropology

Catalog description

Course will examine some common misconceptions, as well as deliberate frauds, related to the field of Anthropology. Bigfoot, Atlantis, and ancient astronauts remain common subjects in mainstream media, but what do we, and what can we, really know about such subjects? In this course we will assemble a basic toolkit for skeptical inquiry, and apply it to several examples of anthropological pseudoscience. Dissecting these cases leads to an investigation of how we can distinguish truth from falsehood, and knowable facts from unknowable conjectures. Lastly, we will try to understand the persistence of pseudoscience and other forms of nonsense in our culture, as these clearly thrive despite their lack of grounding in reality.